Testing The Garrett Apex + Ripper 5x8 Coil In A Thick Iron Trashed Area

[Steve Herschbach]

Well, maybe I’m doing this all wrong. I’m basically copying the brand name forums that were implemented on other forums in the past. But that assumes enough Garrett fans to warrant a Garrett forum, or Tarsacci forum, or whatever. Maybe there are other ways. I could just meld all the brand forums into the Comparisions forum, and simplify the tags system to denote brand. Then people just discuss whatever detectors they want any way they want, including brand comparisons. Or I could pull the rule off here, but then what’s the point? It’s just another comparison forum by another name. Basically a Garrett forum where most people talk about how they don’t like Garrett? Everything just turns into a Minelab/XP Forum?But still, if that’s what people want... ultimately I’d rather go with what you folks want to do naturally, and keeping to topic on the brand forums, especially the Garrett forum.... seems like I’m just a nag.

There used to be just one forum here, and I thought adding brand forums made sense, but I honestly do not know how many people even know we have sub-forums here. That is an advantage of going back to fewer forums.... less places to get lost in.

[Jeff McClendon]

20 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Well, maybe I’m doing this all wrong. I’m basically copying the brand name forums that were implemented on other forums in the past. But that assumes enough Garrett fans to warrant a Garrett forum, or Tarsacci forum, or whatever. Maybe there are other ways. I could just meld all the brand forums into the Comparisions forum, and simplify the tags system to denote brand. Then people just discuss whatever detectors they want any way they want, including brand comparisons. Or I could pull the rule off here, but then what’s the point? It’s just another comparison forum by another name. Basically a Garrett forum where most people talk about how they don’t like Garrett? But still, if that’s what people want... ultimately I’d rather go with what you folks want to do naturally, and keeping to topic on the brand forums, especially the Garrett forum.... seems like I’m just a nag.

There used to be just one forum here, and I thought adding brand forums made sense, but I honestly do not know how many people even know we have sub-forums here. That is an advantage of going back to fewer forums.... less places to get lost in.

Personally, I like the “guardrails” of the individual brand forums and the basic idea that anyone wanting to contribute in a brand forum needs to try to be fair and honest along with giving opinions based on experience not hype, hearsay or just basic antipathy for that brand for no good reason.

Having a Garrett forum where most people talk about how they don’t like Garrett is partially Garrett’s fault. Same with the other brands that have not been able to keep up or even try for whatever the reason. 

Good targets in the USA anyway, whether they are coins, jewelry, relics and especially gold nuggets are not getting any easier to find and are not being replenished quickly at least in turf and relic areas. We need detectors that are fairly deep, accurate, comfortable to operate and effective. I see this trend everyday when I go out and try to find even $5 US in coins or silver jewelry. Gold jewelry is pretty scarce. I also see it twice a month at the local club wild hunts that I go to. The experienced Equinox users are taking home most of the finds because they can get to the deeper stuff very accurately.

Garrett’s Apex is definitely a big improvement over their other models in most of those categories. Hopefully they have the stomach, brains and funds to keep improving their product line.

[DIG5050]

I like the name branded forums. Presently, I have a Garrett Apex that fulfills most of my detecting needs. If I want to read about ML or XP or Nokta, I’ll jump to their forums and read.  But to me presently, the current format is preferred.

That said, my Apex is equipped with the Viper coil.  I purchased both the Ripper and the Raider coils for difficult sites.. I mostly like the Ripper for detecting old homesites to get through all of the iron and it does a great job doing so.  The Viper coil does a pretty good job at this as well, and covers more ground faster. I have not used the Raider coil enough to comment yet, but you can feel it’s extra weight on the end of the detector’s lower shaft, and it has a bit more depth than the other two coils.

Once you learn the Apex’s tones, and that there are different recovery times for different detecting modes, and how to use the iron audio to your advantage, it’s really a pretty decent machine for the price point.  Plus the fact that Garrett is going to move forward by improving the firmware periodically, AKA rev. 1.28 update, to best of my knowledge, have never released user installable updates previously.

For me, the Apex is exactly what I wanted in a machine; turn on and go without a lot of pushing buttons; with just enough adjustability to work most sites for which I am interested, and then some.

 Let’s all “Keep Digging” guys and gals, no matter the detector of your preference and finding the nectar. That’s what matters.

[JCR]

DIG5050, can you expound on the differences you have seen between the various modes & their recovery speeds?

[Chase Goldman]

12 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Having a Garrett forum where most people talk about how they don’t like Garrett is partially Garrett’s fault.

Great perspective Jeff.   I try to give everyone in the detector game the benefit of the doubt and when making comparisons try do so from the everyman’s perspective and using apples-to-apples detector comparisons when able and appropriate.  My assumption is that if a manufacturer has invested the R&D and manufacturing infrastructure into a detector model that at least moves the needle (and Apex arguably did do that), then it has to be the right detector for somebody.  It’s also a lot to ask to expound on a detector’s capabilities without at least some on and off brand comparisons thrown in.  Heck, you may be visiting this forum as a non-Garrett owner looking for some honest info about the Apex or whatever and welcome the comparisons to other detectors you may be familiar with to help provide the neede perspective to inform a potential buy decision.

But to your point above, I don’t see the criticism in this particular thread as Garrett bashing so much as transparency and simple honesty.  It’s a healthy discussion IMO.

 

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, JCR said:

DIG5050, can you expound on the differences you have seen between the various modes & their recovery speeds?

Yes.  Agree.  I am interested in this as well.  Garrett has provided no documentation to support this and I would think it is something they would want to bring attention to.  As far as I can see, the various modes just simply implement different discrimination and notch presets, which should not affect recovery speed unless Garrett is doing something undocumented under the hood in signal processing, tied to the mode selection.

[abenson]

33 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Yes.  Agree.  I am interested in this as well.  Garrett has provided no documentation to support this and I would think it is something they would want to bring attention to.  As far as I can see, the various modes just simply implement different discrimination and notch presets, which should not affect recovery speed unless Garrett is doing something undocumented under the hood in signal processing, tied to the mode selection.

I'll have to agree. I didn't see any difference in recovery speed when changing modes. Maybe the update changed that. But for the most part changing modes only changed the discrimination pattern which often times hampered the performance of the Apex in trash.

[palzynski]

On 5/10/2021 at 5:43 PM, abenson said:

I'll have to agree. I didn't see any difference in recovery speed when changing modes. Maybe the update changed that. But for the most part changing modes only changed the discrimination pattern which often times hampered the performance of the Apex in trash.

From my standpoint , the Apex factory recovery speed is correctly set and works very well in the field and I never needed to change it up to now , even in the extreme iron trash of this last outing .  I think that Garrett has designed  and tested the Apex to be very efficient in the iron trash, this to take advantage over the multifreq competition ( ML at the moment )  ...   From what I have seen up to now they have succeeded.  

On the other hand the ML multifreqs like the Equinox and Vanquish go a little deeper than the Apex in clean soil ( low/medium iron trash ) and they have more accurate/stable VDIs . And lighter coils .

So both brands have their advantages and disadvantages , and it is probably not easy to choose between them for a newbye ... 

Just my opinion ..

 

[DIG5050]

I stand corrected regarding the recovery speed in various modes.  After a brief test using the same discrimination settings for both the US coins mode and the custom mode, I do not see a faster recovery speed in the custom mode.   Hence, the recovery speed is the same in at least those two modes, possibly all of them as stated above.

This past winter I spent a lot of time playing with settings on the Apex to see what best suited my needs for the machine, and believe that I tried the US coins mode on groups of different denominations of coins 3” apart.  I don’t recall adjusting the US coins mode disc settings so I might have experienced one coin masking another affecting the sounds emitted by the detector. The lack of sounds during masking of coins created the perception of missed targets, or slower recovery speed.  
 

Thanks for bringing that to my attention.  

[Steve Herschbach]

Don’t know, I was in a machine gun nail bed yesterday, and was impressed with Apex authoritative responses in the densest trash. I don’t need a recovery speed control, or any controls really. I just need detectors to work. It seems to work.

I’ll be blunt. I’d like to see at least one U.S. manufacturer survive and thrive. From my perspective Compass went out of business. Followed by Fisher of Los Bonos... bought out by First Texas, as was Bounty Hunter and Teknetics, two other failing brands.

Then Tesoro went under. Finally, White’s has gone down, to be purchased by Garrett.

So here is the deal. I genuinely would like one U.S. horse to stay in the race. If there is one U.S. company I have to pick as most likely to pull off a revival of sort, it’s Garrett. So I’m bending over backwards to give Garrett the benefit of the doubt on this. Apex is way more important than people think. The first real multi from Garrett. The first real selectable frequency from Garrett. I do think Garrett has the best, most well integrated, multi model audio accessory system, including wireless pinpointer, that currently exists, with said pinpointer series setting the standard most are measured by.

Garrett are good, down home folks, from Garland, Texas. I guess I’ll just leave things be for now as far as the forum structure goes. And also leave you with this thought. I hear people say they want U.S. manufacturers to step up and do something. But now, when one starts to do just that, the anger and frustration at years of people feeling ignored, that anger is now to the point where people have heels dug in, and Garrett is required to go further, work harder, just to earn your trust again.

I see possibilities for great things coming, maybe not a return to number one status, but at least a return to some serious competition from one U.S. manufacturer. Please consider giving team Garrett a bit of a break. It might be worth it.