- Joined
- Feb 24, 2016
- Messages
- 759
- Reaction score
- 1,169
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Elizabethtown, IN
- Detector(s) used
- XP Deus ORX, Etrac, F75, Simplex, MX5, V3i, Equinox, Tesoro Vaq, F22
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
- #1
Thread Owner
Garrett VX9 — Early Thoughts
Here are my early thoughts on the Garrett VX9. I bought mine from Bart at Big Boy Hobbies and opted to purchase the DD Viper coil, which isn't much larger than my hand but turned out to be perfect for the iron patch I found myself in last weekend.Overall, the unboxing experience isn't much to speak of. Not even a sticker, keychain, or a cheap hat! As already noted, you pretty much just get the detector. Assembly and updating to the latest software version were easy. I will note my first complaint is that the round aluminum shaft spins a bit too easily for my liking when tightening the cam locks. If you like or have a need for collapsing your machine for portability, this would get old quickly — fortunately, I rarely do. I will add that I would have preferred a plastic shaft like the Deus and may opt for one of Steve's Carbon Shafts at some point in the future. At any rate, it is well balanced and not a heavy machine, and I had no issues swinging it for 6 hours. The coil ears flex a bit and time will tell how they hold up.
Despite the flaws of the initial launch, to Garrett's credit they have resolved nearly every major issue with the machine. Having rewatched Calabash's early videos shortly after launch, I notice Garrett even updated their quick guide and manual addressing some points he noted were missing. There are some VDI deviations of up to 5 points when changing from Multi to, say, 13kHz, but this isn't a deal breaker for me as I plan to run Multi most of the time. This isn't the only multi-frequency machine that behaves in this manner, so I suspect it's a software processing issue.
On my first park hunt with the machine it behaved as expected, and I was surprised on two occasions that the VDI graph correctly identified two different coins at the same time. Is this as good as the Manticore? I can't say, as I don't own one, but from videos I have seen, probably not — however, keep in mind the price point, and I think it is very good and much better than the ferro check on the Legend, which I almost never used, in my opinion.
On my 2nd and much longer hunt at an old ghost town site, I found a new area that was littered with iron, and I am confident this might be the blacksmith's area. I decided at this point to switch to the DD Viper coil and had no problems separating targets in the heavy iron. I will say many deep or large iron objects would register a solid tone at a VDI of 65 but were easily checked by wiggling the coil and listening for the iron grunt. I dug nearly all these targets anyway to verify and clean up the area. Overall, the machine was very much like using a Deus and just as easy to pinpoint with — a very nice surprise! I did opt to run the iron boundary at 5 and this seemed to help immensely with falsing on iron nails. The one thing I did notice is that the VDI number would linger on the display for a second or two after you moved off the deep iron target, but I never had any indication that the actual processing of targets lagged. I think it is more of a screen refreshing issue, but further testing will be needed for my peace of mind. I did manage to locate a large cent in a deep iron-infested hole, and it came through quite clearly. Additionally, I found a couple of suspender clips and an old button. I'm sure more targets will present themselves as the larger iron is removed. For most of the hunt I used Standard mode and found I liked the sounds in this mode best. I noticed that Fast mode had no discernible advantage on first use and seemingly suppressed the iron audio volume, possibly to help with target separation and improve recovery time, but I would have to get clarification from someone at Garrett.
I would argue that one of the biggest positives of this machine is its simple and easy-to-navigate menu system. Although it does use icons over words, the icons are very easy to recognize and navigate on the fly. For those of you who really enjoy multiple tones, this machine tops out at 5, which has always been more than enough for me. However, that might be a deal breaker for some.
Additionally, I would add that though this is a mid-level machine, you can't purchase another machine with this type of VDI information for under $1,000, so that needs to be considered — and in some ways, it puts it in a class of its own. I think if this machine had Bluetooth, or if Garrett threw in the Wireless Z-link Headphones, it would be a solid price competitor to some of the offerings by its competitors. You also get the added benefit of supporting what may be the last U.S. company putting out new machines.
