Garrett Rumors?

[☠ Cipher]

1 hour ago, kac said:

Might be cool to use the Vx3 technology and incorporate it in their Multi Flex. Wouldn't mind seening an AT series with response on individual frequencies as the Vx had.

It’s possible they could attempt something like this. Whites was going to make a V4 with 4 frequencies, which happens to be what Apex runs (makes you wonder if this merger began much earlier than we know). Minelab even  toyed with the idea of using a spectrograph, and in fact has one locked away in a hidden menu on the FBS1 machines, but said it was too inconsistent for public use. I mightily disagree with that, and I’m sure every whites user does as well. I’ve found that when it comes to engineer opinions as to what the public should and shouldnt have, or will/won’t find useful, they tend not to know us better than we know ourselves if they don’t also detect. I digress, but I think it would be a wonderful idea and make a great platform to merge the Apex with the color spectrograph (and perhaps a higher frequency than 20, at least 30). 

[GB_Amateur]

IMO some of you are being overly hard on Garrett.  Do you think there was a line of suitors wanting to take defunct White's to the royal ball?  Recall what happened to Tesoro -- no one bought anything except the building, maybe the out-dated test equipment, and now we know someone (2 or 3 years later!) got some of the components.

I also don't agree (and I've expressed this before) that Garrett won't release a product which will compete with something they already have.  They are in business to make money.  If they can make more $ with two detectors that have similar applications, why wouldn't they?  Giving the customer options is a wise decision as long as the overhead, etc. doesn't eat into the bottom line.  I really like the TRX and I also have a Carrot.  I'm more likely to buy a competitor's pinpointer to replace my Carrot (which is showing it's age, BTW...) right now.  If they re-released the TRX that would likely be a different story.  The TRX has no competition AFAIC (forward sensitivity zone, ratcheting tone).  What a shame to let that fade away without something better to replace it.

Outside of Garrett, probably the best person with inside knowledge (because he used to work at White's and helped develop some of the products being discussed AND I think he still lives in Sweet Home) is Carl Moreland (user Geotech here).  In fact he's already commented on some of this, including some difficulties in continuing to produce White's products.

AFAIC, Garrett has already done the detecting world a favor by re-introducing the 24k, but I'm with many of you that I hope there are more (such as the Bullseye TRX and V3i/VX3) to come.

 

[☠ Cipher]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

IMO some of you are being overly hard on Garrett.  Do you think there was a line of suitors wanting to take defunct White's to the royal ball? 

If I’ve come across that way that’s not my intent. I’ve just tried to explain the mindset of a Whites loyalist, and I’ve explained that the impression they gleaned cannot be found upon closer inspection of the words. Garrett sells well because they make reliable product and market the heck out of it. But I don’t think many of us think they sit on top in hobby detectors technologically. Whites still had a place at that table in the minds of an awful lot of people, and will for a while even after their demise. Their problem, as we know, was bad management, a short leash in owner oversight, expensive manufacturing processes, and terrible marketing. The vast majority of complaints about Whites was worrying that they would fall further behind, not that they were as far behind as other American companies. The opposite seemed to be the case at Garrett. People worried that eventually their marketing would wear thin on competitively/ technologically mid-range product. The Apex served as a release valve for some of that concern, but is after all another mid-range release. My understanding is that First Texas was also interested in Whites, but couldn’t come to a deal. I say all this to say, I’m not sure everyone will see this as a rescue mission. Hard core whites guys will see it as cannibalization of a brand that before COVID convinced them they had some stellar product to look forward to in the future. They’ll see it that way if some form of legacy is not carried on. 

[mh9162013]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

If they can make more $ with two detectors that have similar applications, why wouldn't they? 

Because the two detectors might cannibalize potential sales.

If Garrett could sell enough TRX pinpointers w/o hurting their Carrot sales too much, I'm sure they would do it. But it's my theory that they can't. Maybe for every 2 TRX pinpointers they sell, they reduce their Carrot sales by 1. Depending on their profit margins for each device, the investment needed to make this happen and the anticipated warranty costs Garrett may face with the TRX on the market, this ratio might not be big enough to make it financially worth it for Garrett.

Or, maybe Garrett is working on a re-releasing the TRX and we'll get an announcement next month. Or even better, Garrett will release the "Carrot II" this fall and it'll basically be the TRX in the current Z-Lynk Carrot's form factor and it runs off of 2 AA batteries.

[phrunt]

I remember Geotech saying the TRX was a complicated pin pointer to produce, which I guess would mean less profit margin and charging more for it would limit the sales.  Difficult scenario they would have to juggle, and if there was massive demand for the TRX they might produce it, but were they selling very well, or did most who want one already have one and the trickle of people wanting a new one or a replacement may not be enough to justify making it.

The 24k was very different, Garrett didn't have a competing product and gold detectors are big sellers, especially in other countries outside of the USA and Garrett has the worldwide reach to take advantage of those markets.

[mh9162013]

46 minutes ago, phrunt said:

which I guess would mean less profit margin and charging more for it would limit the sales. 

If I recall correctly, the TRX retailed for about $145 or so. Most others (Carrot, Pro-Find 35, F-Pulse), etc. were retailing for $120-$130. Then there's the one from Nokta/Makro which retails for $85 and seems like the best "deal" when it comes to pinpointers.

[GB_Amateur]

3 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

If they can make more $ with two detectors that have similar applications, why wouldn't they?

I'm quoting myself (now emphasizing one particular word) because it appears some people missed what I was saying.  I get that Garrett doesn't want to rob Peter to pay Paul, or worse.  But in a sense they already robbed Peter (investing dollars that could have been utilized in other ways) so they're going to need to pay Peter back (and then some) to justify that purchase.

White's was selling TRX's and Garrett was selling Carrots.  When White's went out of business, did *all* lf those TRX dollars go to Garrett sales?  If the answer is "no, some went to other companies" then, assuming producing TRX's isn't so ridiculous that they would be forced to raise the price well past the $149 (my recollection) of what White's was selling the TRX for then it seems they would have a net positive result in re-issuing the TRX.  Did people buy the TRX just because it had White's name on it and wouldn't buy the exact same device if it had Garrett's name on it?  I'm sure there are some irrational buyers like that, but how many?

The idea that Garrett bought White's to bury it so that no one else could recreate it doesn't jibe with my thinking.  If some other company could make money selling White's products then why can't Garrett do the same thing?  And if those companies couldn't make money selling White's products then let them drive themselves into the red.  Seems like a competitor making bad decisions is a net plus for Garrett .

[schoolofhardNox]

I think companies buy out other companies for a couple of reasons. Technology is obviously one, but I think another lesser one is to prevent others from getting the technology and updating it. Maybe they did not want someone else having the TRX and updating it (like waterproof) and doing a better job of advertising it (like Minelab maybe??) Any ways that's my thoughts on it.

[Chase Goldman]

7 hours ago, ☠ Cipher said:

Whites was going to make a V4 with 4 frequencies, which happens to be what Apex runs (makes you wonder if this merger began much earlier than we know).

Where is it documented that the Apex is using 4 frequencies during MF?  I haven't been able to confirm this factoid with any direct statement from Garrett in the Apex technical or marketing documentation.  The Multi-Flex marketing video on the Garrett Ace Apex page only states that the Multi Frequency modes use "a range" of frequencies and is careful to separate the discussion of the four individually selectable frequencies from the MF discussion.

People are often incorrectly conflating the single selectable frequencies provided on a MF detector as corresponding to the constituent frequencies of the MF spectrum, which is not necessarily the case.  This was a big misconception with Equinox.  It is suspected, though not confirmed, that Minelab's Multi IQ is likely only transmitting and combining two discrete frequencies while rumors continuously swirled that 5 frequencies were being combined due to ML's ambiguous marketing graphics that strongly implied a direct connection to the 5 discrete selectable table single frequencies on the 800.  (Following this train of thought, one might assume that ML added 4 khz to the MF mix when it released the update to add 4 khz as another selectable single frequency option for Equinox, but that was not the case as no mention was made of changing the Multi IQ MF mode profiles).  About the only explicit acknowledgement from ML is a disclaimer type statement added to the marketing materials to the effect that the 5 single selectable frequencies do not necessarily correspond to the discrete frequencies that are combined in various Multi IQ mode spectrums.

Also, for what it's worth, explicitly brute force transmitting 4 discrete frequencies simultaneously (as opposed to say combining two frequencies and the monitoring the signal returns from the resulting harmonics) is not necessarily a better approach because you have to split power amongst all four of those discretely transmitted signals reducing depth at which your transmitted signal penetrates into the ground.

Finally, how many frequencies you fire into the ground is not nearly as important to performance as how you process the detected signals.  It is pretty clear that going on it's fourth generation of MF detecting technology, ML has a clear and significant technological edge over its MF competition, which at the present time, appears to only be Garrett going by detectors that have actually been released to consumers.

Sorry if this comes across as a pedantic rant, but it is a personal pet peeve tech misconception (at least as far as Equinox is concerned) I try to nip in the bud whenever it rears its head. I blame the marketeers for trying to oversell the "more is better" angle.  (And I admit I could be ultimately proven to be completely technically wrong about Apex).  Certainly no ill will intended, Cipher, just a personality flaw on my part.  Can't let go of this one for some reason. 

All that being said, rooting for Garrett (because competion is good for us detectorists), and perhaps they can build off the White's MF IP for their next generation efforts but it's also entirely possible that Garrett was headed in a different technical direction than Whites from an MF perspective and redirecting Garrett's MF direction to align with where Whites was headed is not worth the detour.  Who knows.  Fun to speculate though.

[mh9162013]

3 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

White's was selling TRX's and Garrett was selling Carrots.  When White's went out of business, did *all* lf those TRX dollars go to Garrett sales?  If the answer is "no, some went to other companies" then, assuming producing TRX's isn't so ridiculous that they would be forced to raise the price well past the $149 (my recollection) of what White's was selling the TRX for then it seems they would have a net positive result in re-issuing the TRX. 

I think it's safe to assume that the answer to the bolded question is "no." The only question is how many of the prospective TRX buyers went to the Carrot versus the competition. We have no idea what the answer to that question is. Therefore, I don't think we can conclude that Garrett would have had a net positive result if it were to reissue the TRX.

On the flipside, I don't think we can conclude that they would have a net negative result either. However, I conclude they would have a negative net result given Garrett's dominance in the pinpointer sphere of metal detecting. I reach this conclusion because the higher percentage market share you hold, the larger your loss in sales if a new product comes in and starts being sold (all else being equal). Let me use an example to show what my thought process is.

Let's say that in a given day, 100 pinpointers are sold in the entire world and they're sold from the following companies:

30% = Garrett

7% = XP

7% = Minelab

7% = Nokta/Makro

7% = FTP

42% = Chinese knockoffs and Hazard Frought products

Now Acme, Inc. steps into the metal detecting world and starts selling the TRX and markets it as well as Garrett would have if Garrett were to market the TRX. Assuming the above sales proportions stay roughly the same, which company do you think would take the biggest hit in sales?

NOTE: I understand that Chinese knockoffs and Hazard Frought products probably make up a higher % of sales in terms of units sold. But I also know that if you're going to buy a TRX, you're probably not considering buying a Chinse knock off.