Garrett ACE Apex Review: Multi-Frequency Without a Flagship Price

Two things the older machine has no answer to. The first is frequency choice: 5 kHz favours high conductors such as large silver, 20 kHz favours small low conductors such as thin gold chain and fine jewellery, and being able to select between them lets you tune the machine to what you are hunting rather than to what the machine happens to run. The second is the multi-frequency and Multi-Salt modes, which are what make conductive wet sand workable at all.

Around that sits iron volume control, which is a more useful feature than its name suggests. Rather than silencing iron, it lets you keep iron audible at a lower level while desirable targets stay at full volume, so you can hear that a good signal sits inside junk without being battered by nails all day. Combined with Z-Lynk wireless, which Garrett publishes as six times faster than Bluetooth, the machine is pleasant to use for long sessions, and that matters more than a specification sheet admits. The settings by site type page sets out sensible starting points per ground.

These are the machines an Apex buyer is realistically choosing between, published figures only.

Three columns decide this purchase, and the Apex wins one of them outright.

The first weakness is the water line. Garrett publishes a waterproof Viper searchcoil for the Apex and does not publish a submersion depth for the machine. In practice that is a rain, dew and wet sand detector rather than a wading detector, which sits oddly beside a Multi-Salt mode designed for exactly the ground where waves arrive. Buyers read Multi-Salt as permission to get in the water, and it is not.

The second is more awkward, and it is internal to Garrett. The Vortex VX5 at $399.99 publishes 13 kHz plus a multi-frequency mode, Z-Lynk wireless, submersion to 16 feet and a paid software path to the VX7 and VX9 feature sets. For a small step from $384.99 you get a submersible machine on a platform the maker is actively developing. Unless the Apex is discounted, that comparison is hard to answer, and the Vortex VX9 review covers where that line tops out.

Third, the headphones. Z-Lynk is built in and the headphones are not included, so the real price includes Garrett MS-3 Z-Lynk Wireless Headphones at $107.99 if you want the wireless you paid for. Owners who also run Garrett Pro-Pointer AT Z-Lynk get a genuine ecosystem benefit, because the pinpointer audio arrives in the same headphones, but that is another purchase again. Budget the whole kit, not the machine.

Two themes recur in published owner reviews. The first is that the Apex is unusually pleasant to swing: 2.5 lb, a balanced build and wireless audio add up to a machine people use for longer, and time on the ground finds more than specifications do. The second is that the frequency choice gets used, particularly by people hunting small jewellery on higher frequencies and large silver on lower ones.

The consistent complaints are the absence of a submersion rating, the separate cost of Z-Lynk headphones, and a thinner aftermarket coil range than the long-established AT line enjoys. The main option published for this machine is NEL Hunter 12.5 by 8.5 Coil for ACE Apex at $149.95, where an AT Pro owner can choose between several. Owners also consistently report that target numbers shift between frequencies on the same target, which is normal and is exactly why the Apex target ID chart is organised by band rather than by single number.

The last recurring theme is endurance, and it cuts in this machine favour. Garrett publishes up to 15 hours from the built-in lithium battery, and owners report that figure holding well enough that a full day rarely ends early, which is a real advantage over the AA machines lower down the range. The counterpart is that the battery is internal, so a flat Apex cannot be revived with a handful of cells from a village shop. Owners hunting far from the car consistently carry a power bank and charge the machine between sites rather than trusting a single charge to cover a weekend.

Buy it if:

• You want multi-frequency and wireless in a light machine at around $384.99.
• You hunt dry land, dry sand and the upper beach rather than the surf.
• You already own Z-Lynk headphones or a Z-Lynk pinpointer.
• You find it discounted against the Vortex line, which is when it wins clearly.

Skip it if:

• You wade or hunt the tide line. Buy a published submersion rating.
• You want the current Garrett platform, which is now Vortex.
• You want a deep aftermarket coil range, where the AT Pro is better served.
• You expect wireless headphones in the box, because they are a separate purchase.