Any News From Fisher?

[Aureous]

7 hours ago, Geotech said:

There is an "Impulse Gold" in development.

Outstanding! Pity we have to hear about it from a 3rd party. 

[Aureous]

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

but if the Impulse Gold got as low as $1500 USD it could potentially become very popular

Yes, plus the exchange values around the world would make it a far more sensible option for the likes of Africa and Asia. As Carl said, the TDI-SL was envisaged as a fiscally viable option for the developing world. With the AQ Gold and NM's new PI project on the table now, the low cost options will begin to break Minelab's strangle-hold I hope.

[Steve Herschbach]

19 minutes ago, Aureous said:

Outstanding! Pity we have to hear about it from a 3rd party. 

Uhhhh… Carl works for FTP last I heard.

I’d still buy another Impulse AQ - done right. And would not turn my nose up at an impulse Gold. The one thing the Axiom crew would not give me is a manual ground balance. Not ground grab, actual manual ground balance.

[Aureous]

1 minute ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Uhhhh… Carl works for FTP last I heard.

Yes, not from FTP itself. 

[phrunt]

All really good news I think, thanks for letting us know this sort of information Geotech, it's appreciated and I hope they can pull it off. 

I understand what you mean about the QED, it seems all over the place, some have quiet running ones some don't.  Mine was really good in that way, it ran very quiet and stable but the build quality was terrible with the 3D printing.  The newer ones have even more 3D printing, although it's said to be a stronger print type than the one I had.   I'm not a follower of that project anymore but I do wish them the best too.

The more options in the market the better and the price bracket for the Impulse Gold sounds like it could be very successful, I hope so.  It'd be good to see Fisher rise from the ashes as the longer they leave it the further behind they're getting.

[Knomad]

Thanks for the update Carl.

Hopefully they get their act together, if not Sell The Fisher part of the company to someone with Passion for the hobby and industry before they kill it.

BTW, The Whites TDI is Underrated in some respects - Balance and swing=Sweet, Iron I.D that often is more accurate then my Nox 800 in bad ground.

[Steve Herschbach]

Good to hear hope is alive, kinda sorta. Maybe more for the Impulse Gold than a revamped Impulse AQ. I think FT made a huge blunder pursuing a beach detector first. The Impulse Gold should have been the first effort, as being easier to engineer (does not need to be submersible) and addresses a larger market. The waterproof model should have come later. This misstep in timing means they missed the boat on having the Impulse Gold come out before the Axiom. Axiom largely addresses the gap in the market, but FT still has an opening at a lower price slot, like $1995. I think a Impulse Gold with 8” coil at $1995 might outsell the Axiom, which came in far higher priced than I would like. My challenge was only half addressed by Axiom, and an Impulse Gold could still be the winner. Axiom lacks a truly manual ground balance, so if an Impulse Gold gave me that, at $1995 after discounts, count me in!

But right now things are not looking good to observers. Time flies. The Impulse AQ Limited started shipping to customers in June 2020. The Limited designation supposedly meant that only 99 were to be sold. Lots was said about an updated model that was to appear, supposedly in 2021, but if they still have not sold through the first batch of 99 Ltds over two years later, it's hard to see why there would ever be another version once the parts run out to make these. So if you want an Impulse, it might be that getting an AQ before they are gone is your best bet, as that may be all we ever see. I'll keep hoping an improved version does appear, and if not, there is always the Impulse Gold. I hope.

I remember the heady days of all the promises made below, how we would all experience innovation in real time, and how this was just a first edition of an entire new product line. But that was 2020. For all of 2021 and 2022, two years, nothing, no new model, no communication, nothing at all. Well, there was a coil that nobody knew about and nobody could get. But seriously, two years of absolute silence, and no new detector models at all. Turns out innovation in real time is not much to get excited about, at least in this case.

 

[GB_Amateur]

On 11/27/2022 at 10:57 PM, phrunt said:

I understand what you mean about the QED, it seems all over the place, some have quiet running ones some don't.

There could also be the added complication that the power grid in the USA is different than in Australia.  Supposedly they were tuning units sent to the USA to accommodate that but being located half a world away while making those adjustments....??  (This is pure speculation on my part.)

The only detectors I have that can consistently run at max gain in town are the ones that have built in 'governor' (i.e. you can't run up into the noise -- one of those idiot proof / dumb it down for the people who can't make adjustments).  I got the QED for Western USA gold detecting.  My TDI will do that too, but when I want to use it in town I just turn down the gain.  (And, please, no lectures about how neither is as powerful as a GPX.  I'm fully aware as is presumably everyone who owns one.  Didn't overpower my wallet or my back, either.)

[phrunt]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

There could also be the added complication that the power grid in the USA is different than in Australia.  Supposedly they were tuning units sent to the USA to accommodate that but being located half a world away while making those adjustments....??  (This is pure speculation on my part.)

Yep, there seems to be a bit of a complication there with not knowing which have been modified and which have not.  They should have a little USA flag sticker on the US models ?  The US ones did need adjusted to work best there though and with them floating around on the second hand market there it's difficult to know if it was a modified one or not when buying it.

Find a nice spiral coil that suits it and works well in the lower modes and it's going to serve you well.