Big Five Now The Big Four - First Texas No Longer A Player?

[geof_junk]

More posts could be because you get more complaints than complements these days. So why is ML at the top is it because more variations of detectors.

[phrunt]

2 hours ago, geof_junk said:

More posts could be because you get more complaints than complements these days. So why is ML at the top is it because more variations of detectors.

or more complaints 😛

 

[dig4gold]

The Minelab posts were most likely the number of disgruntled buyers of the GPX 6000 & its issues & Minelabs total lack of engaging.

D4G

[palzynski]

4 hours ago, dig4gold said:

The Minelab posts were most likely the number of disgruntled buyers of the GPX 6000 & its issues & Minelabs total lack of engaging.

D4G

I agree,  there are probably more XP users than ML users in Europe for example 

 

[abenson]

20 hours ago, Tom Slick said:

I'm thinking forum counts don't mean squat. Garrett probably sells more detectors than any other? The folks that buy the best performing and most expensive detectors are always looking to improve and visit the forums seeking answers. The Garrett folks for the most part just buy the detector and use it occasionally or set it in the closet. JMHO ( the only one that counts)

Around here I see most people using Whites and Minelab machines. Garrett never really went over big in my state. Most people at the club I belong to still use Whites machines but are slowing moving over to other brands, now that they are forced to.

[Tom Slick]

Its funny how different detector are popular based on location. When I lived near Dallas Texas 20 years ago there were lots of Troy and Garretts used but of course that's Garrett's home turf.  In So. Cal. it was mostly Fisher, and White's in the 80's & 90's. Of course back then there wasn't Xp, Minelab, or Makro/Nokta. I was a White's dealer in the 80's - 90's but I also sold other brands but White's were by far my biggest seller. Being in so. Cal, I belonged to about five different clubs back then. I sold a number of Tesoro's, and Compass also but Troy, Nautilus, and Teknetics were just about unheard of there. 

 

[phrunt]

NZ is Minelab territory, I would say mainly because Minelab come out at reasonable prices.  Nokta never had their Legend price advantage here with it being the same price as an Equinox.   We had a First Texas dealer when I started detecting here a couple of years ago, but the detectors were insanely priced, a F75 or Gold Bug Pro costing more than a Nox 800, it's no wonder they didn't survive.  Garrett are another example of extremely overpriced in our market with the Garrett AT Gold for example being about a hundred more expensive than an Equinox 800 and the AT Max being the price of the Equinox 900.  The original XP Deus has had a massive price slash lately to be Nox pricing, the Deus 2 is Manticore pricing.

No other brand is putting any effort into pricing to even be competitive to Minelab for largely lessor products, the problem gets even worse at entry level pricing where Minelab shows them who's boss.  It's lucky Minelab exist here or detecting would be a very expensive hobby for not so great detectors.

[Steve Herschbach]

Alaska was “White’s country” up until recently, with quite a few Fishers and some Minelab. Now it’s pretty strongly Minelab territory.

[geof_junk]

The best brand is dependent on what it is used for, how it is used, and who it is used by.  AND COST.

[dig4gold]

From my personal experience Minelab make the best gold detectors hands down. Based on our mild ground conditions here in NZ for me anyway. From the vlf gold monster to the high end PI's. The GP & GPX models with the huge amount of available coils of all shapes & sizes from not only minelab but after market as well made these detectors suit every detecting situation possible. The end user had a huge range of settings at their disposal as well to suit what the ground conditions threw at them once they got their heads around the settings. No easy task.

Minelabs business model of "trying" to lock up the available coils for later models threw a spanner in the works. None more so than with the GPZ 7000. The availability of coils from ML, or lack of, severely hog tied many of us that had got use to the amount of coils we could plug & play with from the earlier PI's. The smallest offering from ML for the GPZ was the 14". Not good enough considering the many places you just couldn't swing that coil. The promise too from ML that they would make a 10" never came to the table. Took an after market crowd to do what we thought would/could never happen... happen. But the fallout from that was huge but twisted ML's hand to allow an aftermarket coil manufacturer to play the game. Same with the GPX 6000. We now have after market choices for that too, & I believe only because the first aftermarket coils for the GPZ 7000 crowd had made a coil too for the 6000.

The 6000 is a great detector once you get the bugs ironed out. Took ML a while to come to the party with that too, but they did under warranty & kudos to them for that.

D4G