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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Dracon" data-source="post: 3189446" data-attributes="member: 14799">Brock & Sam -  Sorry if my comments which follow appear to be patronizing.  Not meant to be.  I know you fellows have considerable experience with binoculars. IMO focusing binoculars is one of those areas where experience or lack thereof, fast or slow, ease or difficult, smooth or gritty, tight or loose, etc., can only be debated from each person's unique need and perspective.  The repeat-ability of two parallel optical systems is a real challenge to mechanical engineers.  My son was a mechanical engineer who worked on design instruments and testing of shuttle engines and SRBs.  We talked about binoculars many times and the mechanical properties involved.  What appears to us as rather straight forward stuff is highly complex - what metals or polymers to use, lubricants, temperature ranges, effects of barometric pressure, nitrogen or argon on just plain air, tolerances which will repel moisture but allow optical units to move with precision, etc.   Ergonomics have to be factored into the equation, and you know what a can of worms that creates.  The list goes on and on. Quality control is another area for speculation.  The old automobile analogy comes into play, i.e., was it made on Monday for Friday as Detroit churns off thousands of cars off the assembly line yearly.  Maybe it was a bad batch of glass or pressures to meet deadlines, or a new employee?  I always used to believed that the more expensive the item mass produced,  the greater the chance for it to approach perfection in terms of durability and reliability.  Not necessarily.  I own two cars.  One a Saab 9000 is twenty years old and the other a Saab 9.5 is fourteen years old.  The 9000 has 293,000 miles on it and burns little oil. Would a Bentley do better?  I doubt that.I mashed my trifocal glasses a while back, and the new lens and frame cost $350.  There is some precision there but nothing like a mass produced Terra anything.  Binoculars have to be considered a bargain.  As far as units being returned under warranty, I doubt if any manufacturer would make that information public for reasons which need not be explained.  In this era of instant communication via the Net, it means also instant mis-communication.  Forming opinions on hearsay doesn't trump personal experience with a unit.  I know you would agree.I'll give you an example.  I live a 150 miles from the nearest Big Boy Toy Store, Cabela. As times cabin fever sets in in White Sulphur Springs, and I need to go somewhere to eat a decent meal.  It is possible to travel the first 60 miles without meeting one vehicle.  I have done that many times.  Anyway, a trip to Billings means an obligatory trip to Cabela to see what the greatest and latest "stuff" is available to buy in order to add to the "stuff" already cluttering up my home.The ground zero center in Cabela, for me, is the optics section, where an absolutely bewildering variety of binoculars and spotting scopes are resting behind glassed-in counters. Behind those counters (pardon the stereotyping which follows) are two types of clerks<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown    :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" />1 )young men and women eager to sell you something - they haven't lived long enough to know much about binoculars and hence have few biases, (2) mostly older men, many retired military, school teacher types, many having had considerable experiences withbinoculars and hence well-honed biases. They will make an instant assessment of the customer and often move him/her to the alpha counter(s) to see the binocular crown jewels, hoping a sale will result and bring in more money to help pay for the whole lash-up.  I'm not making light of the modern system of merchandising optics.  Without it we would have to rely on mail order catalogs to make certain binocular purchases and then anxiously wait for them to arrive.The Terra 8x42 had been out for a year, and Cabela had a separate display where people passing by could pick up a pair  (cabled to the stand) for a quick look at the walls or what an old girl friend of mine called dead animal parts.  I had already bought a pair of the Terras and thought them optically "decent."  Not great but OK.A clerk wandered by and stopped to visit.  I asked him some questions about the Terra, one in particular, "how are they holding up?" He replied, "We have had to return some to Zeiss for repairs."  "Oh, really," I said.  "What for."  He thought for a while and then said one pair had the focusing knob fall off.  "What happened," I asked?  He replied, "I don't know, it just happened."Further inquiry into this mishap revealed a kind of Montana rural legend based on the following.  The purchaser, a young man possessing strong fingers (he probably milked cows by hand as a kid), assumed the focusing knob had to be pulled up to change the diopter setting.  So he pulled and pulled until the knob came loose.  He could be a potential candidate for removal from the human gene pool.  I'm still working on my  comparison between the Terra 8x42 and the 8x32.John</blockquote>

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