While you're blabbering on BF, the Chinese are building a modern economy.
http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/news/...news040416c.htm
Excerpt...
"During the three days of the conference, more than seven hundreds of papers were to be presented, which are related to new areas such as laser technology, remote sensing technology, and quantum information technology"
This event was in 2004 so maybe you missed it. I can't speak for the folks at Zen, Hawke, or Promaster but I'm quite certain their R&D consists primarily of picking numbers from a Chinese optical menu. Do you really think Eagle Optics R&D department pulled all-nighters to develop the Atlas look-alike? No, they made some phone calls and maybe someone went to China...to pick numbers from a Chinese optical menu. If I'm wrong, please let me know.
The Zen isn't good because of Zen; it's good because the Chinese know how to make a binocular. Zen, Hawke, and Eagle Optics can request modifications (as Zen recently did in a timely manner) that can improve the final product. The optics, I'd venture to say, are designed and manufactured solely by Chinese optical engineers. A long time ago many of my best students were Chinese, especially my teaching assistants. Trust me when I tell you they were deadly serious about their academic endeavors.
John
Thats why most of the really good ones work in the west, where the pay is better.
As for optical menus, the Japanese do it too. Cosina/Tamron/etc has and still makes low to high end optical products for the big Japanese camera companies. I'm sure they'll even design and make you a set of binos if you asked (and paid).
I think that we have pre built a conception of the quality being low for everything out of China. It may have started out but has undoubtly improved in various areas, probably specialist areas, over time.
I have an interest in Astronomy and one of the best refractors is produced by TMB, Tom Back in the US. However the lens are designed and produced in Russia. Since it cannot be a question of production costs, the numbers are too low, so cannot someone in the US produce the lens to a similar quality? Nearly all main stream scopes are now Chinese/Taiwanese produced. Lots of features and good quality.
I would say that yes there are areas where the quality is lacking but it is still a case of you get what you pay for, and no doubt there are chinese factories that are producing good grade optics, but they won't be the cheapest. They will not be selling a $20 lens for $5.
I suspect very highly that there are a lot of chinese optics in binoculars that do not carry anything that implies "Made in China" on them.
Years ago Japanese cars were considered a bit of a joke, not any longer. Japanese motor bikes have gone down the same route.
Look at the present situation with Hyundai and Kia cars - they offer 7 years servicing with the car. Any American or European car maker doing the same?