It's interesting that you regard the brightness as ~ a wash, despite the dielectric v's silver coatings. Also interesting comments about the sweet spot.
A few points:
1. To be clear, I did NOT do rigorous side-by-side comparisons of the Legend and Terra. I said they were "roughly equal" in terms of brightness/sharpness. I tried them within a few minutes of each other, but at different ends of the room, and on a bright sunny day. It's certainly possible that in certain extreme situations (e.g. low lighting, harsh glare) the Terra could have a more significant advantage.
2. In terms of the "roughly equal" comment, I think that's true of nearly any optic in a similar price range (in this case the $200-500 class). Among the various minute differences that us obsessives on this forum like to nit-pick, brightness is one that I think is often overrated. I don't think people can reliably discern a few percentage points of transmission difference, especially with other variables like lighting, color balance, contrast, etc. that can cloud the user's ability to determine this quality objectively. When a difference is so subtle that it requires you to sit there and do careful side-by-side comparisons to come up with a tentative judgement, is it a difference worth worrying about?
3. DE coatings do not guarantee that a given binocular will be any brighter in practice than another with non-DE coatings. I think I mentioned this to you earlier, but I don't really care about the specs "on paper", it's the final product that counts. I have used binoculars with non-DE coatings that felt very bright, I have used binoculars supposedly with ED glass that are mediocre with CA control. It's an optical *system* and I'm not going to obsess about the marketing specs, I'm going to look through it with my eyes/brain and decide if I like it or not.
There are situations where a difference in brightness is obvious. For example, I was out last night comparing my Bushnell Excursion 8x28 to the Terra 10x42. The difference was almost like turning a flashlight on when trying to read distant street signs or license plates under the dim light of street lamps. But most of the time, I think difference in brightness are slight enough that they aren't worth obsessing about relative to the other aspects of usability.
It's looking like the "Volksbin" analogy is rather apt ...... (Zeiss is gonna hate that!)
I don't understand why you have been so overwhelmingly negative towards this bin. You were constantly engaging in negative speculation in the "rumor" thread, and now you have managed to take what are essentially unequivocally positive reviews (both from hardened "budget bin" users like myself and multi-alpha owners like Bob and James) and twist them to conform to your negative preconceptions. All while not having tried it yourself.
Comparing it to other favorite "budget bins" doesn't imply what you think it does; it is simply a logical comparison given the $350-400 price point.
I'll try to sum it up and see if you can spin this as a negative: The Terra is just a really nice binocular for the price. You'd probably have to spend at least 3x as much to find something that is appreciably better.
In terms of optics it is fully competitive with more expensive options like the Monarch 7 and Vortex Viper HD, and it is as good or better than any of the popular budget options. In terms of build quality and ergonomics it is
class leading, the focus knob is better than anything you can find for the price.
And subjectively, it just FEELS nice to hold in your hand and look through. The Terra strikes a nice compromise with a "wide enough" FOV that is very well corrected and thus relaxing to use. Other budget bins may have better CA control and/or a wider FOV, but they typically sacrifice sweet spot size and off-axis performance (especially excessive pincushion and/or curvature and blurring). One person may subjectively prefer that trade-off; that's what I meant by saying the optics were "a coin-toss based on preference for what types of optical compromises you prefer".
What nit-picks there are not bothersome; it's not perfect to the edge but the fall-off is very gradual, it has minimal pincushion and curvature, it shows some color fringing but it's not excessive. The "totality" of the package is why I like it so much, it's just a very balanced binocular without any glaring weaknesses, it's well built and feels good in the hand, the focus knob is a pleasure, and it will hold its value. While looking at a county record Lesser Sand-Plover this past weekend, I handed it to a friend who owns several alphas and he immediately said, "Wow! These are really nice!" Forget your objective calculations of sweet spot size, THAT is the true test.
Basically, I feel like you get 90% of the Conquest HD's optics and 75% of its build quality for about 35% of the price. Works for me.
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