Steve Howard
New member
3 Frequencies
Find's Treasure Forums
Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!
You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.
Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.
Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.
Click here to register!
Need Support Help?
Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you
Changed email? Forgot to update your account with new email address? Need assistance with something else?, click here to go to Find's Support Form and fill out the form.
3 Frequencies, Why Not 28?
- Thread starter Steve Howard
- Start date
woodchiphustler
New member
n/t
Willee - Texas
Well-known member
Are you implying that a well known metal detector that says they transmit 28 frequency's dont process all 28 of them?
That they are counting useless harmonics that are not processed at all?
It makes sense that if a detector transmitted 28 frequency's all at the same power level of a detector using only one frequency
then battery life should be about 27 times less. Or am I missing something here?
I am buying a new Spectra V3 as I think the three frequency Analyze screen alone is worth the price.
A real advancement.
That they are counting useless harmonics that are not processed at all?
It makes sense that if a detector transmitted 28 frequency's all at the same power level of a detector using only one frequency
then battery life should be about 27 times less. Or am I missing something here?
I am buying a new Spectra V3 as I think the three frequency Analyze screen alone is worth the price.
A real advancement.
Capture ratios, filtering etc. minimize 2nd, 3rd etc, unwanted harmonics. Some are more effective than others.
Could you imagine 28 frequencies displayed on the Analyze display screen
3 is enough for me for now. As long as the three are applied effectively to they type of targets desired. And no drift or dipping the plate etc.
Could you imagine 28 frequencies displayed on the Analyze display screen
3 is enough for me for now. As long as the three are applied effectively to they type of targets desired. And no drift or dipping the plate etc.
jtalley007
Active member
What I have noticed about the V3 verifies what you are saying. I have been using the E machine from down under since the xs model came out and honestly other than weight and being plastic was my primary machine. I am a relic hunter and have found very few buttons with the explorer and almost never percussion caps which tells me the E machine favors the lower frequency and therefore has been favored for sliver coin hunters. What I'm seeing with the V3 is in 3 frequency mode it is sensitive to all ranges of targets. Digging deep minnie balls to 14" measured in good soil and finding tons of percussion caps, small lead the size of a paper match, etc. So far I am seeing results of 22.5 and the 7.5 middle range. Yesterday I found my first coin which was a mine token so that may have favored the lower 2.5 but no way for me to tell since I was in wall to wall iron and trash from a 200 year old site. Because of the power lines I had to go to the single 22.5 mode and was picking up shotgun shells galore which for a relic hunter is perfect. I also love that I can detect for 4 hours and not be tired or have my shoulder falling off. Thanks again Steve fore being part of a great company and great forum to keep us informed.
P.S. I have been holding on to my eagle 2 s/l 90 1/2 and eagle slim line until now but other than nostalgic reason they will probably be going soon. I'm like a kid with a new toy my only complaint is this thing was not released in the fall so I would have 4 or 5 months to detect instead of 3 weeks due to the heat. Oh well!
P.S. I have been holding on to my eagle 2 s/l 90 1/2 and eagle slim line until now but other than nostalgic reason they will probably be going soon. I'm like a kid with a new toy my only complaint is this thing was not released in the fall so I would have 4 or 5 months to detect instead of 3 weeks due to the heat. Oh well!
Captain Kirk
New member
Steve
The 28 frequencies probably relates to the Minelab FBS technology. In my opinion the "28 frequencies" is not really the important factor. The important factor is that the FBS technology is NOT a frequency domain detector. Rather it is a time domain detector. A rectangular pulse is used to excite the targets. The received signal is analyzed in the time domain by looking at rise and fall times (among other things). I do not believe that there are circuits designed to examine the response characteristics of individual frequencies as I think that the Vision does. I will make no attempt to discuss the advantages/disadvantages of either approach.
HH,
Glenn
The 28 frequencies probably relates to the Minelab FBS technology. In my opinion the "28 frequencies" is not really the important factor. The important factor is that the FBS technology is NOT a frequency domain detector. Rather it is a time domain detector. A rectangular pulse is used to excite the targets. The received signal is analyzed in the time domain by looking at rise and fall times (among other things). I do not believe that there are circuits designed to examine the response characteristics of individual frequencies as I think that the Vision does. I will make no attempt to discuss the advantages/disadvantages of either approach.
HH,
Glenn
Look at this! Multiplex.
I got it strait from the horses mouth that the V3 generates and transmits one or three separate signals.
Nice thing about Whites is they do not sell technical BS to move their product. Good old fashioned ethics mixed with modern technology.
If they sold stump trained horses, I would not question if the horse I bought was stump trained. Their word is good and honest as the day is long.
That 28 frequency thing should be in a class action lawsuit! FBS indeed! I still own one. Better than money in the bank!
SJ
I got it strait from the horses mouth that the V3 generates and transmits one or three separate signals.
Nice thing about Whites is they do not sell technical BS to move their product. Good old fashioned ethics mixed with modern technology.
If they sold stump trained horses, I would not question if the horse I bought was stump trained. Their word is good and honest as the day is long.
That 28 frequency thing should be in a class action lawsuit! FBS indeed! I still own one. Better than money in the bank!
SJ
Rodger said:
Don't get me wrong, I just recently purchased an m6, and it's great! But the Vision is Not "reasonably" priced neither is the Etrac. I love the fact that it has a colored screen, and some of the other features are great, but I can build 2 brand new pc's for that price, or to bring it down to scale buy 4 iPhones. Can u tell me what components are so technologically advanced in the vision or etrac to warrant that kind of price? I understand that the metal detector market is much smaller than the pc or iPhone market and they need to charge more... But 1500$+ is getting a bit silly. But I'm just a regular joe with a full time job and bills...latest and greatest doesn't usually apply to me. Just my2cents.
Southwind
Well-known member
Lets face it the play for top-gun has been between White's and Minelab for quite some time. Each tends to bump up their price of a new machine to be more than the competitors top machine. If Minelab were to put out a new top-gun it would naturally cost more than the new V3.
CROCK of COINS
New member
1990 White's top unit cost over $800.00
19 years ... WHAT has not gone up?????
Don't buy if you don't like it.
Jerry
19 years ... WHAT has not gone up?????
Don't buy if you don't like it.
Jerry
I posted this on the White's Forum here at FM a while back - it's not my own work.
From another forum, but I'm pretty sure the author would be OK with my posting it - a lot of what you are seeing in these prices is just the effect of inflation. Since 1915 or thereabouts, prices have doubled every 15 - 20 years. Here's a countdown on your new detector price:
I was curious what a $1500 detector would have cost in the past, adjusted for inflation. Using an online inflation calculator, here's what I found:
2009: $1500
1999: $1177
1989: $876
1979: $513
1969: $259
1959: $205
If you go back through old product catalogs, I think you'll find that these prices are, indeed, about where top-end detectors were selling. So a $1500 detector in 2009 is not out-of-line, especially compared to the BFO technology you got in 1969.
Looks like White's pricing hasn't changed much. Now someone will correctly point out that the price of electronic goods has decreased over time - Moore's law and all that. I suspect that this isn't really the case for low volume production items like hobbiest metal detectors. R&D, distribution costs, the need to give dealers a reasonably healthy margin to carry items which have a large inventory to sales ratio - all these things haven't changed at all.
The only negative factor is that because of how our economy developed over the past 8 years or so, the real income of the middle class has stood still. Too bad for us - wages haven't kept up with inflation for many of us.
From another forum, but I'm pretty sure the author would be OK with my posting it - a lot of what you are seeing in these prices is just the effect of inflation. Since 1915 or thereabouts, prices have doubled every 15 - 20 years. Here's a countdown on your new detector price:
I was curious what a $1500 detector would have cost in the past, adjusted for inflation. Using an online inflation calculator, here's what I found:
2009: $1500
1999: $1177
1989: $876
1979: $513
1969: $259
1959: $205
If you go back through old product catalogs, I think you'll find that these prices are, indeed, about where top-end detectors were selling. So a $1500 detector in 2009 is not out-of-line, especially compared to the BFO technology you got in 1969.
Looks like White's pricing hasn't changed much. Now someone will correctly point out that the price of electronic goods has decreased over time - Moore's law and all that. I suspect that this isn't really the case for low volume production items like hobbiest metal detectors. R&D, distribution costs, the need to give dealers a reasonably healthy margin to carry items which have a large inventory to sales ratio - all these things haven't changed at all.
The only negative factor is that because of how our economy developed over the past 8 years or so, the real income of the middle class has stood still. Too bad for us - wages haven't kept up with inflation for many of us.
lytle78 said:
Having just retired from the electronics industry a little while ago, I'll tell you that the above analysis is severely flawed. All you have to do is look at other "boxes" with heavy electronic content.
For example, the ENIAC electronic computer, built in 1946 for calculating artillery-firing tables had a cost of almost $500,000 1946 dollars. Today you can buy a PC with more calculating power than a thousand ENIACs for a few hundred dollars.
When color TVs first came out, they cost thousands, now they cost hundreds. How about the first portable wireless telephone, now they give them away if you sign a one or two year contract.
I realize that metal detectors don't have the market volume of a PC or a cell phone, but their sell price is not determined just by parts or assembly cost, it is determined by a need to amortize the
R&D expense of a new machine, marketing and G&A expenses and a profit for the company.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. You cite real data but I'm not sure it is entirely applicable.
I think your last sentence made my case.
As far as I know, Moore's law applies to CPU's and not much else. For example, in the real world (other than the USA) cell phones are mostly not tied to contracts but sold like any other product and their cost hasn't changed very much over the last 2-3 years, The cost of R&D, distribution, marketing, etc. has placed a hard floor under prices - unless the hardware is made by Chinese slave workers whose companies plan on harvesting their organs to balance the books (of course I should be more polite because they are also bankrolling our economy).
IBM used to be famous for offfering upgrades for disk storage (for example) which cost 10's of thousands of dollars and when all was said and done consisted of moving a few jumpers around on your equipment. You paid for the performance, not the hardware.
Fast forward to Minelab. They sell a top of the line gold nugget detector for 4-5 thousand dollars. Very similar technology (in a much nicer package) is offered by ML to the humanitarian de-mineing industry for about $1,500. The lesson. There's more competition in the military/humanitarian market and amateur and professional prospectors will pay more for the hope of finding gold than Relief Agencies can afford to pay for the saving of asian and african limbs and lives. Sad but true - check it out. There is clearly a "gold tax" being imposed by ML on the enthusiastic.
We are all human, we will pay for what we want - if we have the means. Whites is a sucessful company in a very tough business. Their service is tops, their technical staff participates in a very open dialogue with their customers through forums like this. I have a lot of admiration for them.
I think the industry figured out a long time ago what folks like you and me were willing to pay of the hope of having the best machine out there and they have kept the real price of the top of the line relatively constant.
What the top of the line machine will do - given the limits of VLF IB technology has constantly been expanded and the real cost (in constant dollars) has not increased. Lucky us.
I think your last sentence made my case.
As far as I know, Moore's law applies to CPU's and not much else. For example, in the real world (other than the USA) cell phones are mostly not tied to contracts but sold like any other product and their cost hasn't changed very much over the last 2-3 years, The cost of R&D, distribution, marketing, etc. has placed a hard floor under prices - unless the hardware is made by Chinese slave workers whose companies plan on harvesting their organs to balance the books (of course I should be more polite because they are also bankrolling our economy).
IBM used to be famous for offfering upgrades for disk storage (for example) which cost 10's of thousands of dollars and when all was said and done consisted of moving a few jumpers around on your equipment. You paid for the performance, not the hardware.
Fast forward to Minelab. They sell a top of the line gold nugget detector for 4-5 thousand dollars. Very similar technology (in a much nicer package) is offered by ML to the humanitarian de-mineing industry for about $1,500. The lesson. There's more competition in the military/humanitarian market and amateur and professional prospectors will pay more for the hope of finding gold than Relief Agencies can afford to pay for the saving of asian and african limbs and lives. Sad but true - check it out. There is clearly a "gold tax" being imposed by ML on the enthusiastic.
We are all human, we will pay for what we want - if we have the means. Whites is a sucessful company in a very tough business. Their service is tops, their technical staff participates in a very open dialogue with their customers through forums like this. I have a lot of admiration for them.
I think the industry figured out a long time ago what folks like you and me were willing to pay of the hope of having the best machine out there and they have kept the real price of the top of the line relatively constant.
What the top of the line machine will do - given the limits of VLF IB technology has constantly been expanded and the real cost (in constant dollars) has not increased. Lucky us.
Carl-NC
Active member
You are comparing apples & oranges. The Eniac was hand-built in a volume of 1 by PhD's. Today's computers are made by the millions in China. Cell phones have a completely different cost model... they're "free", but you pay through the nose to use them.
Metal detectors are a super-low volume product, and the good ones are Made in the USA, not China. Just like they were in 1999, 1989, 1979, and 1969. So if you want to compare apples & apples, simply compare 2009 detector prices with prior years. Or, I've done that for you, in the graph below... it shows the cost of the top-of-the-line White's detectors over the years, compared to inflation (in year-2000 dollars). Interestingly, the V3 is no worse a buy than was the Coinmaster V Supreme in 1975. And it's a heckuva better detector*.
You can do the same for Ford cars, Kellog's cereal, or anything else that has been continuously made in the US, is not subject to government subsidies, and follows a standard "buy-it-you-own-it" cost model. There aren't that many examples, actually.
- Carl
*And for anyone who disagrees, I will gladly sell you my mint condition Coinmaster V Supreme for $1495!
Metal detectors are a super-low volume product, and the good ones are Made in the USA, not China. Just like they were in 1999, 1989, 1979, and 1969. So if you want to compare apples & apples, simply compare 2009 detector prices with prior years. Or, I've done that for you, in the graph below... it shows the cost of the top-of-the-line White's detectors over the years, compared to inflation (in year-2000 dollars). Interestingly, the V3 is no worse a buy than was the Coinmaster V Supreme in 1975. And it's a heckuva better detector*.
You can do the same for Ford cars, Kellog's cereal, or anything else that has been continuously made in the US, is not subject to government subsidies, and follows a standard "buy-it-you-own-it" cost model. There aren't that many examples, actually.
- Carl
*And for anyone who disagrees, I will gladly sell you my mint condition Coinmaster V Supreme for $1495!
Thanks Carl,
I poke'd around and tried to find where I had first "poached" the "detector price index" post from - and couldn't find it, but I seem to remember it was yours from somewhere.
The V3 may prove to be a tool which can do things not possible before - deeper silver - microjewelry in tot lots in quantity - who knows what else. But even if it doesn't. it clearly represents the most exciting and versitile VLF detector in years. Hopefully you will have a big sucess on your hands which will inspire management to fund new projects like a killer VLF water detector and further development of the TDI pulse induction technology to give us discrimination beyound today's depth limits in any kind of ground.
Your contribution - as far as the user community goes - has been to put "one of us" at the center of one of the hottest centers of recreational MD development - and clearly the most open and responsive of them.
Keep it up - I hope you sell thousands of V3's.
I poke'd around and tried to find where I had first "poached" the "detector price index" post from - and couldn't find it, but I seem to remember it was yours from somewhere.
The V3 may prove to be a tool which can do things not possible before - deeper silver - microjewelry in tot lots in quantity - who knows what else. But even if it doesn't. it clearly represents the most exciting and versitile VLF detector in years. Hopefully you will have a big sucess on your hands which will inspire management to fund new projects like a killer VLF water detector and further development of the TDI pulse induction technology to give us discrimination beyound today's depth limits in any kind of ground.
Your contribution - as far as the user community goes - has been to put "one of us" at the center of one of the hottest centers of recreational MD development - and clearly the most open and responsive of them.
Keep it up - I hope you sell thousands of V3's.
Did you include the many years of research and development for the V3??? How many trial and error units were produced??? How about paying the engineers for their hard work? I thought I read somewheres, that the V3 was begun as the DFX was rolling off the assembly line. That would be a long time in the making. I think the price is more than fair, even though I can not afford it right now. Guess I'll have to sell my Lexus
to get one (kidding of course). The point is: Unless you are involved in business, you may not realise how much goes into a product's production and therefore it's price. And Carl..... I loved my Coinmaster V Supreme, for it's time period, it was sweet, cutting technology
to get one (kidding of course). The point is: Unless you are involved in business, you may not realise how much goes into a product's production and therefore it's price. And Carl..... I loved my Coinmaster V Supreme, for it's time period, it was sweet, cutting technologyCarl-NC said:
Ok, forget the Eniac. Substitute a Univac business computer or an entry level IBM 360 mainframe. A server class PC will outgun them at a fraction of the price.
Carl, I am not really disagreeing with you. All I was trying to say is that the price needs to include (amortize) the development cost and the MDing market doesn't have the unit volumes
of other consumer electronics so recouping the R&D has to be done across a smaller number of units. Also, the smaller volume doesn't allow the manufacturing scaling efficiencies
possible in other, high volume consumer electronics.
All the responses have made for great reading! I appreciate all the effort that you informed gentlemen have put into your posts. I would like to say one more thing on the matter though...and that is this. If the Vision was priced at $999.99 I would buy it in a second, and I bet that I wouldn't be the only one. I wonder how that would offset the cost of all the R & D and marketing if you have the Whites brand name Top of the Line detector at under $1000.00 really flying off the shelf... more profit? less profit?.. I guess it really doesn't matter because its not going to happen. Some other top of the line company will soon come out with a colored screen detector, with similar features...and guess what, I'll bet my silver collection that it will be priced less than the Vision. Pretty shrewd of Whites if you really think about it...its a win/win situation for them because the most expensive has to be the best right? If someone has a bad day hunting with the lesser priced machine might they think to themselves they should have thrown down the big dollars for top of the line? 
And to Mr. Jerry that said,
"1990 White's top unit cost over $800.00
19 years ... WHAT has not gone up?????
Don't buy if you don't like it."
I was 15 in 1990 and did not own a detector, and $800 dollars will STILL buy you a quality detector here in 2009. I like the machine, it has some features that I think would be really helpful out in the field. What I don't necessarily like is the asking price.
Thanks again for the great reply's regarding price!, and to the OP I didn't mean to hijack your thread...the information you provided was very educational, and very much appreciated. Keep up the great work!
Mike
And to Mr. Jerry that said,
"1990 White's top unit cost over $800.00
19 years ... WHAT has not gone up?????
Don't buy if you don't like it."
I was 15 in 1990 and did not own a detector, and $800 dollars will STILL buy you a quality detector here in 2009. I like the machine, it has some features that I think would be really helpful out in the field. What I don't necessarily like is the asking price.
Thanks again for the great reply's regarding price!, and to the OP I didn't mean to hijack your thread...the information you provided was very educational, and very much appreciated. Keep up the great work!
Mike