Metal Detector Arms Race

Like any company and any product the bottom line is profit from having enough sales.

If you had a company you would likely be trying to come up with (hopefully) better products every so often and marketing campaigns that will get the attention of potential buyers.

To us it is a hobby, to them it is a business that needs to maintain sales to survive.

(not saying that people who run those companies might not be detectorists also)

Companies see what gave them success in the past and repeat it in hopes of continued success.

Now having said that, with the fantastic level of detectors now available you would hope a company could survive on just continuing to sell the great detectors they already have on the market without feeling the need to come out with a "new and improved" model so often.

The AtPro was a winner right out of the gate...the first adopters were active posters and hunters and finders...Who needs a rig good to 250' depth? So it fit the waders niche along with the general populace dirt hunters.... I hung back for a few years and watched the posts before I bought one...Then, one day, after yet another noob found a massive gold ring in the water...I whipped out my CC and pulled the trigger and ordered one from a Forum Sponsor...and the thing did indeed pay for itself in very short order and threw off a massive profit....

I had illusions the NOX 800 to be such a rig, replacing both my AtPro and my F70 in one sveldt package, but for me it proved to be too complicated...For all its various faults, The Pro simply slams on gold, including chains..The F70 (Patriot) is about the most ergonomic money making dirt quick broom out there..with all its strengths, it got no love on the marketing rollout, hence its a 'sleeper' ....

The NOX series hit with big marketing hype, and theres some great results coming in, so it does indeed work as promised, if you are a rocket scientist, cause it aint a rig for a noob at all, not properly set up anyway......but I gotta think if theres a more successful marketing rollout on a rig like the AtPro had, broad spectrum, All Weather and all terrain, mid priced...that would be very unusual, especially since Tesoro took a dump......

So nine years have passed and it is still being purchased by newbies.

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Newbies don't buy the AT Pro, they buy the Ace 250. You sure spend a lot of time hyping Minelab and trashing the AT Pro. Time to give your Minelab rah-rah posts a rest.

Makro Nokta puts out a repackaged unit every couple of months

Mud-puppy said:

The AtPro was a winner right out of the gate...the first adopters were active posters and hunters and finders...Who needs a rig good to 250' depth? So it fit the waders niche along with the general populace dirt hunters.... I hung back for a few years and watched the posts before I bought one...Then, one day, after yet another noob found a massive gold ring in the water...I whipped out my CC and pulled the trigger and ordered one from a Forum Sponsor...and the thing did indeed pay for itself in very short order and threw off a massive profit....

I had illusions the NOX 800 to be such a rig, replacing both my AtPro and my F70 in one sveldt package, but for me it proved to be too complicated...For all its various faults, The Pro simply slams on gold, including chains..The F70 (Patriot) is about the most ergonomic money making dirt quick broom out there..with all its strengths, it got no love on the marketing rollout, hence its a 'sleeper' ....

The NOX series hit with big marketing hype, and theres some great results coming in, so it does indeed work as promised, if you are a rocket scientist, cause it aint a rig for a noob at all, not properly set up anyway......but I gotta think if theres a more successful marketing rollout on a rig like the AtPro had, broad spectrum, All Weather and all terrain, mid priced...that would be very unusual, especially since Tesoro took a dump......

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I couldn’t have said it better myself...Somehow Mud you got a way with words that are always spot on.
Not sure where the info is coming from that the at pro sales are suffering from the equinox being released ,but even if this is true Garrett made so much loot in 9 years of selling the at pro they’re probably just swimming in it.
As for the simplex,my opinion is that machine is aimed at the whole market....no one cares about the ace series machines,I agree they’re a thing of the past.But if that simplex is like I saw in the videos I can’t see anyone paying double for a equinox,at pro,f75 or anything else..I wouldnt

FreeBirdTim said:

Newbies don't buy the AT Pro, they buy the Ace 250. You sure spend a lot of time hyping Minelab and trashing the AT Pro. Time to give your Minelab rah-rah posts a rest.

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And a person couldn't say the same thing about you. Time to give your anything but Nox rah-rah a rest. It sure didn't take long for this thread to devolve to the normal anti-the other guy's detector tirades. Go back and read the original post, slowly this time, and then try to stay on track with a response.

Sorry, the OP doesn't tell me what to do. He constantly starts threads about the NOX and Minelab and it's getting old. Calling the AT Pro a detector for "newbies" was an insult to all AT Pro users.

I may comment about the AT Pro, but I don't think I've ever started a thread about it. Go over his threads and you'll see at least a dozen touting or mentioning the Nox or Minelab. Give it a rest.

Chillforlife, I don't appreciate you sending me harassing messages. If you have a problem with me, state it here.

FreeBirdTim said:

Calling the AT Pro a detector for "newbies" was an insult to all AT Pro users.

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Yeah, but hat's not what he said. He said nine years after its release there are still people buying the at pro who are new to metal detecting. He didn't say it's made for newbies, or that only newbies should still use it, or even that it's the most popular detector for newbies.

All he said was newbies are still buying a detector that's 9 years old. That's true. That's a compliment, by the way, of the detector and Garret's marketing. There's no question that several years worth of popular YouTube videos has something to do with it. A friend of mine bought one as a first detector for that reason. People come on these discussions and ask about what detector to buy and the atpro has been recommended many many times if it's within their budget.

As for the topic at hand, I have a nox and an at pro. Used both today, found goodies with both, and plan to continue doing the same. I seriously doubt anything is going to hit the market anytime soon that replaces that duo in one detector and is under 1000 dollars. Either one is better at finding things than me or most people who use them.

FreeBirdTim said:

Chillforlife, I don't appreciate you sending me harassing messages. If you have a problem with me, state it here.

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Okay then, I thought private messages were meant to keep this forum from devolving into pi$$ing contests, but you asked for it. I believe your reading and comprehension skills are lacking based on your response to the original post and based on you claiming I sent you a harassing message. Now can we get back to the meat of this thread?

Ok... let me break you ladies up from your cat fight !!!
I have at one point owned and/or used every brand of detector out there after some 40 years. They all put out good detectors and a few bad ones. It's electronics. It's the name of the game. Makes no sense to me to knock one particular brand over another. I would think it's a personal preference due to cost and hunting styles.

With all that being said , I've been a big Whites guy for a long time. For beaches , they have had some awesome machines. But as of late , I kinda think they have fallen behind the 8-ball. Their older surfmasters , pi pro's, etc ...I think were better than what they have out now. The DF and TDI are great machines , but they are lacking something that could be better. With other manufacturers technology , I feel that eventually Whites will be left behind. I sure hope not and that they step up there R&D.

For the sake of this discussion let's assume the arms race was started with the introduction of the Garret AT Pro. Why the Garrett AT Pro? Garrett's own web site has it coming out in 2010. I have been told that there was quite a bit of hype surrounding the announcement. So nine years have passed and it is still being purchased by newbies.

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Sorry, it's your reading comprehension skills that need a lot of work. The only detector he mentions in this quote is the AT Pro. I have placed the important part of his quote in bold. Read it slowly and maybe you'll be able to get the meaning of his post.

FreeBirdTim said:

Newbies don't buy the AT Pro, they buy the Ace 250. You sure spend a lot of time hyping Minelab and trashing the AT Pro. Time to give your Minelab rah-rah posts a rest.

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This newbie started with the ATPro, I wanted something that wasn't a toy and would last me a long time without having to upgrade, but didn't want to spend to much. The final decision was the Pro being waterproof. The detectors less than $200 seemed like toys and if I'm going to have to spend $3-400 on a detector it just made sense to pay a little more for one I could take with me on all my water hobbies. I'm sure a lot of newbies feel the same way. I honestly don't remember what I paid for my pro, if I wasn't happy with it I would definitely remember. I know it was a lot more than $300, it sounds like the Simplex has everything I wanted in a detector as a newbie and as the seasoned detectorist I have become. If the Simplex can get in the Bass Pro type box stores I think it will really shake up the entry level market. If it's any good. It will be interesting to see the real world reviews

.

Ok let me comment on my original post.

First of all I did not put Garrett AT Pro in bold anywhere in the quote.

In a lot of my other posts you will almost always find me saying good things about Garrett and the AT Pro. Why not, I found the AT Pro to be a great machine and I was very happy to have purchase one about 4 years ago. I also found first hand that Garrett's customer service was very good in all aspects.

The only think I remember saying I disliked about the AT Pro was that the cable connectors were a bear to line up for fear of bending the metal pins which I did on one occasion.

In a lot of my former posts you will find that I made quite a few mentions of how frustrated I was with the 800 for the first six months of owning it. I think I also mentioned I was ready several times to put it up for sale on eBay because I thought it was too much machine for me. At first I even thought it was broken because I didn't understand why it was so chatty.

I also have mentioned in many post this was not a fault of the 800's design, but my lack of general detecting theory knowledge and no experience of using a more sophisticated Minelab detector.

Yes the Equinox is more technologically advanced than the Garrett AT series. That is just a fact and that is exactly why I purchased the 800.

My points of my OP being that any metal detecting manufacturer that does not keep up with technology will lose that particular market of a model they neglect. In the technology field 9 years is way too long to wait for any major improvements in one of your star detectors. And no, I don't think that the AT Max is that type of improvement that Garrett needed to introduce.

Garrett can probably survive without the AT series improvements because The AT Pro still does what it was designed to do and I think they have a rather substantial presence in the military and security detector segments of this industry.

I see on a regular basis newbies to this and other forums having selected the AT Pro as their first detector. Not everyone jumps into the hobby at the low end of manufacturer's product line. A lot of people read these metal detector forums and ask questions before they decide which detector to buy and with some newbies price is not a major factor, but rather functionality is foremost in their mind. When newbies are going to spend many hours in a hobby I suspect newbies are just as interested in using the right detector as an experienced would the experienced hunter.

The other reason I picked Garrett and Minelab, I have owned both the AT Pro and the 800 and Garrett and Minelab are giants in our industry.

I don't mean to slight Whites, Fisher, or bounty hunters or other machines but I just have no real knowledge about those or any other detectors other than owning a Fisher gold bug and Fisher ID Edge many years ago.

The other reason is that I am interested in businesses and technology. I have seen many, many firms that were once leaders lose out because they went to sleep.

Xerox which owned all the patents to the Xerox Alto which was basically the mouse and graphic technology for the MacIntosh and let those slip through their fingers. The executives at Xerox didn't think the Alto was important. Boy Steve Jobs thought it was mind blowing important and he was right. Where is Xerox today? The CPM personal computer operating system which dominated until Microsoft introduced MS-DOS and Windows and CPM ceases to exist except in computer museums. At the time Microsoft was a very tiny company of not more than 30 people. The same can be said about DEC or Digital Equipment Corporation that dominated the mini-computer revolution and scoffed at the IBM PC. DEC no longer exists. Same for mini-computer manufacturer Data General. There are many, many more examples of big firms ignoring technology and competition. Our auto industry is a huge example of this and how they lost their leading position to the Japanese.

Intel still dominates because Intel is always making its previous latest hottest PC microprocessor obsolete every year or less. And that is not cheap to accomplish, it was very expensive to halt their multi-billion dollar fabrication plants to change over to new chips. Apple does the same with its iPhones. Either you obsolete your own technological product on a very short product life cycle or a new competitor will and take sales away from your aging product line.

So no, I am absolutely not picking on Garrett. I am just wondering when they will realized that they could lose their market position in the Ace and AT Pro line. Surly some executive at Garrett either recognizes that fact or has decided to ignore that fact of technological advancement drives the current market for metal detectors. I really don't have a clue why that have not introduced a real advanced replacement to the AT series of detectors.

As far as dropping some of my posts topics, I have two reasons for dropping or forgetting a topic. 1) the moderators have told me to drop a line of questioning or 2) when I see there are very few views or replies which tells me no one is interested in that particular topic. The former happened once when my humorous analogy got too close to the sexual content limit the mods had set. The later more than a few times.

maxxkatt said:

Ok, some rules on this discussion. Let's try to keep it away from my detector is better than your detector. I know that will be hard for all of us.

When did it start? Who Started it?

For the sake of this discussion let's assume the arms race was started with the introduction of the Garrett AT Pro. Why the Garrett AT Pro? Garrett's own web site has it coming out in 2010. I have been told that there was quite a bit of hype surrounding the announcement. So nine years have passed and it is still being purchased by newbies.

There probably have been other manufacturers in the past that have launched their great next detector, I just am not familiar with them.

Now we have the Equinox series and not only a little over a year and a half later the Simplex is ready for pre-order.

It appears to me that since the introduction of the Equinox detectors the detector arms race is really heating up. We go from the AT Pro to the really next big thing with the Equinox 9 years later and to the Simplex+ from the Equinox in a little over a year. What is next and how soon?

I am sure dealers like Kellyco are just loving this arms race. It is great for their business. So we have Equinox eating away at the Garrett AT series and the Simplex+ eating away at the Ace and AT. I think the Equinox is safe from the Simplex+ due to the Simplex+ lack of multi-IQ frequencies and multiple individual frequencies you can select to use.

I wonder which other major manufacturer will respond and when and how.

Can Garrett afford to not innovate and give up on the ACE and AT line? Maybe.

Can First Texas afford to not innovate and give up on entry level machines? I doubt it.

It will be very interesting which major metal detector manufacturer strikes back next.

Opinions welcome.

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the simplex is "happening'',but it's going to really tighten up when the "turks" release the "multi-freak" simplex which, i believe will be "hot" on the a*s of the
standard simplex. (hot damn!) you just "know" THAT is the next step! give the public a "choice" right away, why wait! shoot out between the aussies and the turks! look out! run and hide! hooooo rahhh!..i'm just sayin'

(h.h.!)
j.t.

In before the lock...

maxxkatt said:

Ok, some rules on this discussion. Let's try to keep it away from my detector is better than your detector. I know that will be hard for all of us.

When did it start? Who Started it?

For the sake of this discussion let's assume the arms race was started with the introduction of the Garrett AT Pro. Why the Garrett AT Pro? Garrett's own web site has it coming out in 2010. I have been told that there was quite a bit of hype surrounding the announcement. So nine years have passed and it is still being purchased by newbies.

There probably have been other manufacturers in the past that have launched their great next detector, I just am not familiar with them.

Now we have the Equinox series and not only a little over a year and a half later the Simplex is ready for pre-order.



It appears to me that since the introduction of the Equinox detectors the detector arms race is really heating up. We go from the AT Pro to the really next big thing with the Equinox 9 years later and to the Simplex+ from the Equinox in a little over a year. What is next and how soon?

I am sure dealers like Kellyco are just loving this arms race. It is great for their business. So we have Equinox eating away at the Garrett AT series and the Simplex+ eating away at the Ace and AT. I think the Equinox is safe from the Simplex+ due to the Simplex+ lack of multi-IQ frequencies and multiple individual frequencies you can select to use.

I wonder which other major manufacturer will respond and when and how.

Can Garrett afford to not innovate and give up on the ACE and AT line? Maybe.

Can First Texas afford to not innovate and give up on entry level machines? I doubt it.

It will be very interesting which major metal detector manufacturer strikes back next.

Opinions welcome.

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Sorry to have been part of hijacking your thread Maxx, but I get really frustrated with people who want to take every thread personal that doesn't follow lockstep with their opinion.

As to your original post, I think it's pretty much correct except that I think you left out the effect that the Deus had on the detector market. I think it was the next real step up from the ATPro. I haven't used the Deus, but I've held it and the thing that jumped out at me was the build quality. And, by most reports it really performs. I believe it was the Deus that forced Minelab to develop the Nox and a fair amount of people think the Nox performs better than the Deus. That seems arguable at this point however both seem to be good machines. IMO if Minelab had made the Nox a more substantially built machine, it would have taken a much bigger bite out of the Deus market. I think I'd be driving a Nox right now if I wasn't so concerned about it's durability. I'll make that decision in a couple of months when the final grades have been posted on the Nox and when I'm able to know whether my body will hold up to this sport.

As to the next rocket in the arms race, I'm glad to see the focus being more on technology and ergonomics. I think as the older generation who wasn't as tech savvy passes the torch onto younger minds, I think we'll see machines that are faster, lighter and that will have many more hunting options. And who knows, maybe there will be a major technological breakthrough that will change the whole hobby. And maybe open up those spots that have been hunted out by the ATPro, Deus or Nox.

First of all, IMHO, I'll agree with the sentiment that the OP likes pumping the NOX. I've seen it on other threads. I'm not sure why, and don't care why, but I do find it mildly annoying. I came to that conclusion independently and before this thread. I'm not sure the point of pumping a particular make unless you work for Minelab and have an economic interest in their success, but whatever. JMO. (One would think one would do the opposite; what is to be gained by telling your competition what the best machine is? The silvers are being pulled, and they ain't coming back. Let your competition learn on their own. I certainly don't mind being helpful to newbies, but I don't divulge all my secrets).

So, I'll chime in with a gentle "stop pumping the NOX" request. Some here are growing weary of it. We know you have a NOX, and think it is wonderful. Move on, that fact is uninteresting.

Second, I'm not sure of the overall point of the thread. "Innovate or die" has been the rule since the first stone tool was invented. It is no different in the detector business, and it certainly didn't start with Garrett and the AT Pro. Anyone remember when the introduction of the DD coil was a big deal, for example?

Third, IMHO, the juice has pretty much been squeezed from the VLF orange. I think these new machines are finding a handful of coins on the margin not because they are better, but because they are different. Run any new or different machine in a hunted out park, and you will find silvers the previous folks missed simply because the signal processing is different. A particular coin at a particular angle next to a particular piece of trash will be missed forever until ice or rodents push it around, or a new signal processing algorithm comes along. But, I guarantee you that new algorithm will miss other things the incumbent machines will find. The thing is, they have already found it. I think that is what is being seen, but we'll see. I have on my list for next year some unbiased comparisons of several machines to determine if they are actually better.

Mutli frequency was a big deal, and people, including myself, were pulling silvers out of hunted out parks by the wheelbarrow full. But multi frequency was forever ago as these things go. Nothing new under the sun in the VLF world IMHO, different signal processing, faster processors, but no paradigm shift like the DD coil or FBS.

So, what is really next? Who knows, but the root problem with VLF technology, IMHO, as the deeper you go, you simply can't overcome the ambient mineralization (note that both DD and FBS were invented to attack this problem). NOX may find a silver next to a nail (so will the E-Trac, if you know what you are doing; you should see the number of rust-stained silvers I've found), but is any new VLF machine addressing the mineralization problem in a new way?

I don't think so, because VLF by its very nature is hamstrung by it.

So, IMHO, to try to answer the OP's question, the arms race will be furthered by non VLF technology in consumer machines. I'm thinking sonar (think ultrasound), but it could be anything. I'm an economist, not a physicist but have some background in physics, so I know enough to sound like an idiot to those who really know their stuff

We'll see, but I don't think VLF will ever find half dimes at 12 inches, but I think they are down there, and I think a technology that is not hounded by mineralization will find them.

Whites and Garrett need to come up with something quick, and it can't be a repackaged AT Pro Or MXT... They are SEVERELY in the stone age, they need to adapt to the world around them. Im talking waterproof, wireless, multifrequency, salt water, ergonomics, etc...
Most know I love my Garrett AT gold, its my go to machine aside with the old Explorer, but with the simplex coming out, Why buy a Garrett ace and find stuff 4-6" deep when you can buy a WATERPROOF simplex and find stuff a foot deep? Same goes for the beginner/mid range whites machines. Not to mention its already giving the nox a run for its money. Just my opinion, FWIW. Good luck and happy hunting!