CaballoDeOro
Full Member
- Jun 29, 2012
- 106
- 62
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Pro, Tesoro Cibola
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
I was listening to a metal detecting podcast this morning and my ears perked up when I heard the host mention the AT Pro. But then he said something to the tune of "you go out and buy a low-to-midrange detector like the AT Pro and you're just not going to find what you'll find with the Minelab CTX 3030 or the White's V3i. I'm not knocking the Garrett, I'm just saying that it won't find what you'll find with a higher end machine."
So there's a couple of problems I have with this, and it's something I've been thinking about quite a bit. On the one hand you have the school of "you get what you pay for." If that's 100% true, then the host is correct, and the $1,000+ machines will find more than the ~$600 AT Pro. On the other hand, you have companies that (understandably) use well-known marketing strategies to increase their sales. As Apple has demonstrated over the past decade, if you can convince people that your product is "premium," (and in some cases it really is) you can build in a higher profit margin.
For me, the AT Pro makes sense because I like to go in the water as much as I like to land hunt, and the combination of waterproof versatility, fast recovery and Pro mode audio is unbeatable at $600. I just can't see another machine out there that offers that combination at that price. I personally am not looking for another machine and don't expect to for quite a while.
But when the time does come for me to reevaluate all the detectors on offer, there is one thing that would really make my life easier. That would be a truly objective comparison of detectors across the all price ranges and across the major manufacturers. It would probably take a dealer to do it (because they would have access to most of the machines at the same time), but wouldn't it be fantastic if someone built a test garden with various targets buried at one-inch intervals between 5 and 16 inches and created a big chart that showed how each machine responded to large, medium and small targets at different depths and different metallic compositions? We have some comparison charts, but they are usually comparing one coil to another, or just one detector to another single detector. To be a truly informed customer I need a broad all-things-being-equal comparison to help me decide how much money is worth investing in my detector and which manufacturer is the lucky winner of my business.
I know there are a million variables involved with detecting and there would be limitations to this testing, but this kind of objective comparison would allow consumers to make more rational decisions about how much to spend. It would answer the questions we all have about whether more money always means more detector. It would also push the manufacturers to make even better machines at more affordable price points without quite so much mystery about which machine is right for you. Of course, some companies may not want that: many businesses rely on customers making irrational decisions based on marketing instead of product performance, quality and value.
Just some musings. What do you think?
So there's a couple of problems I have with this, and it's something I've been thinking about quite a bit. On the one hand you have the school of "you get what you pay for." If that's 100% true, then the host is correct, and the $1,000+ machines will find more than the ~$600 AT Pro. On the other hand, you have companies that (understandably) use well-known marketing strategies to increase their sales. As Apple has demonstrated over the past decade, if you can convince people that your product is "premium," (and in some cases it really is) you can build in a higher profit margin.
For me, the AT Pro makes sense because I like to go in the water as much as I like to land hunt, and the combination of waterproof versatility, fast recovery and Pro mode audio is unbeatable at $600. I just can't see another machine out there that offers that combination at that price. I personally am not looking for another machine and don't expect to for quite a while.
But when the time does come for me to reevaluate all the detectors on offer, there is one thing that would really make my life easier. That would be a truly objective comparison of detectors across the all price ranges and across the major manufacturers. It would probably take a dealer to do it (because they would have access to most of the machines at the same time), but wouldn't it be fantastic if someone built a test garden with various targets buried at one-inch intervals between 5 and 16 inches and created a big chart that showed how each machine responded to large, medium and small targets at different depths and different metallic compositions? We have some comparison charts, but they are usually comparing one coil to another, or just one detector to another single detector. To be a truly informed customer I need a broad all-things-being-equal comparison to help me decide how much money is worth investing in my detector and which manufacturer is the lucky winner of my business.
I know there are a million variables involved with detecting and there would be limitations to this testing, but this kind of objective comparison would allow consumers to make more rational decisions about how much to spend. It would answer the questions we all have about whether more money always means more detector. It would also push the manufacturers to make even better machines at more affordable price points without quite so much mystery about which machine is right for you. Of course, some companies may not want that: many businesses rely on customers making irrational decisions based on marketing instead of product performance, quality and value.
Just some musings. What do you think?
