Garrett Axiom Vs Minelab 6000

[VicR]

Their ex works cost out of Malaysia would be in US$ and they would ship to centralised warehouses around the globe - they would not ship to Australia then to the US - you would be just adding significant cost to the product with no added benefit - they would ship direct from Malaysia to US. Because they buy in US$ there would not be any exchange rate variation when selling into the US market - the exchange rate would only have an effect if Minelab wanted to convert money in their US$ account to Aussie $.

[Steve Herschbach]

Note - I’ve combined this thread with the other thread on the same subject.

On 6/1/2023 at 11:24 PM, jasong said:

I'm curious if the Axiom does this too behind the scenes, or it's true manual? It is manual when in manual, period.

The people like myself who love to ramble on about the tiny minutia of detectors and equipment all seem to be quiet on this release, to my frustration as I keep coming here hoping to see a nitty gritty comparison between the Axiom and the 6 and leaving hungry. 😄 If it was cheaper (like, market shakeup less expensive), or not such a potentially lateral move, I'd be tempted to do it myself just because I am missing having a detector I trust 100%. 

The question is skewed by the price difference in Oz and the US. I've been quite clear I think the 6000 has the edge for nugget detecting. The easy answer if they are the same price is get the 6000. It's the safe answer.

I have not used a 6000 in over a year now, and so getting into the nitty gritty versus the last build version of the Axiom is not really possible for me. I am satisfied to be using the Axiom and quite honestly I just don't care. I had a chance to pick up a 6000 for a song recently to maybe get into the question and passed. I don't need another detector for what I'm doing. Mainly I'd rather let truly unbiased end users speak to the situation given my involvement with Garrett and the Axiom. Plus these days I'd rather just go detecting than spend time in the field splitting hairs over detectors.

The interesting questions arise since the differential is small, and the Axiom does have features the 6000 lacks that might matter more in some situations, especially for non-nugget uses. Chase Goldman and the relic hunters in Virginia, for instance, have a whole different view point about the machine.

But again, at the same price, let's call it for the 6000 and nuggets. The big question for US users then - is the 6000 worth a 50% price premium over the Axiom? You Oz guys simply have a different situation and Minelab is a safe answer. Here in the US, it's not so simple. $4000 versus $6000 is a real and serious price difference and for some people it makes a genuine difference to consider. Is that $2000 worth it? That, my friends, is an interesting question, and one only answerable by the person involved. For casual users, maybe not. For very hard core users, probably. But that's as much as I intend on getting into it, as again, I think it's best for others with zero connections to industry or brand loyalties to speak to the issue.

It is a shame in one way though. If Garrett had come out with the Axiom a year before the 6000, instead of the other way around, it would have shook the detecting world. Honestly people, take the 6000 out of this equation, people would be falling all over themselves to get Axioms, even in Oz. Minelab simply beat Garrett to the punch, and in doing so stole the wind from their sails. But that does not take away from what Garrett has done here, which in my opinion is be the first US manufacturer to make a PI nugget worth mentioning as a real option for at least some people to that offered by the Minelab monolith.

[1515Art]

I have both and they are more alike than they are different both are lite weight and easy to swing all day long, my time using the new Axiom is  limited so I’ll limit my comments on performance to the fact they both hit on the tinniest of targets, the 6000 is ahead for now in the search coil selection but the 6000 coils I believe are chipped the Axiom I’m actually not certain but I think are not time will tell if the Aftermarket coils for the Axiom get an advantage but not yet, the iron check and display may give the Axiom an advantage but I have not used it enough to understand what it is telling me enough to trust this feature but over time I hope to. I did get a chance to operate the Axiom in an extreme environment  looking for meteorites in a dry salty lake bed where I’m told metal detectors are seldom used if ever due to the salty ground a visual identification method and a magnet stick is the preferred collection method. Trying the Axiom in salt mode to my surprise it handled the conditions with ease. Firing the Axiom up first time in the salt I doubted it would be effective but there was just the slightest groan swinging the coil side to side and in less than a minute it hit on a target not a meteorite but a fine 1” long piece of wire it will identify targets in these conditions. Next I set a .3g test nugget on the dry salty lake bed and the signal air testing was as clear in salt mode as it was in fine mode in the gold placer. I was focused on finding a meteorite in a area I’d never before hunted and not comparison testing so never tried the 6000 but think it would have struggled as the fine, normal and large Axiom modes all overloaded blanking out trying to hear a target in these conditions. I hunted a few hours digging a couple dozen targets mostly bullets along with the assorted bullet shells and tiny pieces of wire a few of the 22 slugs were 4 to 5 inches deep hit loud and would have been detectable deeper I’m sure and there is little doubt it will if id put the Axioms coil over one I’d hear it but I was just not in the right area.

[Gold Catcher]

On 3/8/2023 at 10:16 PM, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

Axiom also for use in more surface iron infested grounds using DD discrimination. One year more warranty on 6000 though.

How would you rate the PI discrimination compared to VLF discrimination? I always thought that if discrimination at all then better with VLF.

GC

[phrunt]

2 hours ago, 1515Art said:

The 6000 is ahead for now in the search coil selection but the 6000 coils I believe are chipped the Axiom I’m actually not certain but I think are not time will tell if the Aftermarket coils for the Axiom get an advantage but not yet

Yes the 6000 is chipped in an annoying difficult way that makes it not overly viable even for the aftermarket that normally bypass chips to bother selling coils for it, open heart surgery to remove the chip from every owners coil doesn't really work, it's asking a bit much.   Perhaps as coils start to get out of warranty and continue on their path of failure outside of warranty people might be more interested in getting them hacked up and then it may make more sense to expand the coil range available.

The Axiom is most certainly not security chipped and with any luck Detech bring their coils to market, they've said they will be and they make a great range of coils that may bring quite a lot to the Axiom.  Who knows who else might jump onboard with coils seeing they are not chipped!

Once the Axiom has some coils from other manufacturers it would be interesting then to see the performance differences between the two detectors in different areas and types of detecting, sometimes these aftermarket people can make superior coils to the standard coils, more often than not they do.  The 6000 has that already although other than quality and some stability issues the 11" stock 6000 coil is fantastic, the Axiom is still playing catch up with coils although has a good range right from the factory.

I do hope Garrett are just testing the waters in Australia/NZ with their pricing, it's still priced too high here I think, mainly because we can see the price the US get it for which if we do a simple currency conversion turns into $6000 AUD.  At this price it would be far more appealing than the $7400/7500 price it seems to retail for which is only a few hundred dollars cheaper than the trusted by locals home brand Minelab which if we bargain with our dealers we can likely get the 6000 at the Axiom price anyway so that's a big ask to sell many Axioms in that situation.  I understand they have development costs to recoup but they're not going to do that barely selling detectors, price them right and they will sell.  Price them too high and people will always take the trusted local brand route that everyone else around them is using regardless of it's quality issues, it's all warranty anyway and Minelab genuinely do have very good warranty, much like I hear Garrett does.  People in the US are lucky with their Garrett pricing and it makes for a good opportunity to get a great detector at a good price with the Axiom, that's what I hoped Garrett were going to do worldwide, start a price war and bring these prices down a bit, it may end up Nokta doing that which is what they do best anyway.

[jasong]

4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

It is a shame in one way though. If Garrett had come out with the Axiom a year before the 6000, instead of the other way around, it would have shook the detecting world. Honestly people, take the 6000 out of this equation, people would be falling all over themselves to get Axioms, even in Oz. Minelab simply beat Garrett to the punch, and in doing so stole the wind from their sails. But that does not take away from what Garrett has done here, which in my opinion is be the first US manufacturer to make a PI nugget worth mentioning as a real option for at least some people to that offered by the Minelab monolith.

Do you think Garrett is done with the top tier gold machines now, out of curiosity? I don't know if it's feasible due to patents, but given what seems like inordinate delays from the last GPZ release, seems like Garrett could have a chance to beat Minelab to the punch with a lightweight GPZ competitor that many of us have been waiting ages for, and thus holding off purchases of a more lateral move like the Axiom. 

I guess maybe another problem is there isn't enough money in it with nugget depletion's inexorable march forward though to justify the R&D though even if it were feasible?

[phrunt]

I doubt Minelab will be in a rush to release any more high end gold detectors, the African market which was their biggest and the reason for the GPX 6000s design in the first place has fallen off a cliff and unlikely to ever be what it was again  I think it will be many years until we see another Minelab nugget machine in the high end, they'll release a GM1500 Multi IQ+ at some point but I can't see a GPZ replacement anytime soon.   Sales of the 6000 have not been what they hoped, far from it.  Local demand from Australia has been quite good although a smaller market but African sales which are the ones they wanted have been poor.

A lighter GPZ with similar performance would be another GPX 4800, no real need for it, people won't pay $10,000 for a lighter detector to the one they already own and use.  New sales of these high end detectors to people that have never had one wouldn't justify development costs.

VLF coin and "treasure" detectors are where the money is now.

So that doesn't play well for Minelab, however for Garrett they have an opportunity, they can continue to develop the Axiom, get it ahead of the 6000 in every way possible and have the market leading PI machine.  It gives them an opportunity to over-take.

[Steve Herschbach]

2 hours ago, jasong said:

Do you think Garrett is done with the top tier gold machines now, out of curiosity?

No. Not just success but survival means getting on a faster product cycle just like we see with other manufacturers. The sit on old product for a decade formula does not work any longer. But in my opinion it is multifrequency Garrett needs to get serious about and fast, as they are left in the dust on that at the moment. The Axiom 2 can come later.

[jasong]

3 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

No. Not just success but survival means getting on a faster product cycle just like we see with other manufacturers. The sit on old product for a decade formula does not work any longer. But in my opinion it is multifrequency Garrett needs to get serious about and fast, as they are left in the dust on that at the moment. The Axiom 2 can come later.

From what I gather reading posts on some of the other subforums - don't most people feel SMF VLF's have sort of already reached a wall? I have to admit my ignorance here as I just don't follow them very closely. But I'm curious if there is much room for expansion there if it's already a mature, crowded product space?

A lightweight GPZ competitor for an affordable price would have no rivals or peers though. Granted, probably a much smaller potential customer base though. But the space is wide open right now due to Minelab's delay - same as it was pre-6000. 

I'm of course biased because these gold detectors account for like 95% of my detecting currently so I definitely want to see new ones even though I know the market for other stuff is better. And I understand coins/relics are a much, much larger market. But it seems like the time is kinda now or never for a competitor looking to enter the scene for something like a GPZ competitor? We aren't quite at the wall yet here as there are some easy improvements to make that ML declined to do on their own (coils, weight, namely). I am struggling to justify trying a $4k Axiom since I already own a GPZ and 6000, but I'd probably hop right onto a $6k lightweight ZAxiom. If another GPZ comes out first though - I'll be right back to where I am now struggling to justify trying one. 

[mn90403]

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

People in the US are lucky with their Garrett pricing and it makes for a good opportunity to get a great detector at a good price with the Axiom, that's what I hoped Garrett were going to do worldwide, start a price war and bring these prices down a bit,

There is a little bit of a different market channel offered in the U.S. from the GPAA.  I don't know how successful it has been but a few years back if you paid for a Lifetime Membership they gave a GM 1000 as a bonus.  There were some other combinations of this leading up to the present.  Now if you buy an Axiom you get a Lifetime Membership ... or at least it was.

I don't know what the relative number of units are or the number of members of GPAA but it is a channel of potential significance.  Most of the people in that club and many of the others I belong to haven't upgraded their detectors in years.