Garrett Ace Apex Versus Minelab Vanquish 540

[Steve Herschbach]

A look at the Minelab Vanquish 540 and Garrett Ace Apex displays and controls compared. Note the target id ranges.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

20 hours ago, phrunt said:

They're going to have to make an Ace Apex international to get rid of the US coins on the screen, they had to do it with the Ace series too.  Minelab didn't put any particular countries coins ID's on the screen, people in other countries don't want to see US coins on their screen.

It's already there Simon, just push a button for International mode. The screen above you see U.S. coin mode with preset notch and U.S. coin icons. Below is the International "Coins" mode, which really is just a relic mode, everything above coke wide open. The U.S. icons disappear.

 

[EL NINO77]

First of all, I have to praise for a good engineering and marketing team ...... They were able to change the design of the control panel and thus differentiate it from the old generation of Ace / Pro detectors ... and the size of the display reminds me more of the GTI series ....

Another good step is to use an internal lithium battery to power the detector.

they practically strongly defined themselves against the competitor Minelab Vanquish who still uses the older " Ace "design of the detector design ..

Another good move is the use of multifrequency in this price class of detectors ... and this is a good technical springboard for the introduction of multifrequency in other classes of Garrett detectors as well.

The multifrequency should mean ... that you have Aces in your hand .... but it will be as important as Garret can use the multifrequency effectively in his technology..It will be seen during the first tests of the Garret Apex detector ...

Separate frequencies 5-10-15-20 Khz will also please because you now have in one detector after the frequency stand practically 3 Garrett detectors: Class Ace, Pro and Gold ....

Manual and automatic Ground balance feeds Apex at least into the detector category Pro .....

100 digit ID can be a great competitive advantage among multifrequency detectors ...

The low weight of Apex .. and the modern 6x11 "separation coil are only documented .. that nothing is left to chance here .. but more modern approaches to detection are promoted here .. solutions that could be heard many times on this Detector prospector forum ... that's another plus for Garrett to be able to hear it ..... and put it into practice ...,

I myself expected some time ago that Garret innovates his flagship GTI series, + with the addition of an improved Imaging system ... but in the end I was glad that Garret proved that he could put him in the lower price class APEX..it only indicates that Garrett believes and will be in the future to continue to improve its other classes of detectors ...
 

[EL NINO77]

Euro Ace and Ace Internacional .... have an extended iron identification ... and this is also a reason to change the display ..Apex solves it ...

[palzynski]

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

A look at the Minelab Vanquish 540 and Garrett Ace Apex displays and controls compared. Note the target id ranges.

 

Actually I prefer the 540 buttons ergonomy . There are more buttons on the 540 , 10 instead of 8 for the Apex , with more space between them. On the Vanquish I very frequently use the All Metal and the Backlight direct access buttons . What about this with the Apex ?  Do you have to go in the Menu to activate them ?  Could be a little complex …

[Xergix]

They were clever, I hope you understand the example, Fiat 500 1960 Fiat 500 2007, they seem the same but there is a great technical evolution.
This is what I think of Apex, the eye wants its part, but inside there is technology, to make it become AT no need to change the electronics, but the firmware is enough, here is the strength of the new Garrett, I repeat ... they were clever.

 

[PimentoUK]

Quote:"I guess the F75 was popular in the US and the T2 in Europe for the same reason"
Here in the UK, the T2 was much more popular than the F75 simply because it retailed for 100 GB Pounds ( 125 US Dollars) less than the F75, for what are considered essentially the same machine.
On the second-hand market, the F75 suffers greater depreciation, the two machines tend to fetch similar prices.
European hunters tend not to be too bothered by modern coins and their ID, so we don't want our ID scales labelled in Eurocent, Pound etc, just remove the nickels'n'dimes stuff.
Garrett have got the balance right with this Apex ID : Yank coins for the home market, blank for everywhere else.

[EL NINO77]

HYBRID AUDIO SYSTEM The Apex target audio provides the simplicity of binary audio (found on existing ACE detectors) with the additional benefits of subtle proportional audio (found on Garrett detectors like AT Max) for faint targets.

..question....APEX ... isn't it real... Allmetal ,, ....or-Mix-mode audio?.... if I understand correctly....?

[Chase Goldman]

5 hours ago, Xergix said:

They were good, I hope you understand the example, Fiat 500 1960 Fiat 500 2007, they seem the same but there is a great technical evolution.
This is what I think of Apex, the eye wants its part, but inside there is technology, to make it become AT no need to change the electronics, but the firmware is enough, here is the strength of the new Garrett, I repeat ... they were good.

 

Agree that they have the electronics to add the missing software features to turn it into an AT (true all metal mode, threshold, etc.) but they need to make the enclosure waterproof and it is not clear how "waterproof ready" their enclosure design is in the Apex at this point.  As a minimum, I would suspect Garrett would go with their tried and true (but clunky) waterproof connector which I personally hate because it has to be aligned just right or you risk damage to the internal mating pin.  Unless they go with something like the Equinox solution that can sort of accommodate a normal mini-plug, that will require a significant redesign of the APEX enclosure to accommodate a waterproof, sealed jack and the larger diameter needed to accomodate the seals.

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, EL NINO77 said:

HYBRID AUDIO SYSTEM The Apex target audio provides the simplicity of binary audio (found on existing ACE detectors) with the additional benefits of subtle proportional audio (found on Garrett detectors like AT Max) for faint targets.

..question....APEX ... isn't it real... Allmetal ,, ....or-Mix-mode audio?.... if I understand correctly....?

Hybrid audio is not mixed mode audio in the traditional sense of "all metal/discriminated mode" audio.  That is because APEX, unlike the AT Max, does not have a true threshold based All Metal mode - just  zero mode (no disc/no notch) and the audio is simply proportional modulation on what are considered by the APEX to be deeper targets.  Not sure if they are implementing the iron tone similar to how they do "tone roll" on the AT series where you get the high false tone but iron grunts when rolling off the edges of a falsing ferrous or mixed ferrous target like a bottlecap.  That would be nice.