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Message: <blockquote data-quote="elkcub" data-source="post: 1864652" data-attributes="member: 14473">Chad,It is confusing.  Preamble:  Early HR/5 MC versions first appeared in Europe at the same time that Americans got 804Rs (circa 1985±3).  Optically and coating-wise these were probably the same instrument except for cover plates.  Simon S has a British HR/5 MC shown on his web site.  The Type 4b(1) shown in our article is also one of these British models.   Brock made several strong assertions in Post #10 based on four MC/FMC samples.  As an Audubon historian and user I can not provide supporting evidence for any optical design changes—e.g, different oculars.  (The 804ED's ocular was slightly different, but that's well documented.)  In my opinion most of Brock's impressions must have resulted from instrument age, mis-alignment, sample variation, and so forth.         That's true for the early British MC version and the American 804R.  The distinction is not true for later MC versions like ours, although there still might be minor coating differences with the later FMC.  That's kinda what we've been discussing on this thread and still can't quite pin down.  This really doesn't square with my experience, and I know of no reports or reviews to this effect.  Such observations are notably absent in Steve Ingraham's reviews from the early 1990s, and he was quite an admirer of the Type 4 Audubons of the period.  More of the same; words from an alternate reality.  And all this drawn from vivid memory traces of four samples, only one of which he retained.  The thing is that Brock apparently believes all these things and it's really not my place to insist that he's wrong.  He's mentioned them often enough on various threads to have grown legs of their own, but all I can say is that there is no supporting evidence.  This is not intended as a personal attack, incidentally, which is why I avoided making any statement earlier.  I often find Brock's comments very insightful and interesting.  And does he ever have a way with words.  :-O  :-OEd</blockquote>

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