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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 3 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Brunton Binoculars Oct 26, 2009
By Splash
These are awesome binoculars. No matter what magnification or field of view you are considering, be sure to try this brand before purchasing any others. Amazon's selection of models is very good.
 Great Multi-Use Binos - Price Varies Greatly - Pays to Shop Sep 21, 2011
By Snoopy
"PuppyPaws"
These Brunton 8x32 Echo Midsize binos are ideal for multi-use. We use them for bird watching, concerts, football games, theater/plays and zoo trips. The BaK-4 multi-coated optics are crisp and clear, easy to focus. The diopter ring adjustment is on the right barrel and is fairly stiff so it stays set once properly adjusted to your eyes. The 8x magnification is as high as I can go holding them in my hands with a steady and clear field of view. I have another higher quality / much more expensive pair of Leopold 10x32 military binos that provide noticeably larger images, but for me, they are not worth the added eye strain / blur from hand shake and tripods are too cumbersome for most of my purposes. These Echo's seem very well made with a durable / rugged rubber coated polyurethane exterior.
I especially love their short range focus at 6 ft which is seldom less than 20 ft for most 8x32 binos. I can easily read all the tiny LED settings on my home theatre amp / DVD player from my couch 6 ft away. I can even read cell phone text messages that are 3-5 rows in front of me at a concert (not that I was really looking, just surprised I could easily read them; the optics are that good). I also love that they are Nitrogen filled, fog proof and waterproof with a Brunton 5 yr warranty. Lens caps all fit snug. Very nice neck strap; it widens out to a 2 inch padded width around your neck to more comfortably support their weight, which is fairly light at just over one pound (20 oz). They store nicely in a black canvas carry case with a Velcro cover flap, separate strap and belt loop.
As of this review, these Brunton Echo Midsize 8x32 binos are available on Amazon through different sellers on separate pages as if they are not identical products, but they are. The prices range here on Amazon from $130 to $250. I purchased this identical product new in the box on EBay from Budsgunshop for $50 with free shipping. Once I confirmed their high quality, a week later I bought a second pair from the same Ebay seller, but by then the price went up to $70 (committed pricing, no bidding, free shipping in both cases). No way was my wife ever going to let me share the one pair.. she totally loves them! So, I had to get a second pair.
These binos have all the features I was hoping to find, and then some: above average BaK-4 prism glass, fully multi-coated optics - emerald green, very short 6' close focus (you will love this feature more than you might expect), long 4mm exit pupil with a large sweet spot and ample 16mm eye relief with twist-up shields, virtually no eye strain whatsoever (with or w/out glasses) based on continual use over a two-hour concert, perform well in low light, fairly wide 395' field of view at 1000 yards, light weight at just 20 oz, overall size fairly small at just under 5" long, 5" wide and 2" exterior barrel diameters - just a tad larger than most compact size binos; nitrogen filled - fog proof and water proof, 5 yr warranty from Brunton.
Try to find all these features for under $150.. good luck. I notice some reviewers note trouble with certain compact / midsize binos that they love in all respects except that they don't expand quite wide enough to accommodate a large head / eyes set wide apart. I think my eyes are set at a typical distance for a guy, and I have to collapse these 8x32 Midsize Echo's quite a bit to set the barrel eye width to my sweet spot (which is a rather "large" sweet spot with these binos - both in terms of barrel width and distance of my eyes to the lenses). So, I'm fairly sure these have plenty of barrel width for guys with eyes set unusually far apart.
Bottomline: I feel like I got an absolute steal on EBay at $50 with free shipping on the first pair (and $120 for two pairs). I would say under $150 is still a very good value, but not over $200. There are several venders that sell these well over $200 and a select few listed under $100. It really pays to shop and you can likely find a price much better than this listing for $170 - hence 3-stars.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Better optics than compact binocular, less weight and bulk than full-size Feb 28, 2010
By Albert
"DrAlAlDr"
I wasn't familiar with Brunton binoculars, but my late brother had a set and was a stickler for good value (quality at a reasonable price), so I thought I would check Brunton out when I was looking for a new compact binocular. Brunton makes compact binoculars, too, which weigh about 13 to 14 oz, but I opted for the mid-size because it is not that much larger, still is only about 20 oz, and the 32 mm objective helps when light is less. The exit pupil is also a bit larger than with the compact binoculars, which I like now that I've experienced it. I have glasses and the combination of long-eye relief and eye-cups with these binoculars and larger exit pupil makes these very nice to use. Having mostly used compact binoculars until now, I was quite impressed with these and would recommend them to anyone. 8x32 is nice travel binocular for bird watching, general use.
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