... What about maker of the scope? ATN vs Armasight vs Night Optics, etc? Is one company better to deal with or make a more quality scope than another? Just hoping to learn from others good fortune or bad luck before spending the $$$ ...
My experience:
ATN - consistently hostile customer support, for me this goes back to 2012 as my first NV device was ATN PVS-22 and it never colimated. I had to click 3.5 MOA up and 2 MOA right with day scope when mounting it. I've had two other ATN devices, the Thor HD, 19mm, 1.25x 384. It was an unfinished thing IMHO, it did not function. I talked to ATN, they told me to send it back, I did. This one time ATN customer service was helpful. They had me reload the firmware, I did, that did help with the calibration of the compass but not the totally not there image on black hot. I still have an ATN ODIN monocular and I like it and it is fine, no issues with the ODIN.
Armasight - I'm not sure Armasight exists now, I think FLIR exists, but I'm not sure Armsight does. But back when I believed Armasight did exist, I thought their CS was the best of the civilian thermal makers. They could resolve half my problems on the phone. Only issue was they were slow shipping back. After the merger, FLIR refused to perform a warranty repair Armasight had committed to. I would not have sent the item in had Armasight not committed (you need an RMA). Based on that behavior I sold my Armasight thermals. But for several years Armasight commanded the civilian market. I've had 5 different Armasight thermals and 3 different i2 devices. I still have the two PVS-14s because they are generic and anyone can work on them.
Pulsar - I've had 4 Pulsar thermals. One an Apex 75A was a lemon and I sent it back. The others have all been fine, XP50a, XP50, XP38a all Apexes. I still have the 38A. I have no experience with their CS. I've dealt through dealers, NCS and TCT and TCT handled the return with no issues.
TEO/IRD - Right now I'd rate these guys the highest in CS, even after the merger, I've been talking to the same people. I've had two of these. I got one upgraded from Mk2 to Mk3 and that went fine and during the upgrade they correct a bad pixel growth problem on the display and after 9 months still no bad pixels. The SNIPE was a little bit harder to use than the other thermal clipon I ran it against, so I sent the SNIPE back. But right now, if I had to have an under $10k thermal clipon, the SNIPE would be at the top of my list.
FLIR - I've never had a FLIR thermal, but I expect to get 1 or more of the boson units when they come out. I've heard bad things about FLIR CS and my own limited experience with my carry over Armasight issue was not positive. But I will hope I can muddle through the issues. I will wait till next year to buy the first one, hoping others can enjoy the Alpha/Beta testing experience of buying early
Military Thermals. The LWTS, the FLIR-T70/T75, The N-O TC50, the BAE UTC-x ... these are good units, but they are 2-3 times (or more) the cost of the civilian units from ATN, Armasight (when they existed), Pulsar , TEO and FLIR civilian ... so the buyer has to ask themselves why they want to pay so much more to do something like kill pigs. Thermals costing under $5k work great for killing pigs. How good is "good enough" ? How much quality is "enough" ? Well, the buyer has to decide. Some people like the slightly higher quality such as more rugged (or perception of same) or better image (or perception of same).
For me, in the past two years, the best bang for the buck has been the Pulsars, before that it was the Armasights. Now I seem to be migrating towards the TEOs and military units, but I still have an ATN and a Pulsar and they get a lot of use. And I will buy 1-2 bosons at least once I think the bugs are worked out. I like to try them all, to make sure I'm not missing any thing. But buying them and selling them to buy new ones you do have to cover the depreciation. Fortunately day job bonuses and finding small chunks of dead family member funds in lost accounts has funded some of these "swaps" for me. That luck can't continue, but it has helped me try a bunch of thermals over the past few years ... well relative to what I expected to try. 3.5 years ago I thought I would buy one thermal and be done - ha ha - it doesn't work that way apparently