Is Garrett About To Release A New Gold Prospecting Pi?

[abenson]

I like my 6K, I know some people have had issues with it but I haven't had any. Since I've started using the 6K for relic hunting and learning it for that type of hunting, I would be more inclined to sell the 5K and get an Axiom rather than sell the 6K. The 5K to me is great but just too much of a dinosaur by today's standards when it comes to metal detectors. 

[phrunt]

Isn't it funny that in the Garrett release video a large part of the video was based upon testing it in Africa and the fact the Africans prospectors liked the long battery life and light weight design along with the benefits to the African market including how well it balanced the hot African soils and their EMI.  Uncanny after the conversation earlier in this thread. ?  

[jasong]

A lot of the older guys were around when there were still choices and competition. But this is literally the first time in my gold detecting life that another company looks to have given Minelab a serious competitor in the prospecting arena. Totally new concept to me.

It'll be interesting to see Minelab's response, if any. I'm pretty curious to see how this experiment plays out, beyond just the detector.

I'm guessing the 5000 is going to drop drastically in price, that thing is a dinosaur. Probably the 6000 drops too.

But I'm curious if they accelerate some other new product too, depending on how this Axiom performs in the field with users. I know Steve isn't a fan of comparisons, but if the Axiom goes deeper than the 6000 on 1/2 gram+ type stuff, and still gets 2 grainers, can run aftermarket coils, and is $2k cheaper, then it's pretty hard to see a compelling case for the 6000 with it's bad stability, lack of discrim, (slightly) heavier weight, useless speaker, bad battery life, apparant lack of addressing/fixing problems by Minelab, and the list goes on and on.

It's a bit like watching a kid poke a sleeping bear with a stick. Does it keep snoozing, or does it stand up and roar? Curious times.

[oneguy]

wouldn't that be something "IF" it had near 6000 performance and actually ran stable......(just thinkin out loud)

[jasong]

 

[phrunt]

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.

[jasong]

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.

[jasong]

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.

[phrunt]

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