Nothing can be made perfectly or identically. Each part and assembly process will have tolerances and quality control is to catch parts and products outside of the tolerances. For low end stuff there is much less quality control so you get a lot more variation because parts and products out of spec make it to consumers. High end products like swaro have tight quality control but just because things they ship meet their specifications it doesn't mean that they are all identical. Some might have lenses with extra perfect figuring or perfectly aligned and such and these are the "cherries" people often refer to.
This would of course apply to binoculars as well as pretty much anything that is manufactured. The thing is is that binoculars are used at really low magnifications so the optical variance from tolerancing is not usually discernible. Spotting scopes on the other hand are often pushed to much higher magnifications where this variation becomes a lot more visible resulting in things like image softening at high magnifications.
This would of course apply to binoculars as well as pretty much anything that is manufactured. The thing is is that binoculars are used at really low magnifications so the optical variance from tolerancing is not usually discernible. Spotting scopes on the other hand are often pushed to much higher magnifications where this variation becomes a lot more visible resulting in things like image softening at high magnifications.
