Garrett Ace Apex VS Minelab Vanquish 540

Metal detecting is a wonderful hobby. It gets you out in the fresh air, provides you with a little exercise and there is always the chance of finding something interesting.

There is however one big problem for those new to the hobby. Which detector do you buy?

It is not an easy question to answer because you need to get past the marketing and sales pitch. Not just from the companies themselves but from the hoards of sponsored “influencers” these companies use to promote their products.

This is why it is always useful to get opinions from those who are not sponsored in any way, be that paid YouTubers or people who are given free machines in order to back up the marketing claims made about the machines.

One such completely independent detectorist is Calabash Digger. He is not paid by anyone, has never received a free machine from any company and if it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny he will always tell it like it is.

Calabash had put up a video in which, he pitched the much-hyped Garrett Ace Apex against the lower-priced Minelab Vanquish 540. He has since removed all videos from his channel that does not focus on the XP Deus II. That is the machine he will be concentrating on going forward. This is a shame as the video he did, clearly demonstrated where the Apex falls down.

Garrett Ace Apex vs Minelab Vanquish 540

The Garrett Ace Apex is not a particularly bad machine. It is even better since the recent firmware update. If you always use Garrett then no doubt you will be very happy with it. However, on the evidence seen so far, it does not quite live up to the claims that the company are making for it. Having said that, I have tested it on the beach and on the wet sand. Apart from the fact that the different modes are simply preset discrimination patterns, it is a highly usable machine.

However, If you are serious about metal detecting and want a machine that hits those deep targets, is not overly susceptible to iron masking and is easy to use, the Garrett Ace Apex may not be the machine for you.

Conclusion

There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the metal-detecting world. Companies spend fortunes on glossy advertising and paying “influencers” to constantly post their finds on social media and generally hype the abilities of the machines..even though a lot of the claims simply are not true.

Surely it is about time these companies took those large marketing budgets and spent it where it really matters. Put the money into research and development. Give us machines that really do perform in the way it is claimed.

Garrett has substantially improved the performance of the Ace Apex, via a software update and let’s hope this is a sign of things to come.

NOTE: Since this article was first posted I have personally tested the Garrett Apex quite extensively on the beach. I have found it to be a really good machine. Excellent at ignoring bottle caps at the same time it does not ignore good targets. The iron masking issues mentioned previously are still present however this can easily be overcome. Run the machine in custom mode and lower the discrimination by a few levels and iron masking is no longer a problem!