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Minelab GPX 6000 With Geo Sense Pulse Induction


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11 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Any bets on price?

The GPX 5000 currently sells for US$3999 and since they are calling this the GPX 6000 the next number up might be $4999

Yet Minelab has a long history of pricing the GPX units to match the model number, and if that holds true then maybe $5999? The grudge match of 2021 might be the GPX 6000 at $4999 plus versus the Fisher Impulse Gold at I am guessing under $3000. I'd bet on the Minelab having the performance edge, but this is the first time Minelab might be facing serious competition on both price and performance.

On the other hand Minelab got super aggressive with Equinox pricing. If they are serious about wanting to continue the pain at the competition, they could introduce the GPX 6000 at $3999 and drop the GPX 5000 to $2999, in effect replacing the to be discontinued GPX 4500. That would be a one-two type knockout blow against anyone looking to compete against Minelab in this arena.

Pure speculation on my part. I have consistently underestimated what people will pay for the Minelab name. I never in a million years thought people would shell out over $10K when the GPZ first came out, but you had to wait in line to get one.

All good points Steve, I feel a lot of what Minelab do is based around their PD, if something is unique and requires a lot of R&D to develop from scratch then pricing would be dictated by what they think the market would be willing to shell out for something that offers significant performance differences.

Case in point the GP Extreme to GP3500 did not vary that much in price because they were extensions of each other with only minor changes over the model run, same could be said for the ‘to date’ GPX range however there has been a huge amount of time go by since the 5000 release which suggests things could be different on an unconfirmed model.

All speculation on our parts but jolly good fun nevertheless, I know some of the ML engineers follow this forum so a big G’day to them and ‘wipe that cheeky smile off your faces fellers’ 🥵🥴🤣

JP

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Montgomery Investment Management wrote in June this year that after speaking to Minelab management the GPX6000 would be priced at $8000 AUD - under the current price of the GPZ7000. With current exchange rates this would be $6000 US.  But i have noticed that the US price for most Minelab detectors does not have a direct correlation with the Australian price and the exchange rate - the US price is usually more than this so with the GPZ7000 selling retail for around $8000 in US I am guessing a US price of between $6500 US and and $7000 US for the GPX6000.

Currently there is no competition for Minelab in the elite gold detector category so i cant see them pricing the GPX6000 the same way as the Equinox which has numerous competitors. In my experience when you have no competitors in your market segment and you are offering a unique product you can command at least 20 to 30% more than if you had direct competition - the question would have been asked - how many more units would we sell priced at $7000AUD vs $8000AUD - i suspect very little.

The Equinox pricing strategy was purely to gain market share (which worked) and an introduction to the Minelab brand so that there will be a flow on when customers wanted to upgrade to a gold detector - they are building brand loyalty.

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Guest Just Dave
10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Any bets on price?

The GPX 5000 currently sells for US$3999 and since they are calling this the GPX 6000 the next number up might be $4999

Yet Minelab has a long history of pricing the GPX units to match the model number, and if that holds true then maybe $5999? The grudge match of 2021 might be the GPX 6000 at $4999 plus versus the Fisher Impulse Gold at I am guessing under $3000. I'd bet on the Minelab having the performance edge, but this is the first time Minelab might be facing serious competition on both price and performance.

On the other hand Minelab got super aggressive with Equinox pricing. If they are serious about wanting to continue the pain at the competition, they could introduce the GPX 6000 at $3999 and drop the GPX 5000 to $2999, in effect replacing the to be discontinued GPX 4500. That would be a one-two type knockout blow against anyone looking to compete against Minelab in this arena.

Pure speculation on my part. I have consistently underestimated what people will pay for the Minelab name. I never in a million years thought people would shell out over $10K when the GPZ first came out, but you had to wait in line to get one. Equinox was therefore a shocker when it came in at half what I thought it should sell for.

Probably already covered, but with all the new features, will it have gpx 6000 special coils like the Z ?? I'm trying to work out how they would get the information (3d imaging etc ) with a signal return from a mono coil used on a current GPX. And where will special coils fit on the coil market if required.

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What new technology the GPX6000 will have at this stage is pure speculation  - nothing official has been released. Along with the coils - some say the GPX6000 will be compatible with current GPX coils - again nothing official on this. For definite answers we will need to wait for the product launch.

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8 hours ago, VicR said:

Currently there is no competition for Minelab in the elite gold detector category so i cant see them pricing the GPX6000 the same way as the Equinox which has numerous competitors. In my experience when you have no competitors in your market segment and you are offering a unique product you can command at least 20 to 30% more than if you had direct competition

Excellent point. And in the elite gold detector category, Fisher is just not anywhere close to a match. The ML brand is so established that I doubt that even if another manufacturer would create an equally high-end/quality/performing detector it would be a thread to ML, not even at a much lower price. Detectorists trust ML to give them the biggest edge in the filed. This trust is worth a premium for most. I bet that if you would analyze all YouTube video's that show gold detecting you will find >90% ML detectors being used. This is a brand advantage that you can't easily beat.  

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I don't believe that the current price of the 5000 will have any bearing on what the 6000 will sell for when it comes out. The original price of the 5000 most likely. Since the model number is 6000 then historically speaking, I believe Minelab will set the initial price at between $6,500-$8000.  Maybe a smidge more.

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Interesting to see that Minelab has applied for 2 design patents in  Australia this year - one in May and the other in August.

I am guessing that one would be for the GPX6000 - they would only apply for a patent if it is a unique design so looks like a shift away from current GPX and GPZ designs. I guess this would also add another layer of protection against companies that copy/steal their designs and countries that allow this to happen.

 

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I wonder if this Geosense is going to be unique to gold detectors or is going to be something incorporated into other detectors in the future as well?

I was reading the patent filed last month and that one seems to written to apply to all kinds of detectors, gold, coin, and relic. And it makes me wonder if it's related to this Geosense. Yeah or nay, either way, a glimpse into what future detectors might incorporate...

It goes over 3 things basically:

  1. Combining ground timing and sensitivity controls into one "knob". Or buttons on a screen, etc. The idea being simplifying the need to adjust timings, threshold, and sensitivity with each new location.
  2. Automating control of such a "knob" by means of what sounds like a program. Simplified control further by making the onboard computer select the best setting combos basically.
  3. Adding fineness to the various timings (channels?) to allow the user to adjust for maximum sensitivity to targets while maintaining a quiet threshold mostly free of EMI and ground noise. Or no threshold at all? I can't tell. But this was something I asked for in 2015 and I hope it's in the the GPZ successor. Give me 2 more timings above Normal, 2 between Normal/Difficult, etc. Sounds like this may be something similar? Maybe I am misunderstanding though.

And 3b. sounds like finally some degree of signal processing to further eliminate EMI and ground noise via DSP's. Something I've been wondering on forums for 10 years why no one seems to be doing seriously, given the cheap onboard capabilities that have been available for more than a decade now. The lower your noise floor, the more RX gain you can apply, the more effective depth with the same TX power you can obtain.

Also, more talk on the depth discrimination, but really who knows what machines this patent might apply to. The depth stuff might be coin/relic machines. Could be something 5 years from now or could be the 6000. They do talk about "hybrid" VLF/PI machines in this patent.

"[0054] Further signal processing techniques may then be used to discriminate the deep target from the deeper target, and to reduce or remove the signals due to soil from the output signal."

The more control a machine takes, the more it needs to have consistent, dependable measurements from it's sensors. This might explain some adamancy for rigid coil specifications going in to the future, and the chip? Like, a radar that is off by +/- 2mph might be ok for a police officer catching speeders, but for a self driving Tesla it might mean the difference between safe driving and ramming into the car ahead of it. Just a guess, extreme example, but you get the point...

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12 hours ago, jasong said:

Or no threshold at all?

Great summary. I wonder though how no threshold at all would work for a high end detector. For the GM I see that, but not for a high end PI or ZVT. In my view, those faint threshold variations, sometimes barely audible and up for the operator's "interpretation", are what gives these detectors (and their operators) a performance edge, especially in situations where other detectors would not pick up anything.

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