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Message: <blockquote data-quote="brocknroller" data-source="post: 3178133" data-attributes="member: 665">Which only goes to prove that the $180 Sightron BS II is better built than $2,500 SF. Either that, or you were just lucky. While it's true that ZR and Vortex survived, others have come and gone. I can't remember the name, the company name was the name of the owner, who was an importer of Chinese-made bins. I bought a 20x80 LW from him. Nice astro bin, I used it handheld it was so lightweight, but it was not FMC, so the contrast wasn't as good as I needed under my bright suburban skies. I ended up selling it. His name is on the tip of my tongue, let me take a picture of my tongue so I can see what it is. Hold on a minute.... Nah, I ate some jellybeans a few minutes ago and the colors are blurring the name. I think it started with a "B." Or that could be an "H," hard to tell with a red tongue. Anyway, his company is gone. I'm sure there are others, and look at the one that was supposed to sell the 9x and 11x45s, which didn't make it out of the incubator. According to U.S. Census data, only 48.8 percent of the new businesses started between 1977 and 2000 were still alive five years after they began. This was for small businesses, the failure rate is much worse for start-ups. Despite the company's over-the-top marketing bravado, I actually admire Maven for thinking "out of the box." After all, does the world really need another ZR, Hawke, Vortex, Bosma, Bresser, Opticron, etc., which have more clones than Orphan Black? The hottest area to compete in is the mid-price and second-tier segments, because those segments are where the most progress is being made. Top tier bins cost an arm, a leg, and a spleen these days, and you don't get that much more performance out of them than you do bins in the second tier, and some mid-priced bins are almost as good as second tier competitors. A lot of what you're paying at the top of the food chain is the name and prestige. The B2 looks very appealing (though not with the red stripes and red focuser, although they would match my red tongue). As much as I like my Porros, these very cold winters have confined them to the closet most of the time, so once I'm out of the red and into the black, I'd like to buy...dare I say it? A roof. Today, it's finally getting warmer (after we got dumped with three inches of snow last night), and the sun is climbing higher in the sky. It was so BRIGHT outside this afternoon with the sun above and the albedo below, I felt like I was looking through a Zeiss FL. :smoke:I didn't realize they played rock'n'roll in the background of hunting commercials, then again, I don't watch the hunting channel. I thought they would play country music or if rock'n'roll, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, or the Allman Brothers Band. </blockquote>

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