Totally forgot to mention the absolute best bang for the buck sub $1000 bin surprisingly near Alpha level is in fact a SIG Zulu 9 11x45 if you shop around you may find them for as cheap as $600-$700 brand new from places such as eBay just add to your watchlist and get solicited better prices.
They're a hair better than my Maven B2 11x45 with less noticeable CA but the Maven feels lighter in my hands even though they're supposed to be the exact same Japanese Kamakura made binoculars with different outer rubber armouring in my hands the SIG is kind of chunky. The Maven have noticeable dust inside their lenses while the SIGs are completely dust free if this matters and so are the major differences in warranty wait time and quality of service or the sheer lack thereof with three months wait time for the 4 Maven B Series I sent in for warranty and cleaning and all of the B Series binoculars I sent in still have lots and lots of noticeable dust inside all of their lenses compared to 8 days to two weeks for SIG sending brand spanking new replacements.
I had to pay them the $100 extra they required in order to refurbish my B2 11x45 while the 2 Vortex Razor HD and UHD were totally free to have Vortex completely refurbish which came back looking brand spanking new with new Aargon gas purge and refill in less than two weeks but had to send them back a second time due to one or two specs of dust inside each but they always send prepaid return shipping labels just like SIG while Maven you have to pay out of pocket for shipping and insurance plus the 3 month wait time in my case and Maven is either umable to or unwilling to clean all or even half of the dust inside their lenses even after I sent two right back to them due to still unacceptably excessive amounts of noticeable dust inside their lenses. They also told me that various forms of dust is totally normal inside their brand of binoculars which doesn't affect performance and even their main technician told me that they do not have the ability to even refill the nitrogen if they open them up.
When paying premium dollars I expect zero dust inside and if there's even ONE TINY SPEC of dust is found inside a SIG or Vortex they'll take care of it
Swarovski EL Range T/A 10x42s for $2400 seller asking price freshly cleaned and serviced at Swarovski sold yesterday on another forum.
