Under 4 Pound, Under $2000 Gbpi Challenge

[Steve Herschbach]

I’m somewhat amazed that over six years after I issued this challenge, nobody has won the prize. If anything, we have gone backwards, since the White’s TDI took away a model that met the criteria but unfortunately lacked the horsepower. Among major manufacturers that leaves us with the new Garrett Axiom as being as close as we get. I’ll give them a win on the weight at a perfectly balanced 4.2 lbs. The SDC 2300 is currently the only other option, better on price, but horrible ergonomics.

This is where we are in 2023 as far as the challenge and the major producers:

Fisher - no ground balancing PI being offered

Garrett Axiom 4.2 lbs $3995

Minelab SDC 2300 5.7 lbs $3399

Nokta - no ground balancing PI being offered

XP - no ground balancing PI being offered

Axiom weight is good but price is still twice my targeted US$2000. It is therefore still an open challenge with only Fisher and Nokta in the running at this time. The Impulse Gold might get announced by the end of this year if we are lucky, and never if we are not. And we have no idea what the price will be. If the ergonomics match the Impulse AQ we will have a winner in that regard, but I’m worried Fisher will look at the Axiom and SDC price and come in at like $2995 just because they think they can. That would be a move in the right direction, but still too high. They are still selling the prototype Impulse AQ at $1700 though, so there is hope.

That leaves Nokta, but not a peep out of them on the subject since just over a year ago, when the detector was only in the pencil to paper planning stage. A year is not long enough to get a new detector done when starting from scratch, but maybe it’s possible by 2024.

Or does Minelab pull a “Xterra Pro” and head off everyone with a repackaged GPX 4500 for MSRP $2495 with an out the door price near $2000 ? It could happen, and Fisher and Nokta better get with the program or see this opportunity fade away. Me, I don’t care who does it, as long as it gets done. Until then I’ll use the Axiom as being as close as we can get at this time. It’s my way of supporting those who make progress to this under 4lb under $2K goal, and if anyone gets even closer I’ll look hard at using what they come up with instead. It merely need be as good as the Axiom, but at a lower price. Garrett met my minimum power needs, met the ergonomic challenge, but I’m disappointed at the price. That alone is keeping Garrett from selling the Axiom by the truck load.

Garrett Axiom, 4.2 lbs, $3995

[jasong]

At this rate, someone may end up stumbling into the prize "equivalent" just by inflation adjusted pricing, after enough time passes. According to BLS.gov $2000 in 2017 is now worth $2500 in 2023.

Of course, in 2017 the intrinsic value of a gold detector was also higher than it is right now since there was more gold left to find. So it still kinda feels like $2000 would be a correct value. 

[Steve Herschbach]

As the one setting the challenge I am offering no inflation adjustments.  My thinking is more that a very good VLF can be had for $1000 and a good PI should cost no more than twice that. People here tend to be made of money, but go to an average detector club meeting in the U.S. and tell the average user they should be spending $4000 for a metal detector! At $8000 they will think you are crazy. I am batting for the guy who is willing to invest in a couple good detectors and who thinks $3000 is more than enough to spend to get both a good VLF and a good PI. That's my personal goal also, to have just two or maybe three detectors at most that do all I need to do.

I am a technologist who thinks that technology generally means more power for the same or less outlay. That being the case I don't consider this a challenge really, just more a matter of time, and who will do it first. Competition and technology being what it is I think it is inevitable.

[KD8GIS]

What makes PI cost so much? Better plastic?   Electronics? Better diodes?  Resistors? (Made in China)  The programing of the software?  Or "Just because"?      Fair questions.  

[phrunt]

The lack of competition really.  You can get a home built PI kit for next to nothing, the price of a cheap VLF coil and make your own PI.  Just because it's a PI doesn't mean it has to be a $4000 USD or higher machine, it can be a VLF priced machine if the manufacturer wanted it to be and they'd still get reasonable profit.

Sure the batteries need to have a bit more juice, but really there is no excuse for the high pricing except for money grabbing and getting high profits because they can.  Garrett have made a big mistake in my opinion, they'll sell a trickle of Axioms at their current price especially outside of the US where they're priced even higher and far too high when they could sell them by the truckload if they halved the price, if people are using and enjoying them they will sell more and more of them as word gets around, selling so few isn't going to help that, especially when with so few being sold and multiple reports of faulty units from what appears to be a small pool of buyers it's not a good look.  It may not be reality and they are selling a lot of them and the faulty units are the squeaky wheel that you notice as the happy people remain quiet, but it is what you see happening.

People in Australia would really struggle to justify buying one at it's current price there, it makes no sense to do so other than to try another brand. 

Nokta may get past the post, it's disappointing for such a vocal company they've gone dead silent on the PI offering as that's a bit of a worry but maybe they don't want to let out any secrets, if anyone comes in at a good price it would be them. 

Fisher I believe have something special if they can get it past the post, weight, performance, everything is there they just need to get the product to market and come in at the right price, too high and they'll sit on the shelf next to the Axioms, price it right and people that otherwise may not buy a PI will buy it, along with many others.

[jasong]

Once you have dies or molds built already, and research done - nothing costs that much really. It's all arbitrary pricing, and price gouging in the case of $10,600 GPZ 7000's and $6000 GPX 6000's. They are obscenely overpriced. An updated, lightweight 5000 tossed into the existing 6000 form factor should cost about $1250-$1500 MSRP and still have enough profit for manufacturer and dealers to sell, using existing tooling.

Woody did a total cost breakdown video on a 4500, component by component (the newer 4500's supposedly were just 5000 boards with the numbers scratched off according to him), and I think it was like $150-$200 including aluminum case extrusions, or something like that, to manufacture. 

It doesn't help that in the US, a large amount of the buyers of these machines historically - at least from my observations in the field - are largely retired persons with a lot of disposable income and an attitude that price doesn't really matter if fun is being had (aka - the "fishing boat" analogy you can find posted in the past). I can't even count how many people I've met who've found maybe 1-2 ounces in their lives happily paid $10,000 for a GPZ with no expectations of paying it off. Combine that with the fact that a ton of people for whom price would matter are friends with dealers who give them very, very deep discounts - often at or near dealer cost, and so the complaining about price is largely reduced to a few people who don't have the disposable income, don't have dealer friends, or simply are tired of prices being ridiculously high on general principle. These people aren't numerous enough to force change. And there isn't enough competition to force change either. Thus - price gouging. 

[phrunt]

Steve makes a good point about the 4500, they could repackage that and head off any competition at the pass a bit like the X-Terra coming in to make the new Simplex rehashes redundant.   If they ever made a lightweight GPX 4500 in a modern new housing it would be a great seller if it was at the right price.

They could even trim the 4500's features down a bit seeing it's so close to the 5000 and come in at a really good price. 

I'm sure there are people at Minelab that's job is just this, trying to stay ahead of the competition in all areas.

I don't care who does it will benefit greatly from doing so, especially if it appeals to more than just the gold market.

[Gold Catcher]

One thing to consider is R&D cost that will go into the selling price, so it's not just raw materials. But then again it is the level of innovation that matters. Just using old technology repackaged should not require much R&D efforts, hence the price should reflect that accordingly So, the question is do we expect a lot of innovation from a 2k PI machine? I sure hope so, but it might not be competitive performance wise to the "latest and greatest" that's out there. But that's not a reason to dismiss it, it would be a great option for folks on a tight budget who would otherwise remain stuck in the VLF world.

GC

[phrunt]

Nokta did it with the Legend, a cut price Equinox but with better quality by far, and proper waterproofing.  I'm not sure if the Axiom is better quality than the 6000 but it would not be a hard thing to achieve.  It's Minelab's lemon when it comes to quality.  There can't be many people left now that haven't had to send theirs in for something.

R&D costs aren't recouped on small amounts of sales easily, they need volume to get R&D back and that's what happens when you sell a detector at the right price, again you can look to the Legend, Nox 800 sales must have slowed down a lot over the time they were out, the Legend which is basically a better clone of the Nox came out and sells like hot cakes and you can bet the Legend was selling more units than the Nox 800 up until the Nox 900 release. 

Garrett may struggle to get their R&D costs back until they adjust their pricing on the Axiom.  They need it to be a detector people want to buy, if they came out with the Axiom at $3000 Australian dollars (about $2000 USD) they'd sell so many of the things to people that never even considered these higher priced detectors even in Australia which would be their toughest market to crack I would think.  If they did cheaper like $2000 AUD they'd be a massive hit, the casual detetorist that tend to just try buy a Gold Monster and hope for the best would be all over them. 

The Axioms not taken off as it should have simply because they didn't do what Nokta would have, and come in at a cheap price and grab a large part of the market Minelab miss out on due to their ridiculous pricing.

I just hope Garrett are testing the market trying to get Minelab sky high prices and come back to reality when they see they're very overpriced.