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Is Garrett About To Release A New Gold Prospecting Pi?


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I'm sure they'll be sitting around discussing that today, a re-release of the 4500 for the 3rd time is possible I guess, adjusting the 5000 price to be similar to the Garrett is another option but where it's going to hurt is the 6000 sales, not necessarily because it's better, but it's another option that wasn't there yesterday.  I doubt they're selling many 5000's at the moment anyway, plenty around second hand to prevent people needing to buy one new so a reduction in price there might be something they'd do, but still, it's a very outdated model by comparison to the Garrett and it's modern features and lightweight design.

The 6000's performance is great when it works properly, but the release has been a shambles, over a year on still high failure rates, problems that maybe by design and can't be fixed like the speaker EMI go unaddressed leaving us to speculate, not a peep out of Minelab on it other than releasing this little statement almost a year after release acknowledging the problem exists saying the speaker can cause noise and if noise cancels won't solve it put on headphones.  No resolution for their twisting shafts or acknowledgement the problem exists, didn't want to have to fork out the cash to fix them all up for everyone I guess.

Garrett have made a point of ensuring their detector doesn't have the same known problems as the 6000, the much better shaft design, the longer battery life etc.

Even for the most avid Minelab lovers this Garrett release may benefit them in the future with Minelab's reaction to it even if they never intend to buy one.  They can't just sit there and ignore it.

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Thing is, lots of relic hunters use 5000's. I may be misunderstanding the market, but in my mind there are only really 2 growth (keyword: growth) markets right now for PI's due to the ever decreasing number of nuggets in known goldfields: Real prospecting (exploration), and relics, jewelry, beach etc.

So the relic/jewelry performance of the Axiom may well determine the course of some future things too more than we expect. Especially if gold doesn't make any moves up. Hard to know, I'm really not in tune with anything except raw prospecting.

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Don't get too excited, so far all the videos the amateurs have posted have been pretty un-instructive and uninformative. This guy inexplicably doesn't provide any threshold or any indication of performance. The US video (can't even remember their name now) was even less useful as the guy was mostly just behind a DJ's microphone in a basement...and didn't appear to really be a prospector either.

Nothing personal to these guys, but man, not even sure what the point of making video is if you don't use the video medium for it's strengths - show us the detector actually working in real life. It's an audio based tool - excluding audio is like releasing a new record on mute... If I just wanted to see someone show me nuggets I could watch any other video.

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That's typical of marketing videos, you need to wait for the raw unedited end user videos to come out.

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10 minutes ago, jasong said:

Thing is, lots of relic hunters use 5000's. I may be misunderstanding the market, but in my mind there are only really 2 growth (keyword: growth) markets right now for PI's due to the ever decreasing number of nuggets in known goldfields: Real prospecting (exploration), and relics, jewelry, etc.

So the relic/jewelry performance of the Axiom may well determine the course of some future things too more than we expect. Especially if gold doesn't make any moves up. Hard to know, I'm really not in tune with anything except raw prospecting.

If the Axiom is supposed to challenge the GPX 6000, then it may take some sales from it. For relic/beach hunting, it is the opposite of what I want in a pulse machine. On a beach, in my type of target hunting, the 6000 does not cut it. Garrett may have a winner here if, fine gold is all you are looking for. The real surprise would be if it hits larger targets at equal or better depths than the other PI's out there.

 

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4 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

If the Axiom is supposed to challenge the GPX 6000, then it may take some sales from it. For relic/beach hunting, it is the opposite of what I want in a pulse machine. On a beach, in my type of target hunting, the 6000 does not cut it. Garrett may have a winner here if, fine gold is all you are looking for. The real surprise would be if it hits larger targets at equal or better depths than the other PI's out there.

You would probably like the fact it has modes,

FINE Mode
Provides the maximum possible detection on small,
low-conductivity targets (such as fine gold and
specimen gold) while also providing the best detection
of most medium and large targets. Because of its
increased sensitivity to small/fine targets, FINE Mode
can be more susceptible to ground minerals, hot rocks
or saltwater. FINE is typically the preferred mode for
most conditions.

NORMAL Mode
Provides very good detection on all size targets.
NORMAL will be less reactive in highly mineralized soil
but will have reduced detection of very small targets.

LARGE Mode
Maintains strong detection of large targets while
reducing small and medium targets. Most important,
this mode reduces susceptibility to highly mineralized
ground and hot rocks.

SALT Mode
Designed for use in mineralized areas with wet salt
content, primarily for wet saltwater beaches. SALT
Mode may also be useful for dry inland salt lakes and
goldfields with high salt concentration, depending on
moisture content. But it is recommended to first try the
other modes for these inland conditions.

 

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9 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

If the Axiom is supposed to challenge the GPX 6000, then it may take some sales from it. For relic/beach hunting, it is the opposite of what I want in a pulse machine. On a beach, in my type of target hunting, the 6000 does not cut it. Garrett may have a winner here if, fine gold is all you are looking for. The real surprise would be if it hits larger targets at equal or better depths than the other PI's out there.

I'll be interested to see what relic hunters and others like jewelry/beach hunters think of it. I honestly have to admit my ignorance here since I'm just 100% obsessed with gold hunting.

But if I were making a competitive PI, I'd definitely be taking relics/jewelry hunters into account, and the 6000 doesn't seem to. So it's going to be interesting to see just how big of a toehold the Axiom can get, it might end up being larger than expected if it has appeal outside the prospecting world.

Exciting times. We still have the Nokta PI machine to look forward too as well. And isn't there still a FT pulse machine being developed? This Axiom seems to set a new bar across the industry by initial specs and first looks. Gotta wonder how many plans are changing in how many different companies now?

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2 minutes ago, phrunt said:

You would probably like the fact it has modes,

FINE Mode
Provides the maximum possible detection on small,
low-conductivity targets (such as fine gold and
specimen gold) while also providing the best detection
of most medium and large targets. Because of its
increased sensitivity to small/fine targets, FINE Mode
can be more susceptible to ground minerals, hot rocks
or saltwater. FINE is typically the preferred mode for
most conditions.

NORMAL Mode
Provides very good detection on all size targets.
NORMAL will be less reactive in highly mineralized soil
but will have reduced detection of very small targets.

LARGE Mode
Maintains strong detection of large targets while
reducing small and medium targets. Most important,
this mode reduces susceptibility to highly mineralized
ground and hot rocks.

SALT Mode
Designed for use in mineralized areas with wet salt
content, primarily for wet saltwater beaches. SALT
Mode may also be useful for dry inland salt lakes and
goldfields with high salt concentration, depending on
moisture content. But it is recommended to first try the
other modes for these inland conditions.

 

 

Thanks Simon. I would think large targets would probably include a coin sized target ??? That would be a plus for the beach.  Now EMI would be my main concern as every detector has some degree of it. I wold hope it would be decent at handling it. Actual depth would be my second question. If it can't beat the 5000, it is a no go for me. Pricing (I'm guessing) would be around 3k ? I think one of my hunting buddies is a Garrett guy and was looking to replace his ATX. He will probably buy it and maybe I can try it then.

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6 minutes ago, jasong said:

I'll be interested to see what relic hunters and others like jewelry/beach hunters think of it. I honestly have to admit my ignorance here since I'm just 100% obsessed with gold hunting.

But if I were making a competitive PI, I'd definitely be taking relics/jewelry hunters into account, and the 6000 doesn't seem to. So it's going to be interesting to see just how big of a toehold the Axiom can get, it might end up being larger than expected if it has appeal outside the prospecting world.

Exciting times. We still have the Nokta PI machine to look forward too as well. And isn't there still a FT pulse machine being developed? This Axiom seems to set a new bar across the industry by initial specs and first looks. Gotta wonder how many plans are changing in how many different companies now?

It will be interesting. I would think their main intent would be to challenge the 6000, so it may operate the similar. If the ATX is still in production, then that would still be their deep seeker for relics. So for me, I won't get too excited until it appears on some videos that actually show it responding to a target, and seeing it dig that target without editing. I want to hear and see the target dug. The good thing is that Garrett is not conceding the detecting market to anyone. If we are patient, we may see some great machines come out.

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