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.

What ever happened to Troy.......

Keith Southern wrote in Feb 2015 wrote

I talked to Troy earlier today..

I think he's done...No new machine coming this way it sounds...

never would of thought it but he told me that he spent half a million on tooling and injection molding plastic on the X5..

said he never sold enough to even get half that back...

Sad in away.. said he had a great design on the drawing board to Boot..

Keith
 
Of course its terrible news when one hear the main reason why they basically ceased production of Troy detectors,and even worst when one does not even cover costs etc,but as a user of the Try X5 here in the UK and it was a brand new machine from a UK dealer and pretty expensive i may add,but even after using it for a year its the only detector that i could never 'GEL' with,how ever hard i tried and i used it for 100s of hours and even after talking to the US with Troy it just would not perform as promoted.

So the X5 has been the only machine that i have ever sold as luck would have it after a year of using it i got back what i paid for it which as we are all aware is pretty rare to break even on a detector,boy was i glad when that went.
 
Mega my experience was the same as yours I never could gel with the X5 either. It was a very nice built unit but it's ground balance was a pain to set and it had a love for deep iron. In my soil the deepest I could detect a coin was max 6" deep. I wish I could have tried the DD coil just to see if it would go a little bit deeper in my soil. It's the only detector that I wouldn't want to give another spin.
 
88junior said:
Mega my experience was the same as yours I never could gel with the X5 either. It was a very nice built unit but it's ground balance was a pain to set and it had a love for deep iron. In my soil the deepest I could detect a coin was max 6" deep. I wish I could have tried the DD coil just to see if it would go a little bit deeper in my soil. It's the only detector that I wouldn't want to give another spin.

88j,when i bought the X5 which as mentioned was new,i also bought the 10x6,7'' and of course the stock coil,the best one especially for my site permissions mainly being roman/saxon trashy was the 10x6 but even then i found exactly the same as yourself it just did not perform as was suggested in the adverts.The complete package was sold to another detectorist for exactly the same as what i paid for it and the reason being is the other guy fell for the same thing i did in the adverts and also because they had at the time been a rare detector as very few came across to the UK.

I will totally agree with you about the build quality is was possibly the best finished detector that i have owned/used but looks and quality do not mean the detector performs the same,it was like chalk and cheese the quality and performance,but that is all in the past and we move on,we all make mistake but of all the detectors that i still own that was the only one that i have ever sold and never regretted it,of course i was not going too tell the new owner that it was not as good as it was portrayed,would not have minded if it was at the cheap end of the spectrum but this was right up with the top machines and was even bigger bucks that most as we have to pay import taxes etc into the UK,even if it was only half the price that i was i still would have off loaded it.

Of course other may think they are the best machine invented since sliced bread but i can only tell it as a result of putting many hours on the clock.
 
I am a coin hunter and most know I love my Minelab Sovereigns, but to me the X5 was one of my better detectors I have tried. I found coins in area and ID them that a guy with the Sovereign says were not good signals. a old park I have worked many time with many different detectors over the years I was able to pick up several silver dime I had missed before in with the trash. dug a plug and put a dime down about 6 inches and got no signal, at 4 it did, but not real good and called Troy and told me that freshly buried coins may not show real good depth, but to try and see what it can actually do in real conditions. Using my X5 with my Uni Probe (headphone style) at a very old school yard where the horse barn used to sit in the early 1900 and we had worked it well before I dug some older mercs and a couple of IH that were around 10 inches deep with the X5 and even had another guy try the one signal and he said there was nothing there and was surprised when I dug up a 1919 Merc that we seen was over 10 inches deep.
One of the biggest shock for us was a old horse corell at what was a horse race track many years ago. 4 of our guys we were with was working it very well and I was using my Sovereign that day and had the X5 with was working another area outside of it when they said they had it all and no one was finding anymore so they left and I went in with the Sovereign and after a half hour didn't find anything as it was a bit trashy, so I took my X5 out and tried it and made one pass though it and popped out 2 barber dimes, 2 older Merc dimes and a few wheat pennies that shock us all. With the X5 I found that the good signals even deep were good solid repeatable signals when I swung the coil faster as trash and such see to break up even though they would sound good at reg swing speed, speed up the coil and they break up.
I had a guy that seen it and wanted to buy it, so I sold it with the idea of getting another, but they quite making them before I could get one and could buy a new one for what many wanted for their used ones.
The Troy Shadow I had was the serial number 0088 and was sent back when the first 200 were overly sensitive for many.
Would love to hear where that number 008 is and how they are doing with it.

Rick
 
Having owned numerous shadow 5 and 3 s over the years. I dug some great stuff. Super deep coins were the norm. My favorite setup was the shad5 with the 7 in coil. Jewelry magnet also. Yes she did like some deep iron mostly nails, but like most other machines, after awhile you could tell. Build quality was great, Troy said that alot of the cost came from the weather resistant features.
The last time I spoke with him , been awhile now, they had the design they wanted for the next shadow but made a few changes at some point and messed up and could not get it back. I suppose being a small outfit, money played a big part.
Still think about a shadow with tone Id. Wish I'd kept one around.
 
:( it's always sad to hear of smaller outfits not making it, I don't run a detector business but pretty much any small business these days is going to have a hard time, I sell coffee for a living and it's so hard to get a good price and still make money with offering free shipping. And I know that it's expensive and that some detector manufacturers sell machines at a loss I've heard of it happening to Fisher. And I know it happened to minelab with the Quattro.
 
Rick ND great to read your post...always loved teading your posts on the Sov forum.....I hope all is well with you.

I picked up a couple of X5s last year. I had them years ago but sold them off to try other machines.
They are one of if not the best detector for jewely hunting....absolutely amazing on low conductors but as youve read they do teally well on coins as well. They take time to learn but the audio is very good.
Great machine, good to know they can still be repaired...one I had bought used needed repairs and Keith at east texas detectors did a great repair for me.
They were expensive new but hats off to Troy Galloway on his great contribution to our hobby. His detectors are still valued today and the ones I have perform extremely well.
 
In my area I had just about the opposite results. Very poor depth and no really solid sounds that screamed out deep coins.

It may have been because we do have some salt in our soil ..I had the pleasure of meeting Troy at a Campground metal detecting event. He was very concerned about the performance when he tried my machine .
I didn't follow through and send it to him like he requested. ( I should have). He felt it must have been the GB causing the issues in my dirt.
A really nice guy he is.and absolutely cared about his product in my opinion.
 
First time I spotted the X5 was at a club hunt in NY, several members had them and raved about them.
A number of years later moved to Georgia
The X5 was a favorite among relic hunters. It looked so cool just had to have one.
Picked one up.
Using it reminded me of a Fisher with its audio (Fisher made the X5) and was nice and stable in the woods. Would find small 22 casings to about 5".
In two weeks of hunting didn't see the magic of this detector. Coin hunting was frustrating. Sold it and got my investment back.
Much of it could have been the soil conditions in the Atlanta-Kennesaw-Dallas areas. Had a Silver Sabre Umax shortly after that did much better after modifying it
with manual GB.
 
and he had already designed some new search coils.
He had some great ideas on a new detector but ran into a problem, or two........
Talked with one engineer but never worked out anything. He literally scoured the planet looking for
someone else, but it seems everyone is under contract to a factory. I had talked to Prospector Al, (Alan) and while he was interested
all his effort is tied up in his P.I., the Gold Broom.
Troy is doing well, raising Starlings in the Dallas area. He is a man of 1,000 stories-drop him a line or call,
-he'd love to hear from you. :detecting:
 
Troy, has got to be Thee #1 cult figure of metal detectors. I remember early in the 2000's. I came across the Troy advertisements. Man they looked and sounded good. Was a little out of reach for deeep pockets Dancer. At the time. Later on when I could afford em, Poof & they was gone. Reading the above posts, users seem divided on them. Hmmmm. ?
 
I think they were heavily influenced by local ground conditions.
Troy did something different--he said, so that his units would hit both high/low conductors at extremes.
Seeing that Tesoro & Fisher built them for him, they must have known... :nerd:
Ever hear the story about the Egyptians putting Charles Garrett in jail? :lol:
 
I have the X5 and I have to agree with you on their performance. I still use on occasion for C&J hunting and it also served me pretty well on relic hunting. I worry that it will need repair and I know Fisher had the warranty at one time, not certain if that still holds true. I lost touch with Troy sometime ago. He allowed me to do testing on the DD coil before it came out. I will be relic hunting next week in VA and it will be included in my equipment. If the ground isn't too hot I will probably give it a go. Enjoyed reading your post!
Pap
 
My son had a similar problem with his X5. Fortunately we were at a hunt and Troy was there. I had known Troy for some time and he told my son to come to his room and he wanted to check the detector. A long story short, he disassembled it and discovered something had not been installed correctly and about an hour later it was fixed and has continued to work correctly a number of years later. I guess you should have sent it to him.
Pap
 
Keith Wills
http://www.brokendetector.com/
Troy told me years ago that Keith taught him how to use a detector. :cheers:
 
vlad said:
Keith Wills
http://www.brokendetector.com/
Troy told me years ago that Keith taught him how to use a detector. :cheers:

Yep Keith knows what he is doing. He repaired a X5 for me. Its good to know its a repairable detector.
 
Dancer said:
Troy, has got to be Thee #1 cult figure of metal detectors. I remember early in the 2000's. I came across the Troy advertisements. Man they looked and sounded good. Was a little out of reach for deeep pockets Dancer. At the time. Later on when I could afford em, Poof & they was gone. Reading the above posts, users seem divided on them. Hmmmm. ?

Users are divided on every detector.
Ive yet to see one that that everyone felt the same about.
 
vlad said:
I think they were heavily influenced by local ground conditions.
Troy did something different--he said, so that his units would hit both high/low conductors at extremes.
Seeing that Tesoro & Fisher built them for him, they must have known... :nerd:
Ever hear the story about the Egyptians putting Charles Garrett in jail? :lol:


The X5 does a few things quite different than other detectors, one being what you mentioned about hitting high and low conductors well.
Another I notice is the concentric coil has far less of the cone effect versus other concentrics. At depth the coverage remains fairly close to what it is close to the coil versus others that lose alot of coverage....that was something I never liked about CZs, at depth your covering such a small area....you really have to do a lot more overlapping to cover an area.
 
Top