Out of those 3, I recommend the Manticore-R.

IMHO, a decent on-board IR is very useful with a goggle that uses a battery pack for short range illumination such as lighting up pathways. I say with a battery pack so you're not running down the single onboard battery.

You can always choose not to use it.

Manual gain while not absolutely necessary IMHO is a nice to have for most folks while others feel it's necessary. Just like onboard IR, you can always choose not use it.

This is one of those questions that's kind of hard to answer because to illustrate the importance and different uses of manual gain it's much easier to show people in person, or experience it for yourself.

At a glance it seems like a really straightforward feature, a simple brightness adjustment essentially. However the more I find myself using it, the more I find myself not wanting to be without it. That doesn't mean that going without it puts one at a huge disadvantage, but given the current market which is full of great manual gain equipped housings, I can't see a reason to go out of one's way to buy a new housing that doesn't have it. I'm also not saying people need to run out and swap out their old housings to something with manual gain.

I can only go off of my own use and how it's been important for me. It has nothing to do with the type of tube I have either (me wanting manual gain doesn't depend on having high end unfilmed tubes, or more traditional budget green thin filmed tubes). I've used it with all tube types and the benefit is the same.

I live in San Antonio Texas, and I get out very often in urban mixed lighting situations. There are a ton of parks and weird places downtown near the Riverwalk where I can dial my gain way down and get a much cleaner image, as lowering the gain seems to improve signal to noise ratio considerably (I'm not a scientist so I'm sure my co-workers will have a more educated explanation of that phenomenon). Not only is it removing scintillation from my image but it's helping with my situational awareness by allowing my peripheral vision to work normally whereas at full gain/brightness, my peripherals are essentialy blacked out from the NV-aided 40 degree FOV being so bright.

This applies equally to darker environments as well (away from the city). If you are out for 30 minutes you might not get the benefit, but if you are out for a few hours and have allowed your eyes to completey dark adjust to a darker natural setting, and a lowered gain setting, you are still getting feedback from your peripheral vision. This has saved me several times from tripping over stuff or falling into ditches etc... It generally provides a more natural experience and one that is as least fatiguing to the eyes as possible.

I wish I was educated enough to use it when I was in the military, as I recall long overnight driving trips that would have been less fatiguing had I just dialed my manual gain down and allowed my eyes to adjust to a lower setting over time. I think it's even more important to use manual gain with a monocular, as it's always helped me blend the image with my unaided eye (again providing a more natural viewing experience). I have a feeling the engineers who designed the PVS-14 were smart enough to understand why it would be needed, sadly the nuances of employing it correctly didn't always trickle down to the user level.

It's also proven to be super useful for recording and getting good photographs as well. Cameras benefit from lower manual gain settings much like our eyes do. I understand not everyone is photographing or taking videos with night vision but I wanted to mention it.



As far as onboard IR illumination, the only housings that I felt it was super useful on were the AB housings like the RNVG/RPNVG that allow for attaching a PVS-7 flood adjustment device. I can dial mine to a tight divergence and illuminate out to 100 yards in a really dark environment.

Otherwise I find myself just using my helmet mounted illuminators.

Of the three you mentioned the Manticore would be the only one I would consider.

In stock ready to ship currently with either high spec Elbit or L3 Harris WP tubes.

Check out the L3Harris BNVD1531. It's an L3 factory built system and like the L3 BNVD/PVS-31A it is as "Mil-Spec" as you can get for a goggle that's not terribly expensive.

FWIW, we have them in stock and on sale

ETA: These also now have a TNVC 10 Year Warranty