A slight overstatement in my opinion. In fact, with them sitting side by side, I prefer the finish and look of the Diamonds, though I do like Merlin' s camo pattern. The machining on the Diamond riser is top-notch and the design vastly prefered by me.

I own a new Diamond and will probably own a Merlin shortly. A friend has a brand new one and I' ve shot it quite a bit. The Diamond' s limb pocket is an incredibly simple design that works very, very well. It is machined impecably and the simple limb pocket, limb rocker system they use, is very good. Tolerance and fit on this limb pocket is fantastic. Your limbs will not move in this pocket. The Merlin' s limb pocket is far more complex and I for one, don' t like having to untighten, adjust and then re-tighten those 10 or 12 limb pocket screws each time I adjust draw weight. The reason I' ll put up with this, is because I really like the new Omega cams. If it wasn' t for those cams, I doubt I' d buy a Merlin.

When I bought my Diamond, I checked the limb pockets and cam alignment on every Diamond in stock (about 20 of them). They were all very close. I' ve yet to see this close of a tolerence from any other manufacturer I' ve checked. I put their limb pocket tolerances and cam alignment way above average.

I will say the string supplied by Diamond isn' t so hot, but then again, I replace the string that comes with any bow.