Chase Goldman

No mercy, Steve. NO MERCY. I know these Garrett guys barely know what multifrequency is, but these guys are video detecting professionals so I hold them to a higher standard. Steve Moore has to know that this video is part marketing, part entertainment and us detector nerds are hanging on every single factoid we can squeeze out. Heck, we're sitting here taking and posting screen shots of the thing and running the audio through spectrum and lie detecting analyzers to tease out the truth. Steve needs to make sure KG knows how to operate that new fangled contraption and not to spew gibberish out and confuse us. He should have edited it out or dubbed over it like a spaghetti western. [Disclaimer: for those not sure, the preceding "rant" was satire]

OK, I saw that too. Steve was in settings mode and wanted to select multi frequency. His detector was apparently set on 15 single frequency and when he went into frequency settings stepped from 15 to 20 to Multi (which makes sense, I can see the sequence being stepping from 5 to 10 to 15 to 20 to Multi to Multi Salt and back again to 5 khz). Also, "KG" said something weird near the beginning of the video when he found his button back. Steve asked him if he was in multi and he said yes he was in Multi "20" whatever that meant. Maybe he was in 20 and not multi or whatever, it was confusing.

Did not see that in the video anywhere, can you point out the time stamp where that was shown/stated?

No problems here either: https://www.minelab.com/usa/

Hey, Joe - how come you are not searching down in that nice cut in front of you...

Canoe, Can you, canoe, Canoe? Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. Welcome to the forum. Anyway, great tip. I see from your intro you use a Whites MXT. Great detector, I still have mine and am not giving it up even though it just sits there now. But it is a classic. I keep a couple of those around for sentimental reasons like some folks keep their old guitars. Anyway, the Minelab Equinox uses built in APTX Low Latency BT wireless as well, which also gave me the idea to use the Taotronics transmitter on my other detectors without wireless. That way I can use the same BT APTX LL headphones for all my detectors. Great, inexpensive system with the low latency needed for metal detecting and you are not locked into proprietary wireless headphones that may or may not be personally suitable from an audio standpoint. If you are looking for a worthy successor to the MXT, the Equinox is worth consideration. Head on over to the Equinox forum to check out the info and how people are doing with it.

WTG Steve - nice saves.

Jeff, Thanks for taking the time to scrutinize the list. Regarding iron audio, I just decided to make them all a tie. Without knowing how Garrett is implementing it, I don't yet know if it will be superior or not. The disc thing hinges on ML and Garrett differ in applying actual iron discrimination. I still maintain, ML disc is just an audio notch, especially the way the mixed-ferrous tones are clipped when it is applied. Disc on the Garrett and Deus/Orx is applied differently and can actually affect non-ferrous audio and visual target ID averaging depending on the disc level. It's complicated but just decided to grade based on having some level of iron volume. (Yes/No = Tie). As far as beach advantage - from what I can tell that is just all marketing. It is what you get with Multi IQ and ML applied a MIQ profile that behaved well with beaches for all modes, so it is not an additional MultiIQ mode or an additional Search Mode based on the manual description. In fact, the word beach is mentioned only once in the entire Vanquish manual and that is in relation to coin mode. Absent any real factual information from ML, I am keeping the modes scores as is. I am updating the spreadsheets and will repost once I have them recaptured in image form. Incorporating your comments brings the numbers closer and basically puts Apex and Vanquish in a virtual tie, but they are all within a few points of each other, as I expected. Which really just solidifies the original conclusion - the choice is up to the end user depending on which features they value most, no one of these detectors stands out as significantly better than the others. No surprise.

Thanks Jeff. Good feedback. Here are some responses to some of your specific points. You are right, I'll update the tables and scores accordingly. That's not documented at all in the user manual. The user manual claims 3 modes plus a custom slot. I'm sticking with that. This is a double edged sword. The reason they don't need adapters is because the enclosures are not watertight. Make the Apex watertight and you will likely see Garrett's waterproof connector jack like that used on the AT series and ATX. Similarly, Vanquish would have to use its funky recessed 1/8" screw in jack, though it can accommodate a normal 1/8" plug. I consider that a wash. I wrestled with this one a lot, This one comes down to personal preference and being primarily a relic hunter like the VCO audio of the relic mode on Simplex. I think this is really almost a tie across the board except for Equinox, which is superior due to all the tone options. Feelnfree to make it an additional category but in the end it doesn't really sway the outcome much. Again, a debateable personal preference. I think it overly influenced the poor enclosure design of Vanquish because of the need to provide for the AA comparment, further limiting the opportunity for a watertight enclosure to enable periodic battery replacement and charging. I don't consider it a flexible asset but frankly a retro liability. You are correct. My point here is that you have to turn disc off in the iron range to hear the iron, not sure if that is the case with Apex (i.e., you can only hear it in zero mode). Fundamentally, ML applies iron disc on Vanquish and Equinox like a notch on other detectors. I thought of the Equinox threshold feature (and ferrous blanking) after the fact. Simplex has adjustable threshold only in AM mode. Good point. I like BT better too, but the fact is that APTX LL support appears to be shrinking or stagnant rather than growing in popularity. I am concerned about the viability of the standard in the future which might limit BT APTX LL headset choices and APTX LL is the only BT protocol that really has minimal latency suitablefor detecting. I just decided to keep it simple and score it a tie across the board since they all support wireless audio. Yep. Forgot to include this.

Great condition. Nice save.

I've decided to stir things up by presenting a paper features comparison of Simplex. Vanquish, and Apex. I threw in the Equinox 600 as a "control" because I don't think anyone would argue that throwing out price, the 600 eclipses all 3 of the "value" detectors as far as features are concerned. My conclusion is that Apex wins the paper features competition over Simplex and Vanquish. The comparison has several flaws, of course, that I am going to acknowledge up front. First the grading criteria is arbitrary and simply ranks the detectors 0 through 3 for each feature category. 0 being best (usually won by the 600) and 3 being worst. Each feature is treated equally. That is, no one feature is weighed more heavily than any other feature (a lot of people put freat weight on accessory coil choices, for example). Some features are just too "personal preference' driven to rank, such as TID scale. Actual field performance and implementation are not taken into account since we have no data on Apex (so Simplex wins on tones but Vanquish tends to give better audio strength on targets in my test garden and better TID stability> demonstrating the subjective nature and flaws of a paper study) - again, this is just a paper feature "competition" not a performance competion. I tried to ensure accuracy in my feature spec numbers based on the spec sheets Steve provided at the top of the thread. There are just some apple to oranges comparisons that are difficult (like tones) so I made some judgment calls. Also, you will notice, I scored the Simplex and Apex slightly higher on accessory coils even though Vanquish is the only detector that has accessory coils available. This was a conscious bias against ML - I think we have seen all we are going to see on the accessory coil front for Vanquish and anticipate that both Simplex and Apex will eventually come out with a lot more OEM and third-party accessory coil variety simply based on their past track records. I also threw this together quickly, so there are likely mistakes in it. Lowest overall score wins. That was Apex with 41, Simplex 2nd at 45, and Vanquish 3rd at 48. Equinox 600 scored 21. As you can see all three detectors are close which demonstrates a good mix and trade of features. Even though Simplex is single frequency, it has such a good mix of other pro like features that really make it competitive. Bottom line, none of these detectors really touches the Equinox 600, but they all are decent with the Apex eeking out the win in a close competition. The first table lays out the features for each detector, the second table provides the relative ranking scores with the last column in each table declaring the overall winner of the three detectors in each feature category. Simplex was declared the "winner" or tied for the winner in 17 categories, Apex won 16, and Vanquish won 12. I did not count Equinox in this case. Bottom Line: I think the value detectors all came up about the same. Too close to really make a solid conclusion, so it comes down to the subjective value you place on certain features like multifrequency, waterproof housing, what the tones sound like, ergonomics/layout, and available accessories like coils - and, of course, real world performance which will be determined in a few months. Okay, let the rock throwing begin.

Ok then, let's do this. I'll kick off a features thread in the detector comparisons forum...

As much as I would like to see it, I doubt ML will touch the Vanquish line at all in the near term to address these "missing" features - especially not just in response to Garrett. Probably would have a negligible impact on sales vs. the non-negligible effort to release a firmware update to "unlock" those features and remap the controls as necessary to accommodate those adjustments. Would all but be perceived as an admission that they just released a "flawed" Vanquish design (and that they actually listen to their critics and fans - which if that was the case, they would not have come out with non-cross compatible coils between the Vanquish and Equinox lines). Does not fit ML's style, unlike Nokta whio is plugged into and responsive to user feedback as evidenced by theiir firmware update frequency. ML will probably stubbornly stick to whatever longer term dev plan they have in the works which hopefully includes a Multi IQ centric and ergonomic facelift of their FBS 2 flagships. Fine with me.

Well I am about to continue to veer of topic... As long as it has a good balance between recovery speed and depth, I agree that an explicit recovery speed adjustment isn't a necessity. But it seems fair to hold Apex up for comparison against the two most relevant detectors in its price and performance class - Simplex and Vanquish, which both enable users to select between modes that trade recovery speed for depth. So like wireless audio, audio modulation, watertight integrity, rechargeable batteries, and adjustable operating frequency, fast and variable recovery speed appears to be one of those "modern" desirable (but not necessarily essential) features that differentiate good and great value class detectors.

Kac - MK 3 tone has higher recovery speed (higher reactivity) than MK 4-tone correct? Even Simplex uses different recovery speeds between its Park 1 and Park 2 modes trading depth for separation. One of my concerns about Apex is that there doesn't appear to be any recovery speed variation whatsoever - or at least Garrett is not talking about it.

Aye - I got ya. Usually pick up on the dry humor but you got me on that one. Bing bong.

Phrunt - did you see Brent Weaver's video demonstration of the 5 audio tones? It's not the ACE door bell audio anymore...

I wondered the exact same thing about hybrid audio. What would make the most sense is if you could choose one or the other as a user setting. In hybrid, perhaps there is a gate that holds the audio at the max level (regardless of signal strength) until it reaches a predetermined lower signal strength threshold where the modulated audio kicks. If not implemented properly, however, that could be jarring to the detectorist especially with 5-tone audio. As long as the modulated audio doesn't become too faint or is discontinuous with the modulation threshold breakpoint, that would be fine. But in some cases it my be good to have the choice of modulated or unmodulated audio. AT Pinnacle feature, I suppose (along with multi-tone ID adjustments -> selectable # of tones, tone pitch, and breakpoints).

Nice but seem to be splitting hairs at this point. Yes, the V10 is going to spit the difference between the V8 and V12 in terms of weight and performance - logical. Not sure it makes economical sense to pay additional for that type of resolution, but it's your money...good to have choices, I suppose.

The US buttons are 1820's era infantry great coat buttons. Nice. Plus the likely pre Civil War Dragoon "D" button, but you've dug a number of those as I recall, Dan. Great relic and and coin saves. Those P-caps must be fun to recover - they drive me nuts.

Looking good. Enjoyed testing out one of the prototypes and the production unit looks really sharp. The unique handle design provides leverage and a natural, secure grip. The blade cuts nice turf plugs and also can take on some small roots. Good luck , kac, looks like a winner. Thanks for letting me give it a go.

2 years - see below. Garrett Ace Apex Data & Reviews

My commentary in emoji and bold italics above.

Good point, Steve,. One might logically ask that if this is the case, then why not just pump more power into the ground in the single frequency detector case. That is because we are talking about more effective power management and multiplexing each of the frequency component transmit signals so that peak power demands can be lowered overall - sort of like a time share arrangment. The other part of the equation is that there is a practical limit (that has already been reached by today's single frequency detectors) that pumping more power in the ground simply results in diminishing returns because of the noise that is generated. You are getting no depth benefit at that point, in fact you are making things worse,. This is especially true in mineralized ground where lowering transmit power is necessary to eliminate noise and ground feedback (some detectors like Nox do this automatically in beach mode, while others, like Deus, enable the user to manually reduce transmit power). This is part of the reason why single frequency detectors have less of a "power" advantages over MF detectors in mineralized soils. So it is no just a matter of "going to 11" as far as power is concerned, but increasing the power capability across the frequency "spectrum" as something that can improve MF performance vs. SF. Most of the gains, however, are best leveraged by taking maximum advantage of processing horsepower through use of more sophisticated signal processing programs that can better identify probable junk targets through the tell tale target signal fingerprints of typical junk items.

So when is Herschbach going to be done with it?