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