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Fisher Has A Lot Of Models Marked Discontinued On Their Site And Teknetics Has 3 Models


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I would not want to go into a fight in the low end market with the Chinese manufacturers or even Nokta.  If they decide they want to go into Costco and supply big volumes of cheap but reasonable quality and performance detectors to take over that market I'm sure they would come in at a lower cost than First Texas can.  Costco would take the product they can make the most money on.  

Oh but warranty you say.  Nokta have that sorted in the US. The Chinese have that sorted worldwide, they just do a replacement warranty. You get a fault you get a new one, cheaper for them than dealing with warranty.  When they can sell a clone T2 for $100 and include shipping you can see their production cost is very low and you can bet they still get a decent profit as evident by the number of resellers selling them. 

If they spent the time to make their own units from scratch to take that entry level market they will dominate it quickly.   If I was FT I wouldn't feel comfortable I have that market. Even the big boys have been showing the power they call entry level... Pretty much high end FT. 

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43 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The U.S. companies in particular have been drowning in arrogance. I’ve watched for very many years in frustration, while Minelab, once an unknown upstart from Australia, has eaten all their lunches. They’ve seemed completely blind to what had been very obvious to me for a long time… that Minelab was literally going to put a few of them, if not all, out of business.

I was a Whites user until I bought a Fisher CZ 6a in about 1992 I believe. Minelab came out with the Sovereign in 1991 but I didn't know anything about Minelab, so I chose the Fisher. I was mainly a beach and park hunter at the time so the Fisher CZ fit the bill perfectly (the thing loved deep nails though). My Dad however, purchased both the Minelab Sovereign and Fisher CZ 6a shortly after I bought the CZ. We soon found out the Sovereign out performed the CZ in almost every aspect except target separation. So I bought a Sovereign myself about a year later and the CZ sat in the closet at home.

So since 1991 the CZ series has changed very little and they are just now discontinuing it in 2021. 30 years, not a bad run but at the same time look at Minelab and what they have done with simultaneous multi frequency over the same 30 years. And yea they have literally put a few companies out of business.

Is there a market for the CZ in a new box with rechargeable batteries, wireless headphones and waterproof? Maybe, but at this point it would seem more like a move in desperation rather than innovation.

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3 minutes ago, abenson said:

I was a Whites user until I bought a Fisher CZ 6a in about 1992 I believe. Minelab came out with the Sovereign in 1991 but I didn't know anything about Minelab, so I chose the Fisher. I was mainly a beach and park hunter at the time so the Fisher CZ fit the bill perfectly (the thing loved deep nails though). My Dad however, purchased both the Minelab Sovereign and Fisher CZ 6a shortly after I bought the CZ. We soon found out the Sovereign out performed the CZ in almost every aspect except target separation. So I bought a Sovereign myself about a year later and the CZ sat in the closet at home.

So since 1991 the CZ series has changed very little and they are just now discontinuing it in 2021. 30 years, not a bad run but at the same time look at Minelab and what they have done with simultaneous multi frequency over the same 30 years. And yea they have literally put a few companies out of business.

Is there a market for the CZ in a new box with rechargeable batteries, wireless headphones and waterproof? Maybe, but at this point it would seem more like a move in desperation rather than innovation.

More like a Tarsacci....😀😀😀

 

RR

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The place where the CZs really shined was in the salt environment. I'm still using the CZ-20 I bought in 1998 and love how it performs. It is every bit as deep as my Equinox if not deeper. The electronics rival anything on the market today. It just needs to be redesigned into a beach detector. Make it lightweight, ergonomic, and affordable. No screen. No speaker. Just multi-tone ID and pinpoint is all it needs, with the main focus on performance. That is a detector I would buy and use.

They should completely discontinue all the present Fisher models and replace them with a new line of CZs to fit every niche and price range. Some models could be digital and others simple and affordable, while never skimping on performance. At the very least, there should be a CZ line of beach detectors.

Design the AQ as a super deep, all-metal pulse machine and leave out the discrimination BS. The market is wide open for a high-performance, easy to use pulse detector.

The problem with FT might very well be that none of the decision makers are into metal detecting. They are just business men/women selling product. They have a vague idea of what metal detectors do but they don't waste much time thinking about it. All they see are numbers. If playing golf on the weekends is more important than going metal detecting, the company is going to suffer on some level.

 

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I doubt the numbers they see are too crash hot, possibly flashing red 🙂

A rehash seems viable as long as it is not a paint job.  It would need to appeal vs the competition to sell to anyone other than the enthusiast or former user though so would need the mod cons like wireless audio. 

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I'm a big fan of wireless. That would be a major selling point for me. 

I would do away with integrated speakers. The speaker should be an accessory that you clip on and plug in. Plus, speakers should always face the user. Not point away like so many do today.

 

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    I think alot comes down to each companies motivation for the detectors they make! (Other than just profit)! Most of the companies currently producing have a relatively "easy" to see reason that they make their products! Even if that idea varies! 

   I really don't see that in Fisher products right now! Hopefully that is changing! But they really need to make up some ground soon! Or going the way of the Dodo is imininate!!🦤 👍👍

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Nokta did with the Simplex what First Texas could have done with the T2 or F75... completely modernize it, waterproof it and sell a bunch of them.  That's now a very commonly owned detector and so similar in performance to a T2 it could easily be mistaken for a modern T2.  If they did do that then it's not a paint job, it's gone beyond that, it's a full rehash.  How many T2's do you think they've sold in the past few years? How many Simplex do you think Nokta have sold? That money could have been in the First Texas bank account.

Something similar needed done with the Gold Bug 2, a full rehash to become a modern detector, sure the motor stays the same but there is nothing wrong with the motor, it just needed modern features, and especially something like a ground grab or ground tracking like all the other modern prospecting detectors.  I don't think doing this is beyond them but they just took the lazy way out once again and just released a paint job of it so nobody is inspired to buy it, it just continues the model if parts were no longer available being such an antique detector.

The core of a few of their detectors are perfectly fine and have a place in the market, it's just they're now so dated.  Many just needed discontinued.  Wireless audio has rapidly become a standard and it really makes sense, cords are annoying. 

They don't even need to think tor themselves, the competition has done all the thinking of the ideas they could put into their detectors to make them modern, they can just use their ideas and then put them into reality.  My T2 is a deep detector, as deep as any however it's target ID's are dismal and with the other detectors all performing better and being more feature rich I can't really think of a reason to use it other than to warm up it's engine to keep it from seizing up.  They should be able to improve that surely.  My newer T2 green is great in EMI compared to my older T2 so they've fixed that up in newer ones, a positive sign someone there still knows how to modify the source code for the detector.  Just adding every little software update they can and improve the performance as much as possible.

I'm hoping when they eventually find the password to edit their website they make an entire new modern site with a banner across the top saying "under new management" and things start to change.

They have potential, they just need the people working there to make it a reality, I don't want them to collapse but if they sit around doing nothing they're just going to be a big box store brand for the entry level customers and maybe that's where they feel comfortable now but that won't last forever... It's only a matter of time until one of the big brands chase that down market with aggression and Nokta might be it or the Chinese just come into it with force and pricing that can't be beat selling their own detectors.

We went through this with Tesoro and Whites, everyone could see it happening and First Texas was the other obvious one.

I have five of their detectors, a bunch of their OEM coils and the F-Pulse so I've done my bit to keep them alive but I can't see myself buying another of their detectors unless something dramatic changes.  I would certainly buy a rehashed modern Gold Bug 3, and I would likely buy a modern F75/T2 if the price was right..... Simplex sort of pricing where it belongs.

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