Value optics a value? Direct, German, USA made/assembled?

[bigbuckdj]

There is definitely a point of diminishing returns in most things. I collect knives- it is about $300 to get to the "upper level" in noticeable quality. For binos I found that to be about $1,000 for the "upper level" that gives the "wow" factor and image pop. It is nice when there are companies like Athlon that break these price barriers and enter with a good value- but usually with some trade-offs.

To me it’s a thousand bucks, i have had several under $500 and they looked great but I have had noticeably less eye fatigue with binos in the one thousand dollar range. I prefer the view through meostars, which sucks because they are a little heavier than the other.

 

[4th_point]

It gets tricky trying to separate subjective wants from objective needs.

I don't think that a certain dollar value necessarily guarantees a high level of assembly quality. It might. But one could always perform their own tests to check.