Is Garrett About To Release A New Gold Prospecting Pi?

[phrunt]

11 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Once again, YOUR thread is about a new Garrett prospecting detector. Anyone developing a PI has a LOT of catching up to do to increase their market share.  

Yes, but the other brands showed it was possible with the VLF's when I at least didn't think it would be.    

I agree there is a lot of catching up to do, but it's worth having hope that some company will be able to do it, will it be Garrett? I hope so.   Either way if a slightly improved ATX in a standard lightweight design came out I would be interested, El Nino showed just how sensitive the ATX can be to small gold and it seems to run nice.   They don't have to win to be a winner in my mind, they just have to do whats needed to give the market another option and to start to bring some competition to market.  I'm not expecting a GPX or GPZ killer, but I would be very happy if they did.

Any thread about a new prospecting PI is going to instantly draw comparisons to the current market leaders, that's why it's here, and not in the Garrett section of the forum.

[Norvic]

For me, to be competitive a new gold detector has to beat the Z/X coil combo and the 6K in performance firstly, and of course be lightweight. I`m fickle and don`t care what Manufacturer or tech. VLF, PI, ZVT or something new, but a wee birdie tells me ML will be that manufacturer and the tech is ZVT. Prove that little birdie wrong Garrett.

[phrunt]

While I agree especially when ZVT is involved I also like to be optimistic and I hope Garrett can be successful.  I want them to make a detector I want to buy.  If not the goal of making a prospecting detector that's light in weight, good but not the best in performance and at a good price they'll sell a lot of them, especially people that don't need to spend a massive amount of money on a detector, the person that will use it a week or two a year if that, a huge hole is in that space of the market, and its there for the taking. 

[jasong]

A GM1000 isn't really a prospecting detector. A prospecting detector needs to be lightweight, simple, quick, and able to adapt to many different ground types. VLF's fall completely flat in salty or saturable soils. The 6000 is the only good lightweight prospecting detector for sale right now aside from a 5000.

If someone could make one even lighter, it'd be in a class of it's own.

Which makes me wonder something else - how responsive is Garrett to fixing issues discovered after release on their other machines? I don't follow the jewelry/coin detecting forums enough to have a sense for that.

[Steve Herschbach]

Was out of cell range a few days, just back to this pleasant surprise. I’ve wished Fisher good luck on developing the Impulse Gold, and I certainly welcome anything Garrett and Nokta have to offer. I think it’s bollocks that any new detector MUST have better performance than the GPZ or 6000. Last I looked Minelab still sells the GPX 5000 and SDC 2300. There is room still for good value propositions for people who simply can’t tell the spouse they want to sell the car so they can pay for a metal detector. If it was to take top honors, so much the better. But setting it up as beat GPZ or lose, is setting terms designed to favor Minelab.

I do agree power users will only use the most powerful detector available. But lots of us use different calculations based on different criteria. I use a GPX 6000 instead of a GPZ 7000, although I think the GPZ 7000 is the more powerful detector. Why? The 6000 is better for me and my circumstances. We all have a personal calculus that does not automatically boil down to “only own the most powerful, no matter the cost.”

One of the biggest gripes I’ve had the last 20 years is the ATX being a perfectly respectable circuit in a housing totally inappropriate to desert prospecting. I went so far as to cram my own ATX in a custom box just to try and make the point, to get some action. All I got was more frustration. Long story short, if it’s better than ATX, and packaged and priced right, there is room for Garrett to get back in the game. Fingers crossed. I’d love to have a U.S. company to root for again.

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/462-garrett-atx-strip-down-rebuild/

 

 

Garrett Axiom Quick Facts, Owner's Manual, Etc.

[jasong]

I had secret hopes that your silence meant you were busy field testing this machine already Steve. 

In all seriousness though, I wonder if Garrett has an experienced team of prospecting detectorists to field test equipment? That could make all the difference between a machine that succeeds and fails when it comes to actual prospecting use.

[geof_junk]

MineLab is doing their best to up the completion response, by keeping their prices as high as they do. If the small upstart Aus detector company that took on the USA leaders in the early 1990s. Anything is possible. Maybe the USA completion or the technical advance Europe and Asian including China could be drawn in to make a more suitable gold detector for the general public.

Keep the prices high MineLab and let the other get a bite of the Golden Pie.  🤑 

I would like to see an electronic box that I can add my stick, coil and audio that are available from other sources.

                              🙈🙉🙊                                     💔

[geof_junk]

I brought a Garrett ADS Deepseeker one of the top detectors for my wife. I was a gold dredger at the time and was not keen on detecting. As females know more than us mortal men, I was converted. Carol was not impressed with the Garrett so I got her a Whites Coinmaster 6000 the ease of use and the discrimination (for coins etc) she was as happy as a girl in a jeweller shop with a credit card. I inherited the Garrett and I recon that it went deeper than the Whites though Carol disagreed. The Garretts was difficult detector for most people but I had confidence in it and found much gold. Back in those days the top detectors cost 4 ounces of gold each (That is 8 oz to get in front with gold). Since then all my upgrade have been with scrap gold, less than a gram nuggets and crappy gold rings. About 4 years after the first detector I brought the first Aust. version of their Whites GoldMaster which I think Jimmy Sierra had a copy later of it. It was a great detector as I did not use the Garretts much after this I gave it to a work mate that was interested in detecting. In the late 1980s before MineLab came out with the early 1990s Pulse Induction detector I made a PI detector from an Electronic Magazine that I up-graded the components and adjustability including a coil that I made with Teflon coated Silver wire.. It would detect deaper than our gold detectors however the speed of the swing was too slow for me and the Audible was of the old Geiger clicking system which was not to my liking. My brother in law got one of the early ML PI detectors I was not impressed on it performance on the size of gold we were getting at the time. Due to it price and the amount of time and gold that I would use it for, was limited I did not buy a ML detector till the GP series was release and I had retired early and  decided to hit West Australia. The gold finds did elevate with the detectors (2 detector at a cost of 8 oz total early 2000s ... 20+ years after the first detector purchased ) and location that suited my detecting style.

The point of this post is way back then USA made Garretts and Whites were the top detectors. They are now combine and have the ability to produce one of the best detector today. Lets hope they have learnt their lesson and get on track, and use the combined Garretts and Whites technology and make an acceptable PI at a non ripoff price for most Hobby Enthusiasts. Well we can only dream.

                🥺

[Aureous]

New tech is the only way ANY company will beat Minelab currently. On top of that, ONLY Minelab has the money to afford the massive R&D funds to create such new tech.....thanks to the huge markup over production costs that their products reap. Its a clever cycle.... create high-end products that push boundaries and get results....because they are 'High-end', they charge massive prices to afford the R&D budget to create the next product. 'Incremental Innovation' is the term and ML do it well.

Having said that, would Garrett or Nokta or FTP have that sort of R&D budget? I recall Dave Johnson (FTP etc)  long ago saying  that all US detector manufacturers appear to have a 1% R&D budget mentality. Do ANY of the big USA players (or Nokta for that matter) have the budget to throw US$5M+ at a new detector with new tech? Any of these 'other' players listed on any stock exchange I wonder?????

Given that very large budget discrepancy, I cannot see ANY other company affording (quickly) any ground breaking metal detector technology to threaten Minelab's dominancy  in the professional prospecting detector market. I would love to see that change, with customers receiving REAL, ACTUAL competition and options but with 27 years of total control at the 'top-end' of this market under ML's belt, I cannot see that change anytime soon.

[abenson]

What puzzles me is why Garrett even wants to compete in the PI gold prospecting market. Minelab clearly has the edge and it's doubtful Garrett will bring anything to the table that will trump Minelab.

On the other hand the beach and relic hunting market sure could use a good PI that's light, waterproof, has iron disc, decent depth and wireless headphones. At the moment XP and Nokta/Makro have nothing, It's pretty obvious Fisher can't pull their heads out and it seems Minelab is not interested in those markets. So Garrett give me a good relic/beach PI that can also do some prospecting and I'm all ears.