In 2025, the Australian manufacturer Minelab withdrew from production three metal detectors. The Equinox and GPX series were affected (reduced in size). The decision was officially caused by a technological update of the product line. But… let’s be honest, these detectors just stopped selling.
Surprisingly Minelab is still the industry leader. And it is not because Minelab is so innovative and high-tech. The thing is that other manufacturers are simply worse. Garrett has completely fallen flat. Nokta has lost momentum. The magic of XP Metal has gone. Quest stopped pretending to be American. Is it the end of an era? Doesn’t seem like that. We haven’t seen drones with metal detectors yet. But it is most likely to be a different story, without these “famous brands”.
We saw the Equinox 600 and Equinox 800 models in 2017. Remember multi-IQ technology, a new revolution in the world of metal detectors? Yes, the manufacturer did manage to sell a large number of these detectors (a good marketing works wonders!). But what definitely didn’t happen was a revolution. These detectors turned out to be regular Minelab metal detectors which never surpassed the old Minelab Explorer SE PRO in practical results.
The regular lifespan for an average model is 5 or 6 years. There are exceptions, but every single such case has its own specifics. For example, the Garrett ACE 250 is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. I’m sure the manufacturer Garrett doesn’t really know the reason why this model became popular. Here’s the secret: it happened thanks to alternative coils (Detech, NEL, MarsMD). The Garrett GTI 2500 was released in 1999 (literally the last century!). But its existence in the manufacturer’s lineup can be easily explained: Garrett is simply unable to make another detector of that level. They also had the XP Deus 1 in 2009. The French use it to compete with the Minelab Equinox series and they succeed. The Minelab CTX 3030 was launched in 2012. Globally, the demand for expensive metal detectors has declined and designing a new one wouldn’t be profitable. Again, an alternative would have to excel the XP Deus 2 and Minelab is currently unable to do that.
The attention is particularly drawn to the models that leave the market relatively “fresh” (unable to last the standard 5 or 6 year term). Something clearly didn’t go according to the manufacturer’s plan. The most vivid example is the Minelab Go-Find 20/40/60 series (which lasted only 2 years on the market). And you’d think, it’s the simplest cheap metal detector, practically a beeping toy, what could possibly go wrong? As we can see, Minelab managed to mess it up. By the way, the manufacturer spent $5 million on the development of this series.
The Minelab GPX 5000 metal detector lasted 4 years (actually 3). There nothing particularly remarkable bout it, just a typical gold detector with a moderate set of challenges, still very expensive. It produced the impression that the MPS (Multi Period Sensing) technology wasn’t developed by Minelab but inherited from grandma’s trunk (or gifted by aliens). It’s clear the engineers don’t fully understand how it actually works. Something beeps in there, but bringing it to perfection or improving it hasn’t worked out so far.
Source – Minelab
The Minelab home cemetery has been replenished with three new graves.
+ Minelab Equinox 600
+ Minelab Equinox 800
+ Minelab GPX 5000