Sometimes you can find a new gen 3 gp pvs-14 for right at $2,000. That's about as good as you can get for a new unit of decent quality in my opinion. I just picked up one and really like it
OP,
Outside of using a PVS-7 for uncle sam many years ago, my first civilian night vision device was an armasight spark core monocular. It's a gen 1 device, but it's surprisingly good for the $400 ish I had in it. I look at it like this when it comes to seeing in the dark; something, is always always always going to be better than nothing. It's not the latest and greatest, but when it's a clear star lit night it's not far off from my gen 3 PVS-14. I've seen deer with it on an open field in the middle of the night. The gen 3 unit would be able to identify the animal better and perhaps be able to better identify the bucks rack, but this gen 1 will get you in the ballpark. The head skull cap is actually pretty great too. For under $1K, I have no regrets and I'm glad I bought it and worked with it playing around just to get reacquainted to working with nods. I've seen some pretty decent gen 1 scopes that seemed to do the trick pretty well too, but then you're point a gun at everything you're trying to see too. I think those units are worth a look.