Thank you all again so much for the info and the offers. I went everywhere and tried everything. The best place I found was Cabela's in Rogers. They had almost every type of many major brands - especially the high dollar ones. I got to try all of the ones I had interest in. Other places might have a brand name but only limited models - like a few 8x or maybe a 10x. Cabela's had 8x's, 10x's, 12x's of every brand they had if that brand had all of those powers. Plus they let me take armfulls outside to try out - since they don't have windows. I went around 1:00 today, a Wednesday, and was the only one being served for over 2 hours. I really got the pair that was the best fit for my eyes, my face, my nose and my low distance focus needs. I don't think they necessarily have the best prices but with gas at $3 a gallon how many miles can I go and still make a $50 buck saving worth a drive?
I had several magazines that I subscribe to as references with me including the National Camera binocular fact sheet (very useful) and found Birder's World Nov/Dec 2005 and Jan/Feb 2006 most right on and useful. I gotta go birding now. See you out there! Yiipeeee! Thomas Maiello By the way - if you are curious, I settled on the Pentax 10x50 DCF SP as it suited many personal nuances I have, had excellent optics and field of view. They weigh a bit more than the Monarchs but they feel great on my face and have excellent close distance focus for my feeders. This is my second pair supporting my age old Swift 8.5x44 Audubons which will be hard to set aside during the warbler migration. I was so tempted to get 12x for only $50 more but couldn't imagine trying to track down a warbler with such a small field of view and vibration.
