Very bright scope

I had a brief look through a Kowa 88mm scope on a recent birding trip to southern California. The Kowa's owner runs an optics shop, so gets his pick of all the optics out there. While I have been happy with my Swarovski 80 mm (older model, non-ED glass), looking at the same bird with both scopes the Kowa was noticeably brighter and clearer. The scope's owner claims that they had similar results with a side-by-side test of the new version of Swarovski's 80mm scope with ED glass, but I cannot attest to this personally.