I want to preface this review by saying I am no where near an expert on optics and am writing this while wearing a Vortex hat. I picked up a pair of Maven c.1 binos to demo for a couple weeks this year. Maven has a pretty sweet demo program; you try the optics for 2 weeks and send them back if you don't want to keep them and just pay shipping. If you do keep them, they are 10% off retail price. I grabbed the 10x's for an all around good magnification. I've owned some Vortex vipers in the past and my first expectation was that they would be similar maybe a little less clear than the vipers. Clarity wasn't even close and I grabbed my buddies pair to compare, Maven killed it. It took me a while, but I did notice the view was different. The field of view is just a little less wide on the c1's but you won't notice it unless you slap them on a bipod and spend some real time behind them. Unfortunately I didn't have any other binos to do a side by side comparison with besides Diamondbacks which wasn't really a competition. The real test for any bino is low light performance. These were plenty bright right up until dark. The one thing I did notice about lower light is that the clarity around the edge of the image took a hit the darker it got while brightness remained great. During daylight they were pretty frickin awesome and I have no complaints. Good: Price Clarity Weight Durability Customer Service Bad: Field of view (kinda) Eye cups sometimes twisted down inadvertently low light clarity, brightness was fine All in all, I was extremely happy with them and ended up buying my demo. I feel pretty confident nothing can touch these for under $750. Hoping to get their b series soon and keep these as a truck set
I bought the C.1 last year and really like them. I had the vipers before. I think they are a little better then the Vipers.
After testing many mfg's & pairs of binoculars I bought the Maven B2 11x45 binocs in January. All the B Series binocs use Japanese components (glass) and are assembled in the US. All the C Series binocs use Japanese and Chinese (glass) components and are assembled in the Philippines. David, I would suspect your issue with some clarity in low light was due to Chinese glass. Another strong reason to buy Maven is they have a Lifetime Unconditional Warranty. You find a pair of Maven's at a garage sale or off craigslist and there are issues they will take care of it! They are headquartered in Lander, WY so dealing with support issues is really easy and in English. I won't bore you with they types of testing we did, but here is a list of binoc's we tested side-by-side: Vortex Vulture HD 15x56 Vortex Viper HD 10x56 Zeiss Terra ED 10x42 Nikon Monarch HG 10x42 Leica Geovid HD-B 10x42 Maven B1 10x42 Maven B3 10x30 Maven B2 9x45 Maven B2 11x45 ***NOTE: we decided not to test any Swarovski's because surprisingly they only have a 10yr warranty on their binoc's*** The Maven B2 11x45 was the winner in our testing and my new hunting glasses for bow hunting. All of them worked well in normal light conditions, but when the sun went down the B1's, B2's, Nikon, and Ziess were all really good. The Maven B2 have Adde-Koenig prisms while all the others were Schmidt-Pechan prisms. The longer Adde-Koenig prisms helped with hand-held stability with distances over 200 yards. See image of my custom made Maven B2 11x45 binoc's. Btw, I don't work for or with any optics companies. I'm just a deer and elk hunter here in CO that likes great equipment without breaking the bank whenever possible.
I think so too, dying to get my hands on the B series 11x45, figured i'd hold off on them this year (just going archery elk) but planning on an AZ coues deer hunt for next year so i'm going all in on good optics
A gentleman I shoot bows with looked thru my Maven c1.1's and did the demo but in the B serous. He ended up buying the B2's in the 11x45. I was impressed. In the next couple years I may own a pair of the B2's also
Btw, another great thing about Maven is they have a Demo program so you can try before you buy any binoculars. During my testing we had all four pair of binoculars through the Demo Program. You have two weeks to use them anyway you want and you have the option of buying the demo pair or returning them. See https://shop.mavenbuilt.com/collections/demo-units for details.
