phrunt

aww, I wanted Garrett to be having some impact on them, it's good to have very healthy competition spread across many brands.  It's safe to say Minelab don't dominate the VLF market like they once did, it's more balanced now, a healthier market.

How can they recover from a sale like this though? you can't do a sale like this and expect sales to resume at normal pricing afterwards, people will be so hesitant to buy at the old pricing now knowing they can and will sell it so much lower.  Dealers are going to have a hard time with people saying wait a minute buddy, it was this price a few months ago!   They may sell a bunch of detectors now but they're going to go dead quiet for many months after it.

8" and 10"  X-coil for the GPZ

15" Concentric X-coil for the GPZ 

10x5" Coiltek for the GPX 6000

6" Coil for the Nox 800

M8 8 x 5.5"  Coil for the Manticore

Nel Snake 6.5 x 3.5" for any detector lucky enough to have it

6" Concentric for the Garrett 24k

10" Spiral X-coil for the Algoforce / GPX 5000.

And a special mention to the Gold Bug 2 6.5" elliptical for being a brilliant little coil that other manufacturers should have replicated on their more modern Gold VLF's.

If that's all I had, I'd be very content.

At least you guys in the US get the Minelab sale, even in Australia when it's an Australian company their "Anniversary" sale doesn't exist.  A bit like the Military discount, give it to the US veterans but not the Anzacs (Aussies/Kiwis)

So, they celebrate their 35th Anniversary in the USA, but nowhere else, even their homeland! 

Nothing more than a pre-emptive strike at the pending Storm that let's face it, is a detector that will mostly only be sold in the USA and trying to pair back some sales going to other brands.

Minelab have given themselves a unique position for a business, loved for their detectors, disliked for their business methods.

The Queenstown coppers took a cool photo on their night shift a couple of nights ago 

A different set of lights flashing above their car 🙂

Fingers crossed you can find some gold while in Queenstown Mitchel.

The new normal by the looks of it, they're working out what people will pay for them and going with it.  Once this method starts to slow down for them they'll probably just set the new website pricing to the price they found people are willing to pay.

It does seem a decent price for the detector though, especially with 2 coils.  The new going market rate for a single frequency detector with 2 coils.  

4 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

So yours is a 21 Simon? Mine is not the latest from the factory, more like a last fall model.

One of the first cabs off the rank when the Manticore wasn't even available in the US I believe.

Makes me realize how bad I am at putting on screen protectors. 😛

I had a panic when I first saw that thinking because I was an early adopter, I probably had a version they've now changed with revisions since it hit the public and the bugs show their little ugly faces, it appears the version has yet to change as new ones still have the same number so that calmed me down 🙂

It is abnormal they would let you see that information if they were doing hardware changes over time though, you'd normally see that in a secret diagnostic menu that requires a certain combination of button presses or connection to certain software via USB to see, which the detector probably also has.

the M8 (small Manticore) coil is very similar in performance to the 6" Equinox coil on small gold although it will likely go a bit deeper as the gold gets bigger, I am not thinking there would be any benefit going to the 18" coil for prospecting purposes, the 15x12" both models have would be as big as you'd ever want to go and that has very limited application.  The 11" both models have is a good prospecting coil though as they're both very sensitive detectors to small gold even with the abnormally large 11" coil for a VLF for prospecting.   It gives very good depth on gold for a VLF using that coil in the right ground conditions, and obviously the smaller coils have their benefits for tiny gold. 

The only good coil for prospecting missing from the Manticore that the Equinox series has is the Coiltek 10x5" although the M8 isn't all that much different in size so it's not critical.

I was wary at first about the Manticore coil limitations for prospecting, but quickly found because of the increased power of the detector that the shortfall in coil options is made up for by the detector itself, and there is still the chance Coiltek will come out with coils for it, I think they might have a waiting period for doing so, so Minelab can gather up the sales of their coils first so it could be a couple of years.

a dip in the ground where water settles more causing it to be greener? 

3 minutes ago, Lead Detector said:

When the more experienced realize either detector will do both jobs with the right coil and settings, it will be a win win.

You're optimistic, I think the settings required to be ideal for gold hunting won't be available on the relic, and vice versa.  Having two separate models helps bring in the bucks but really shouldn't be necessary.  I guess we'll see when they come out, but it doesn't seem in the interest of the customer to me to do it this way.  Both will work for either job, but not be optimal unless buying the right detector is how I think they're going to play it.

I was hoping Nokta would make a multi-purpose PI more so than they've done to capture more markets, The Algo has done that to a degree and their firmware updates since release have even more so improved its general-purpose ability over being a Gold only machine.  PI's are incredible technology and largely untapped by many detector users as they've never been made to suit their needs.  I'm ony recently seeing how good a PI can be for coin hunting, incredible Target ID's and If this is the start of it, I'd love to see where they can take PI technology for general purpose detectors.

If markets are slowing like Gold, having gold dedicated detectors limits buyers, and separating the Gold and Relic into two detectors seems a bad move to me, unless it was required for some technical reason.  Gold only VLF's are struggling to survive with multi purpose VLF's taking over them.

I could understand separating the General-Purpose and the Beach versions due to the waterproofing requirements.  

Let's face it though, this is Nokta, this being their entrance into the market, there will be more models in the near future, and they are about to really shake up the PI market.  They will shake up the pricing too, maybe more so than they intended now the Algo's out, there is no reason they couldn't sell their PI for the price of a Legend if they wanted to.

The Find-X Is incredible value, cheaper than a Go-Find in NZ, which judging by the name they wanted to have that association.  Yet it's more of an X-Terra Pro.   Good on you Nokta, this is great.

Nokta seem excellent at making detectors, and they're really shaking up the market but there is one area they're failing, availability.  They need to step up there.  We have a Nokta dealer and that's great, someone like me that wants to buy their products that knows about them knows where to get them, but their products need a broader reach.  Detectors like this Find-X need to be readily available, it's an impulse buy price for a family that are out shopping and see a new toy they could enjoy together.  It needs to be in a more retail environment, in big box type stores and even the sporting goods stores Minelab has been squeezing into.

This I believe is the next important thing Nokta do to grow their business.

Our only NZ dealer is a tad odd for their location, they're on a mountain pass road that people would only ever be on if they were transiting that pass, I doubt there would ever be people that drive to the dealer to look around without already being on that drive.  Hours from any city and the nearest town only has 310 people.  They're there as it's a great location for them to live, but a poor location for a shop 🙂 Mitchel will drive past them tomorrow as he takes on the mountain pass, I bet he doesn't even notice the shop, I've driven it a few times and never seen it and that's with me knowing its there somewhere.

I think they'll quickly have a bigger piece of the pie than the one missing from the gold pie.  Still can't see how the piece was taken from the pie with the crust left behind... 

You should have a look at the botanical gardens if you have time, quite a nice spot, and wander around the city centre, still plenty of buildings left that are yet to be knocked down from the earthquake, you can take a tram tour around to make it easier.  A lot of the city has been rebuilt now and you'll see the new tougher way they've built the buildings to handle the big earthquakes.   Christchurch has a cool museum but I think it's closed for renovations at the moment, the big old building its in was one of the few big old ones to survive the quake.   Hamner springs outside of Christchurch is nice for a little trip, go soak in the hot pools.   The International Antarctica centre is another good thing to do, the kids would like that.  

4 hours ago, RobNC said:

You naughty, Naughty Man! Your brute strength has offended the Nokta people.. LOL

Nah, Nokta were outstanding with my warranty on that, top notch in fact, could not ask for better service.   None were in my country so they shipped direct.

6 minutes ago, abenson said:

Yea it's been approximately 3.5 years since the Apex was released.

That's human years, in detector years that's a few days when models stay on the market for a decade or three 🙂

Keep in mind things like tone options are what separate entry level machines from high end machines, they can't throw everything at the lower end machines as they have to justify the much higher price of the high-end models 🙂

Apex was designed around being a beginners or casual hunters' machine being put into the Ace lineup, not many in this thread would be buying as many here tend to buy the high-end models of various brands as they appreciate the higher end detector features.  To someone coming from an earlier Ace who enjoyed that detector then the Apex would seem like a Ferrari, and that's how Garrett positioned it.   Now suddenly their Ace 200 upgrade can allow them to hunt beaches with wet sand, they have all this new ability they didn't have with their Ace 200.

I guess by releasing their first SMF as an Ace has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works as it encouraged people that were not normally interested in buying an Ace model into buying one, and of course that's not going to go well for everyone.

It's audio seems like an upgrade from my Ace 300 doorbell audio, and sounds like a big upgrade from the earlier Ace series in general.  

I wish the Apex wasn't cost prohibitive in NZ as I would be a proud owner of it, and in my mild soils I'm sure it would do fantastic and there are many people just like me out there, in milder soils where most detectors thrive.  People like me can buy an Apex and like its design with excellent build quality, nice screen, good enough feature set and its performance generally would be perfectly suitable to do well.

It always puts a smirk on my face when I take out my Ace 300 and pull up some silvers, it adds to the thrill of the find knowing a detector many frown upon brings up the goods and with a nice big coil on it like my Tornado it's one of the deepest VLF's on silver coins I have, must be its frequency helping.

 A 6 to 8" NZ $1 coin prior to digging, perfect ID, easy Target, it can find a lot deeper than this.  This was when I first got my Ace 300, you'll see my Target ID cheat sheet stuck to the top of the detector for my cherry picking 😛  Look at my notching, I've noticed out just about everything only wanting to find $1 and $2 coins and of course big silvers, I was cruising over a an old sports field cherry picking coins I wanted to find knowing they were about.  This is how I set it up for my daughter too, she only wants $1 and $2 coins, doesn't care about finding old coins she can't spend 🙂

I'd really love to own an Apex, but I can't justify paying the price of an Equinox 800 to own one, Garrett's NZ Pricing is way out of line unfortunately, as their detectors appear to work very well in our soil conditions and if were priced right would be very good sellers in NZ.

12 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Look at when the lake was formed.

You may have missed this Mitchel, 

"The volcano's last outburst occurred around 250CE and was one of the largest recorded explosions in history, and the largest in the last 5,000 years."

The most recent eruption in Taupo’s explosive history, around 1800 years ago, unleashed a pyroclastic flow of ash and lava that swept through 20,000 sq km of land around Taupo at speeds of 600–900 km/h. It also blocked the outlet of the lake, causing its level to rise by some 35 m so that when the natural dam finally broke, the Waikato River flowed at 200 times its current rate, carving a new course for itself across the North Island and discharging into the Tasman rather than the Pacific.

Taupō is a global star – the world’s most active supervolcano. It’s studied by scientists everywhere.

I wonder if Aurora's make the PI detectors go crazy? We are getting a lot of them at the moment and that's set to continue, it's probably something a GPX 4500 or similar would be affected by.  I know they make my Cars radar detector go a bit funky.

Just because we can only see the Aurora at night doesn't mean it's not there at daytime too, could be a potential source of unexplained EMI problems with detectors.  My 6000 was running beautifully the same day of an Aurora a few days ago but I'm not so sure something like the 5000 would cope as well.

Awesome Dave, a game changer for sure, now you will have all the confidence and be able to go back and do it yourself.  

The problem is they thought they'd promote it before releasing it by their Storm is coming marketing, this may have backfired on them with heavy discounting by the biggest competitor on their best machine.  Once someone buys a machine like that, they're very unlikely to buy another one a month or two later.  They need to get this storm out the door, the longer they wait the worse it gets.

We saw it again recently, Nokta had been talking about a PI years, Algoforce hits the market and takes it by surprise with no clues it was coming at all, now Nokta suddenly do a naming contest for their PI that looks like it's finally coming, but not necessarily, it took years after their Legend naming contest until it hit the market.  Maybe the Algoforce release shook them a bit.

Manufacturers would be smarter to take the market by surprise like XP with the Deus 2 and not leak a new model is coming when it's not ready to release, it just doesn't seem to work in their favour.  I really hope the storm hits soon, and it uses the Apex design, love that big screen and overall design.

4 minutes ago, RobNC said:

That was quite the test. Maybe currents have something to do with increasing leakage possibility? Ya know ocean salt water plus washing waves/current pulling and pushing.

I believe your Equinox is considered well done at this point with that slow cooking you did on it. LOL

The spa was running as it has to heat, which means lots of bubbles moving around and why I had to use the rock to hold it in place 🙂

9 minutes ago, RobNC said:

Were there any confirmed reports on the actual source of the water leaking?

I've read occasionally the speaker, and other times the battery area, especially with people that changed to aftermarket shafts, not sure how valid that is.

Mine spent 3 days at the bottom of my spa pool with a rock holding it down, left turned on, it went flat obviously but after 3 days I took it out and charged it up, and it was fine.  I did that while under warranty.   The water was 38 degrees c too, 100 degrees f, which I believe warmer water like that may cause leaks more than colder water as rubber shrinks when hot.  I did it a few times throughout its warranty.

6 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

At this point from my experience with Beast mode AFTER seeing, accepting and doing the operational procedures recommended in Nokta’s demo video, I am using Beast mode as a 2 tone beep/dig mode for extreme situations almost like an extreme depth non-motion pinpoint mode. 

The Deep Target feature is the “beastly” feature that I will be using the most from the 1.14 Beta versions. 

Can it catch it up to the Manticore for depth though as this video makes it look terrible by comparison, seems a lot of messing around when you have other detectors that natively hit the same depth without doing anything, especially switching into a tricky to access mode to check a target? whenever you get a suspect deep target.

I read a lot of people saying the Legend is a bit of an 8" max detector and many comment on it's not very deep compared to others, the same thing I found with my Simplex and a guy I know in NZ sold his for that very reason, although that was very early on in the firmware updates, he didn't give it much of a chance.

Every time I think I'll jump onboard and buy one I read stuff that puts me off!  Although as soon as I can get my hands on a Nel Snake for it I'll buy it regardless for a waterproof creek gold detector, albeit second hand as even though we are a tiny market they're regularly available second hand, usually they're on multiple owners though.

The Deep Target feature sounds more viable to use than Beast mode.  I think the naming of Beast mode was a poor choice as it makes it sound like it's something super powerful and perhaps got people's expectations too high.