Did The Vortex Release Meet Your Requirements?

[Tony]

Coil prices will be an interesting topic. There must be a good margin on coils....bit like video game consoles where companies don't make much profit on the consoles but do very nicely on the game sales.

The coil price / detector price ratio will be revealed shortly I'm guessing.....if they're too expensive then all of a sudden you might grab an extra coil or two and find yourself spending the initial detector outlay again.

Then again......no one has to buy another coil or even spend more on platform upgrades if the lower models fill your needs.

I think Garrett have launched a model that should capture a wide audience and I hope they do really well.

Pricing down here in Australia and NZ will likely be ridiculous.....yes it's a small market for Garrett but every sale counts surely.

I wish Garrett USA would just sell directly to Australia and bypass the official Garrett dealer down here (sorry if that sounds harsh).....they would make more money !

As for the Vortex pricing structure.......very sharp and reasonable. I think Garrett gave this area some considerable attention.

[palzynski]

Unless the Vortex shows better perfos ( depth , separation ) than its competitors in the field, I will not order one at the moment .

Mainly for "mechanical reasons" : first the Raider stock coil. The Vortex will be front heavy with it and I dont want to spend more money to buy an other coil like the Ripper.  Second I dont like the shaft . 

Apart from this I like the Vortex electronics and CB  . I like the European 🙂 THIN COINS mode too. 

Looking fwd to the field tests though ...

 

 

[DSMITH]

here is something that no one that is disappointed about the out come of this new Vortex is thinking about

I remember back when the Legend was released to us all, I recall a lot of people making comments that Nokta could not come in with a detector at the price point Nokta/Macro brought it out at, that would compete or equal the Nox 600 or 800, people were saying it could not compete with the likes of the Equinox 600 and 800 what happened Nokta/Macro brought out the Legend at a price point that made the Mine Lab nox 800 and even the 600 look way over priced, not only that the Legend was not only cheaper but it also matched the performance of the Nox Line and still does, it is also competing rite there with the nox 900 in my opinion

I personally am feeling optimistic about the Vortex, I am hoping it will compete with the Likes of the Legend and the Nox series, do I think it will be on the same level as the Manticore or the D2 no I do not but if its close to the Nox Line, and the Legend or even a little better, I think it will be a win for Garrett and that is honestly how I am looking at this new Vortex, that it is going to surprise a lot of people, with its capabilities and performance

none of us will know until the Vortex gets into the hands of us users and the reports start coming back  

I will give the VX9 a try, when it is available

I do not need a detector to compete with the gold detectors I have I am set there with the Legend, Garrett 24K and the Garrett Axiom, and the ORX but I would like a different detector for some parks I detect and I think this Vortex VX9 will be that detector

One of the main reasons I will purchase this new Vortex is to show my support for one of the last two American metal detector manufacturers that's still alive and kicking  

[George Kinsey]

I'm in. Should not surprise anyone. 🙃

[Past Member]

4 hours ago, palzynski said:

 

 I like the European 🙂 THIN COINS mode too. 

I'm not certain but it seems TCM isn't a high weighted SMF mode. It looks like a discrimination mode that only allows high ferrous and low nonferrous. Plus, if there was a different weighted SMF mode, I think Garrett would have said so in the video, advertisements, specs, etc...but they didn't.

[Chase Goldman]

59 minutes ago, Digalicious said:

I'm not certain but it seems TCM isn't a high weighted SMF mode. It looks like a discrimination mode that only allows high ferrous and low nonferrous. Plus, if there was a different weighted SMF mode, I think Garrett would have said so in the video, advertisements, specs, etc...but they didn't.

I think you are right, Dig.  It seems to be more of a disc profile.  If it was another SMF mode I think it would be listed as such just like SMF and Multi-Salt.  In that case, it might have been called Multi-Mid or Multi-Relic or something like that.  That's one of the issues that makes comparing detectors difficult as the manufacturers interchange interchange terminology like mode and profile and it can mean different things on different detectors even within the same manufacturer's product lines.  Search Mode could refer to one of a number of SMF profiles, or discrimination profiles, or audio profiles (to emphasize or de-emphasize the volume or tone of certain regions such as ferrous or mid-conductors).  We need the manual and some field demonstrations to have a better idea of what thin coins means.

 

4 hours ago, DSMITH said:

I personally am feeling optimistic about the Vortex, I am hoping it will compete with the Likes of the Legend and the Nox series, do I think it will be on the same level as the Manticore or the D2 no I do not but if its close to the Nox Line, and the Legend or even a little better, I think it will be a win for Garrett and that is honestly how I am looking at this new Vortex, that it is going to surprise a lot of people, with its capabilities and performance

I agree with your sentiment here, except Garrett's timing sucks as Nokta and Minelab just announced/released the Triple Score and X-Terra Elite which are almost "Legend" and almost "Nox 700" respectively but at significantly lower price points than their "almost" cousins.  Vortex VX9 seems to fall squarely in the Triple Score and X-Terra Elite territory on paper specs (performance yet to be determined) and from a value standpoint (what you get for your $) Triple Score is less expensive by a little over $100US and comes with wireless phones and a small extra coil and Elite similarly can be purchased with a small extra coil and wireless phones at the same price point as the VX9.  So, on paper, Garrett put themselves right into the middle of a 3-way competition instead of carving out a value priced "almost" Leged/"almost" Nox 700 niche.

Now if Garrett can leverage their significant paid upgrade business model to enable users to upgrade to a VX11 that is at or above Legend/Nox capability with some killer feature (a more sophisticated display graphics implementation), then Garrett could really capture some attention.  That is what I am hoping for.  Garrett may not be innovating so much on the tech but if the innovation on the upgrade business model is successful, then that could change the way we buy detectors, with Garrett on the cutting edge of that.

So to answer the OP's question:

Garrett Vortex did not quite meet my expectations in terms of specs (5-Tones only audio is a miss), but it did meet or possibly exceed my expectations on introducing a new and interesting approach to detector upgrades.

[Past Member]

Garrett was in a tough position due to their much higher production costs compared to Minelab and Nokta.

The X-Terra Elite is a better deal than the Vortex, and the Triple Score with Legend hardware is a much better deal than both of them.



 

[Jeff McClendon]

Mr. Weaver said in an interview for the Apex that Multi-Flex was using frequencies higher than 20 kHz (highest user accessible single frequency) when using the Apex Multi setting. Otherwise, that was basically all of the information he was willing to give about Multi-Flex "secret sauce" other than Multi Salt.

He gave even less information about MD-MF during the Vortex release related to what is going on internally. He certainly did not and never has mentioned frequency weighting other than what has been said about the difference between Multi and Multi Salt.

Garrett has tended to not complicate audio settings. At least the 5 tones chosen for the Apex and the 3 and 5 tones chosen for the Vortex models make musical sense and are not blatantly dissonant. I wish they would consider a couple of extra audio choices like 1 tone and 2 tones along with a user accessible iron bias setting.  

Maybe that will happen later if we ask nice, repeatedly.

After Iffy Signals runs the Vortex through his nail vs coin challenge things could get interesting similar to the Nokta Score (fixed iron filter) vs Double Score (adjustable iron filter) and the early Legend iron filter setting conflict.

[Steve Herschbach]

17 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Maybe that will happen later if we ask nice, repeatedly.

Updates are certainly possible based on user commentary. Put me down for full tones.

 

18 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

After Iffy Signals runs the Vortex through his nail vs coin challenge things could get interesting similar to the Nokta Score (fixed iron filter) vs Double Score (adjustable iron filter) and the early Legend iron filter setting conflict.

Yeah, until real end users get their hands on these it's all blah blah blah. Luckily and surprisingly to me they will be shipping to dealers next month, so not long to wait.