The Minelab X-Terra Elite

[Lynk]

Minelab's site shows fourteen VLF detectors, not including "packs".  That seems like a lot of models where the differences can become very nuanced. The company feels a bit unfocused. 

[GB_Amateur]

5 hours ago, Noah (FL) said:

(EDITED) The guy from Iffysignals youtube channel said these coils won’t work on the Equinox.  Minelab played another coil chip trick to limit compatibility.

They said the Elite can use Equinox coils.  I wonder if the Elite coils will work with the equinox??  I love a 5x8!

Are these the same coils that work on the X-Terra Pro?  (They sure look the same to my eye.)

Other than coil compatibility, couldn't they have just called this the Equinox 500?

Afterthought:  There is one thing this mid-priced detector has that its more expensive brethren don't:

[AirmetTango]

8 hours ago, Lynk said:

Minelab's site shows fourteen VLF detectors, not including "packs".  That seems like a lot of models where the differences can become very nuanced. The company feels a bit unfocused. 

Ok, I’ll play devil’s advocate. I count 20 VLFs on Nokta’s site…what’s your point about focus again??

Mini Hoard

Midi Hoard

Gold Kruzer

Gold Finder 2000

Impact

1st Swing

Legend

Simplex Lite

Simplex BT

Simplex Ultra

Score 

Double Score

Triple Score

FindX

FindX Pro

Invenio

Invenio Pro

Deep Hunter 3D

Jeohunter 3D Dual System

Jeohunter Basic System

Maybe you can take one of the Jeohunters, a FindX, an Invenio, and two Simplexs off the list and call them “variants”, but that’s still 15 individual VLFs. 

Do you want to take a couple Scores off the list? Nokta just made a pretty big deal about the Triple Score, though.

Don’t kill the advocate…I’m just counting machines on a web page, just like you.

 

[AirmetTango]

11 hours ago, Luis said:

It's simply a stripped down Equinox 600 and adding some standard options.  Honestly a little disappointed

I’ll play devil’s advocate again - it can be argued that the Triple Score is just a stripped down Legend…why isn’t that disappointing?

[Lynk]

28 minutes ago, AirmetTango said:

Ok, I’ll play devil’s advocate. I count 20 VLFs on Nokta’s site…what’s your point about focus again??

 

It's a fair point and, as you show, it seems Nokta has the same issue. The global metal detection total addressable market (TAM) is small at only $1.6 billion in 2023 per this report:  https://www.360iresearch.com/library/intelligence/metal-detector

That includes consumer, government, and specialty.  It is tiny. 

Every product line will have some fixed cost and require a variable amount of resources from management, engineers, marketing, etc.  With a small TAM there are fewer resources to allocate to each product, which also means fewer resources for quality control and R&D.  The smart phone market is much, much larger and how many iPhone models does Apple have? 

To keep the thread on topic, the X-Terra Elite seems like a very incremental product and it's not clear what market niche it addresses that isn't already served by other Minelab products. Ultimately, the lack of differentiated products will tend to confuse consumers. It seems we have been a bit confused here and this is group of enthusiasts who can parse out technicals and features much better than the average consumer. 

[Jeff McClendon]

The X-Terra Elite is what the Vanquish models and the X-Terra Pro and the Equinox 600 (as far as a decent shaft system and decent waterproofing) should have been. It basically clears up the confusion for any loyal Minelab user that cares to look carefully at those models and their strengths and weaknesses. Aside from the 4 digit notching instead of the 600 and 700's single digit notching, it's basically a 700 that comes with different stock coils, light grey molded plastic trim and plastic shafts.

It also appears to finally be a worthy improvement/replacement for the original X-Terra series.

[phrunt]

I'm a bit annoyed by all of this, to keep up with the competitors flooding the market with numerous low-end models in their race to the bottom then being forced to also release similar low-end models to stay competitive its taking their focus away from producing detectors I might want to buy 🙂

Great for consumers though with better and better cheap detectors, what a great time to get into detecting, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with these cheaper models, no doubt they're fantastic but when you have the best of the best, these are not of much interest.    In fact, many of these cheap models now are better than many of the top-of-the-line models of a few years ago.

[Guinea1]

This German video shows the new Minelab X-Terra Elite going over some freshly buried targets.  The multi setting seems to be just as jumping as the original X-Terra Pro in single frequency.  It’s definitely exciting times to be just getting into the hobby, as the performance of these newly released detectors would have cost a small fortune not so long ago!

 

[AirmetTango]

11 hours ago, Lynk said:

It's a fair point and, as you show, it seems Nokta has the same issue. The global metal detection total addressable market (TAM) is small at only $1.6 billion in 2023 per this report:  https://www.360iresearch.com/library/intelligence/metal-detector

That includes consumer, government, and specialty.  It is tiny. 

Every product line will have some fixed cost and require a variable amount of resources from management, engineers, marketing, etc.  With a small TAM there are fewer resources to allocate to each product, which also means fewer resources for quality control and R&D.  The smart phone market is much, much larger and how many iPhone models does Apple have? 

To keep the thread on topic, the X-Terra Elite seems like a very incremental product and it's not clear what market niche it addresses that isn't already served by other Minelab products. Ultimately, the lack of differentiated products will tend to confuse consumers. It seems we have been a bit confused here and this is group of enthusiasts who can parse out technicals and features much better than the average consumer. 

All really good points Lynk, and I believe it applies evenly to both Nokta and Minelab. In fact, I’m sure you’ve hit on the ultimate reason why we are seeing manufacturers starting to release a flurry of lower priced detectors and why the low to mid-range market is becoming a major battleground as the brands compete for market share. Yes, the TAM you mention is extraordinarily small for the hobby detector market - but if you dissect that TAM further, I’ll bet we’d find that the beginner/low-price market is the landslide majority of the sales within that TAM. I’m just making up numbers, but I’ll be willing to bet for every one of us “serious hobbyists” who buys a Legend or Equinox or Deus, there are a dozen or two or more junk machines bought, tried, and then live the rest of their days in a closest or basement (partially because of disappoint over poor performance). I think it’s clear by Nokta’s announcement yesterday that they intend to pursue that market more aggressively. The average Joe who is interested in trying the hobby is not knowledgeable about what brands are reliable (all detectors are the same, right?) - they are likely going to Amazon, searching for something generic like “best metal detector for adults”, and buying the $150 PANCKY “brand” or similar that pops up with 4-5,000 “stellar” 4.5 star reviews.  Try the search - it’s amazing the number of “NO NAME” metal detectors that pop up.

Anyways, yes, I agree the lack of real differentiation between various offerings will just lead ultimately to consumer confusion. It’s admirable that Nokta is looking to take on those cheap detectors, but I don’t expect they’ll make much headway against the flood of Chinese junk on Amazon. 

[Digalicious]

3 minutes ago, AirmetTango said:

I’m just making up numbers, but I’ll be willing to bet for every one of us “serious hobbyists” who buys a Legend or Equinox or Deus, there are a dozen or two or more junk machines bought, tried, and then live the rest of their days in a closest or basement (partially because of disappoint over poor performance).

Nailed it AT, but I'd be willing to bet that the "dozen or two" is more like "thousands". The vast majority who are curious but know nothing about detectors, will turn to Amazon for a looksy. Then they're taken in by detectors such as Pancky.

One of my other hobbies is Astronomy and the same thing occurs with telescopes. Newbies are taken in with ludicrous magnification numbers coupled with garbage telescopes. They buy one of those, realize they can't see s--t, then forget about the whole inquisitive endeavor.