First Impressions On The Apex

[kac]

Shipped my Orx back and settled on the Apex with viper coil and ws-3 headphones. Did the update and did a quickie depth test at 2 clicks down from max due to a bunch of emi where I test. Overall depth is similar to the Orx and the Tejon with a 8x9 concentric.

Hit a park for about an hour to give it a try and the audio reminds me of something halfway between the AT Pro and the Ace series. Very abrubt clear signals. Going to take me a while to get used to it as I am so used to vco tone hunting. Machine would false a bit from the ground (phase in the low 90's) so 2 clicks down fixed that. Hunted mostly in zero mode with iron audio on and only picked up 2 bottle caps, rest of the iron I could hear clearly which is a huge difference from the Orx.

ID's were very stable on targets, maybe a shift of 1-2 but would focus well when short sweeps over the target was used. Junk like aluminum would have jumpier numbers.

Now if Garret makes a nice carbon lower and mid shaft the machine will feel much lighter. Has that beefy s shaft they use on the other machines.

Last thing, MS-3's are nice but wouldn't mind if they came out with a light pair of wireless headphones. MS-3's will be on the hot side this summer.

Didn't bother posting my handful of clad, think you guys seen enough of that already 🙂

[mh9162013]

AT Pro, AT Max or Apex: you can have only one machine. Which do you choose and why?

[kac]

Of the AT series I liked the Pro over the Max for the audio. I got the Apex for something simple and lighter that can also handle the salt. I have a brackish water river that I hunt and the rocky shoreline can be tough to swing a heavier machine. Also wanted something lighter to hunt the woods and the Apex has a nice narrow coil.

I may get a carbon shaft system from Steve for it and shave off some weight.

Tough call but if I had a choice of one machine only and it had to be a Garrett I would lean towards the AT Pro with the Apex not far behind. Maybe a few more hours on the Apex I might lean towards that.

[palzynski]

4 hours ago, kac said:

 

Hit a park for about an hour to give it a try and the audio reminds me of something halfway between the AT Pro and the Ace series. Very abrubt clear signals. Going to take me a while to get used to it as I am so used to vco tone hunting.

...

Yes I agree on the "very abrupt clear signals" ... it took me a little time to get used to these sharp signals compared to the soft signals of the MLs but on the other hand these signals are short and accurate , and very reactive on targets.

I have been a little disappointed at the beginning by this audio , but the more I use this machine and the more I appreciate it because it is fun to use and very efficient in the field.. 

If you want to save weight , the Ripper coil is the right tool , it is 70g lighter than the Viper this makes a big difference ... And it goes almost as deep as the Viper 

 

[palzynski]

17 hours ago, kac said:

...

Hunted mostly in zero mode with iron audio on and only picked up 2 bottle caps, rest of the iron I could hear clearly which is a huge difference from the Orx.

...

I also agree on this . I use rather RELICS instead of ZERO  , and when I have a doubtful signal , I activate the IRON AUDIO which tells me if it is a ferrous target or not.  For me it is a big plus compared to the Deus /Orx because there is no dedicated/direct access AM button on the XPs , at least on my Deus Lite WS4...  

Looking forward for your next outings reports ... 

[Rick N. MI]

Nice report. Look forward to your next report.

[kac]

It is a logical upgrade for those how have an use the older Ace series with really good features. I find it way better than the Orx in iron as it does not mask out like the Orx did, the main reason I dumped the Orx. Audio isn't bad and doesn't cause migranes and I have the iron audio down low so doesn't bother me. Something I adapted to using the Kruzer. Discriminating out iron is very much like the AT series and the iron audio toggle is very handy but I have used the Iron audio toggle in zero mode as well it is just inverted where on is off etc.

Might get the Ripper coil will see how it handles in the woods. Separation on the machine I think is actually better than the Orx was but hard to really tell without having them side by side.

Hopefully if Garrett comes out with an AT version they will use the smoother audio in the pro mode coupled with the iron audio adjust and MF they should do really well with it.

So far parks it does well, may hit some woods this weekend with it and some of the river banks with all that fun bog iron to see how it does :)

[palzynski]

On 6/18/2021 at 6:48 PM, kac said:

. I find it way better than the Orx in iron as it does not mask out like the Orx did, the main reason I dumped the Orx.

For me the Apex and the Orx/Deus have similar perfos in iron , which means that both are excellent . I cannot say up to now which one is the best , I will do more comparisons in plowed fields this summer .  But the XPs have still the weight advantage vs the Apex , almost 300g difference .  On the other hand the Apex is multifreq and has some interesting features like the iron audio button ...

I will have more infos in a few weeks ...

[kac]

Won't comment any more on the Orx as this is the Garrett Forum. My notes on the orx can be found here: https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/16089-9-round-hf-sensitivity-to-thin-flat-iron-question/page/5/#comments

Took the Apex to the local park, set the custom mode to notch out everything except coins in the region from trimes, clad, large coppers, nickels and common ring sizes and left the lowest bar of iron un-notched. The machine performs excellent in high trash areas and was able to pick out a handful of clad.

I picked up the pace of my swing, I tend to swing slowly. Fast swing and the Apex shines, the signals are on spot and able to focus on them pretty easy. My mistake for slow swinging earlier was making it tricky for the machine to catch targets. Also noticed if I get a few false signals I just double check the ground balance and if that isn't enough I'll drop the sensitivity. Park hunting you can safely hunt with 3-4 bars on the sensitivity and still do fine.

I also took the Apex to the river where there is brackish water, high emi and lot of bog iron. It performed better than expected as there is just a solid iron audio response all the time. Ground balancing was tricky and had to drop the sensitivity down 3 bars but was able to pick out a cruddy wheatie and a couple of clad dimes. Depth in the bog iron is next to none with any VLF. May hit that again with the faster swing. Usually hunt that in all metal mode with my other machines but the Apex did squeak out a few descent numbers, enough to investigate.

 

[Rick N. MI]

Great review. Sounds like a good detector.