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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kevin Purcell" data-source="post: 1519996" data-attributes="member: 68323">More so than any other optical product there are "straight" folks and "angled" folks so these are not interchangeable products.Optically they look the same (though they different by one component at least but that ergonomics difference makes all the difference.I think there has been a slow and steady drift in choice from the straight and to the angled scopes in the US. I can recall that most American birders (listers) would each have their own straight scopes often on smaller tripods that they would squat down or sit down to use. But I guess if you are sharing the scope, want to carry a smaller tripod, etc, etc then angled seems to be more widely preferred today amongst casual birders. I notice some of the newer Chinese scopes are only coming in angled now.So perhaps they have a big inventory on straight scopes and a know they can sell the rest of the angled for full price before they need to make a change.The other thing to compare it to is Vortex selling off the old stock of Vortex Nomad scopes both straight and angled to Cameraland and EO. In this case the older and optically not quite as good as the Sandpiper scope has an 80mm objective and it goes for the same price now (though it was priced higher at full price).So Vortex must see a difference in popularity (e.g. the Cornell scope review must sell quite a few of these) so they kept the most popular one.It's a logical argument at least <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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