I downgraded some of my glass and have no regrets and had a good chunk of change to invest elsewhere. If I'm being totally honest, I wound up with thousands of dollars in glass because y'all told me I needed it, not because it made me a better hunter. At 44 years old I was acting like a high school kid and wanted people to see that deep green rubberized coating and know that I was a cool kid. This year I sold my SLC 15s and bought a pair of GPO 12.5s and loved using them. I sold my Swaro 10's and will find something in the 1K range along the way to replace them. I do have a pair of Leica Ultra HD Plus in 8x42 that I'm not willing to let go of just yet.
I've been talking to folks that are smarter than I am and am starting to realize that just like fishing, hunting is built on a number of lies...not malicious ones mind you but half truths or untruths just the same designed to sell high dollar product to repeat customers.
Along with everyone and their brother suddenly being able to consistently and accurately take game with a rifle at over 300 yards and with a bow at close to 80, we are suddenly faced with a huge population of hunters that claim to be able to consistently judge and describe the difference between 1K glass and 2.5K glass and I'm fairly certain all of it is a bunch of nonsense. We accuse bow makers of recycling technology and marking it up, we accuse camo designers of inventing patterns we don't need, and in the same breath we are all convinced that Swaro-bright really is the new shiny cat toy that we just gotta' have. Horse pucky! Why is an optics manufacturer subject to market forces and economic behaviors that are any different than a bowtech or a sitka or a mathews? We have reached the point of diminishing marginal returns in the optics industry and the mid-tiers are closing the technology gap and leveraging a global supply chain to make dinner conversation awkward at the Swarovski household.
Don't get me wrong, ELs are the bees knees and have a reputation as one of the finest if not the finest pairs of binos in the world. And if you are Jordan Budd, Sam Soholt, Aron Snyder, Brian Call, or any number of others who spend hundreds of days afield as a means of making a living, you can probably tell and take advantage of the difference. You take a guy or gal that does 2-5 trips a year and stick a pair of Mavens, Meoptas, GPOs, Nikon HGs, etc. in their hands and I'll bet they thank you for it and never ever feel undergunned in the mountains.
If you want a pair of ELs and aren't stealing from the tuition jar or missing a mortgage payment to do it, more power to you. And if you are the guy or gal who can clearly distinguish the finer points of optical glass, I salute you. At the end of the day I think everyone should carry what they want in the field and I'm finally to a point where I'm comfortable riding in the middle of the pack. But between $1000-1500 there are a great many options that will do 95-99% of what those ELs will do and leave you plenty of coin left over.
And lets be honest, roof prisms are compact and light, but if we all wanted the most light-efficient binos with the highest contrast, we'd all be lugging an 8lb pair of high end BAK4 Porros that cost 25-30% of what their roof prism cousins do.
You wanna downgrade? I say go for it.
I won't speak for anyone but me. I usually can't detect enough optical superiority (visual excellence shall we say) to really justify the $2K-$3k glass. For what it's worth, I don't think it's at all unusual for guys to sell those high-end binoculars. I've known of several guys who did it and were 100% satisfied with a less pricey glass. I say 'know thyself' and do what pleases YOU.
