Who Is Trash Talking Minelab? Why? Cause We Can!

[goldbrick]

Isn't it fun to beat up on Minelab? I think so. I do it occasionally. Like when I bought my GPX 4500. It had the bug, was one of the low serial number units. Or when I recently purchased a SDC 2300 I was pretty disgusted with the battery problem. Just this last week I got my new CTX3030. Thankfully no issues so far, just love that machine. 
In the following scenario allow your imagination to run amok.....Close your eyes, imagine it is 2020. NEWS FLASH! Today Minelab announced it was closing its doors forever. Bad management by Codan. African gold rush over. Go Find 120 debacle, millions in cost over runs. Australia outlaws metal detectors just as they did gold dredges. All combined to spell doom to the worlds foremost manufacturer of metal detectors.
It is not really so far fetched, any company can fail. The question is if Minelab fails what are the worlds electronic prospectors going to do? CRAP THEIR PANTS is my guess. Switch to an ATX? No thanks, I already have repetitive motion injury. Switch to a TDI? Be like trading in your Porsche for a Miata. Maybe a new company like Makro would try to jump into the chasm created by Minelabs' absence. But we always hear how Minelab has all the juiciest patents locked up. Maybe Makro just can't create an equal to the worlds best nugget machine in a short time period. 
Instantly all the used Minelabs will triple in price. People will start hoarding. Thefts of Minelabs will skyrocket. Other unforeseen events may occur. LOL
I have three Minelabs.  If you are talking gold nugget hunting machines nothing matches Minelab. Are they perfect? Hell no. If we could not beat up on Minelab occasionally where would our forum be? Wouldn't be as fun or interesting. But I don't want to contemplate a world without Minelab. 
Feel free to speculate. Let rumor and innuendo run rampart. Bash, mash, dissect, trisect, and out right lie. Then stitch it all back together into your very own opinion of Minelab. But the next morning when you leave to go find some nuggets I venture the worlds best will be slung over your shoulder.

[strick]

I have 4 of them (2300 x 2, 7000, ctx 3030) The only thing that pisses me off about them is that they cost so much. The 2300 battery compartment thing is an easy fix that we should not have to fix...but the machine is a gold sniffer so prospectors put up with it. I have not had any real quality control issues  with the 7000 but then again I don't use it any where as much as most of the people on this board. I have beat the hell of my ctx 3030 and use it several times a week. It's one tough machine and I'd have no problem forking out the cash for another when this one dies...if it ever dies. The GPX series machines don't look all that tough to me...I still have to chuckle thinking back when I was talking to a fellow prospector one day and a few rain drops started falling... he literally stopped in mid sentence and ran back to his truck to shelter his 5000.

strick

 

[Roughwater]

From my nearsighted window it looks to me like Quality control has got lax at most detector companies.  In my short time hanging out here I've seen issues with Whites, Nokta/Makro and Minelab or as least those are the one's I'm most familiar with.  But in the end I ended up buying 3 Minelab machines and not regretting it, least so far.  2 of the machines were bought as they were best in their class based on a general consensus among you all.  The third machine more of a chance purchase as the price was right at the time but could have just as easily been a Whites or Nokta.  I'll take the recommended band-aids to the field with me when I go and hope I'm not having to cuss my machine when it gets down to hard use.  But in the end though the machines aren't perfect, we humans who design, use and build them aren't either.  Just the same we gota complain and hope that the companies hear us and correct the most obvious issues at least.  But at the same time, Thank you Minelab, Nokta/Makro and Whites for hanging in there!  

Terry

[Reno Chris]

You can blame the bulk of the high prices for ML detectors on a failure of the other detector companies to invest sufficiently in R&D for the last 20 years. This allows ML to easily have a 15 year technology lead. With a very few exceptions,  the other makers are selling technologies that reached their peak decades ago, coming out with the same detectors over and over again,  doing some minor tweak, putting the old detector in a new box, marketing the old detector in camo, and assigning the slightly altered old detector a new product number. whoop de do - an old, limited detector with a couple minor tweaks is an old limited detector. 

The other makers may dominate the low end with technology that works but reached its peak long ago, but if you want the best detectors for prospecting, you only have a choice of Minelab products. Through failure to do sufficient R&D, the other makers have all but abandoned the high end of the detector market. I feel like they are now realizing the results of their lack of R&D and trying to play catch up with another company which has a boat load of patents blocking the way is a difficult game.

The high prices of the very best detectors is directly due to a lack of competition in the market and the lack of competition is due to the other makers taking the cheap route and failing to do the R&D needed to make top quality detectors. It's like all the other makers are technology companies stuck in 1995 and unable to escape. 

[fredmason]

yeah, plastic surgery on people or detectors only changes appearances... and not always for the better.

Good thing Minelab wants to exceed their own BEST.

fred

[LuckyLundy]

Merton, You've always have a full tackle box of metal detectors!  It's a great hobby, we all have to enjoy the metal detector we can afford to swing.  As Fred mentioned, you can put lip stick on a pig, but in the end its still a pig with the same old technology in the box!  I'm not happy, with the quality of my SDC knuckle or the problem with the collapsing shaft (use tape to keep it tight) or my GPZ suffering ED problem with its limping coil and now suffering my main menu button to work.  But at the end of the day Minelab rules the market and keeps me and my gold buys happy!  Waiting for the day of a cheaper better quality mouse trap to fill my hand and my poke.

LuckyLundy

[Steve Herschbach]

Minelab is the company people love to hate. They truly are engineer driven, and the company as a whole seems to have that same disconnect with regular people that engineers are so famous for. Minelab the company is remarkably tone deaf to the little things that make customers feel like a company cares.

[mn90403]

Merton,

You set a good 'tone' for wanting to express doubt and concern about existing products that WE use from Minelab. (There are other threads for complaints about other brands!)

These complaints and concerns are stated to give some feedback to the designers and marketers that will cause them to keep US in mind on future units.  

When it comes to 'insider knowledge' about people, places and things that auminesweeper references it goes beyond me.  I can only try to understand the product that I've bought (just like a car) and not understand the corporate culture and choices they have.

All of us are dealing in a diminishing supply when it comes to gold nuggets (and to a large degree meteorite hunting).  When you take a nugget or two or a hundred ... those can't be found again.  What we can find is what has been missed or patches (strewn fields) that have not been discovered.  We buy our detectors accordingly.  

Relic, coin, park, beach, treasure and hoard hunting also has a diminishing supply and requires improved technology for maximum success.

I use several different Minelab detectors for all of these uses and I'm glad that I do.  I'm glad that they are responsive to my calls in Chicago and I'm glad for what they do in the anti-mine arena.

I wish them success but also know looking at the future they will have their own diminishing customer base here in the United States and Australia.  They must be profitable or they won't remain as Merton alludes to.

What will keep Minelab profitable?  More countries?  Deeper gold finding? 

Mitchel

 

[goldbrick]

21 hours ago, Reno Chris said:

You can blame the bulk of the high prices for ML detectors on a failure of the other detector companies to invest sufficiently in R&D for the last 20 years. This allows ML to easily have a 15 year technology lead. With a very few exceptions,  the other makers are selling technologies that reached their peak decades ago, coming out with the same detectors over and over again,  doing some minor tweak, putting the old detector in a new box, marketing the old detector in camo, and assigning the slightly altered old detector a new product number. whoop de do - an old, limited detector with a couple minor tweaks is an old limited detector. 

The other makers may dominate the low end with technology that works but reached its peak long ago, but if you want the best detectors for prospecting, you only have a choice of Minelab products. Through failure to do sufficient R&D, the other makers have all but abandoned the high end of the detector market. I feel like they are now realizing the results of their lack of R&D and trying to play catch up with another company which has a boat load of patents blocking the way is a difficult game.

The high prices of the very best detectors is directly due to a lack of competition in the market and the lack of competition is due to the other makers taking the cheap route and failing to do the R&D needed to make top quality detectors. It's like all the other makers are technology companies stuck in 1995 and unable to escape. 

Very astute analysis Chris, you hit the nail on the head. I like it.

[klunker]

 Mr. Goldbrick;

 You have stirred up the proverbial hornets nest and that is why you got stung an the arm yesterday.

I have very strong opinions about Minelab, good and bad, all derived from field experience and I will post a few of them here.

NOTE: I will self edit to save Mr. S.H. the trouble

When it comes to Minelab detector, I must say that XXXXXX  XXX XXXXXX XX XXXX XXXXXXX. And further more, XXXXXXXx XXXX

XXXXXXX XXX! So I firmly believe that they should XXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXX XX XXX  XX  XXXXXX XXXXXX< XXXX XXX XXX.

XXX XXX XXXXXXX XX?

 That being said, They still make the best detector for finding gold.