My New GPX 6000 Is Faulty, Straight Out Of The Box

[Jonathan Porter]

Surely people realise if you want performance then you should not be using a speaker mounted on the end of the control box behind your head? I understand the convenience of it and that’s why it’s there, but using the speaker is very much akin to using a zero threshold, there is a performance cost. Steve and others have worked this out and they seem happy to pay the price of admission even with the known occasional EMI misbehaviour. I grimace every time I see video footage of a 6000, because absolutely guaranteed the phone camera is going to play horrific havoc with the threshold. 

I don’t use the 6000 for outright performance on DEEP gold, I have the 7000 for that, I use the 6000 because it is fun and uncomplicated and ergonomically brilliant and I’m just about assured to get a nugget on just about any known gold nugget area I have ever worked. With this mindset I use the speaker because when I DO use the 6000 I want to be untethered, uncomplicated and I could care less if I miss the odd target. I just want to go detecting and keep things as simple as possible, the 6000 does that SO easily, it has SO much headroom even when dumbed down to its lowest settings.

I have faith the 6000 will do what it does better than anything that has come before and do it easily. If I want to put huge effort into edge of detection signal discernment performance based detecting I go rig up with the 7000, modify my settings to suit and then target some deep soils whilst mentally preparing myself to chase the nuance signals. The 6000 is designed from the ground up to yell a target into being, theres no mistaking it once you get things into alignment (swing speed, coil height etc).

If you want to do more nuanced based detecting because you don’t have a 7000 or can’t afford one then make the effort and use the supplied headphones or source a good quality low latency APTX BT receiver unit and get the audio onto your person where it belongs. 

JP 

Pics of a deep nuanced 7000 nugget that required maximum concentration to find.  Also a pic of some small bits I found with the 6000 using a NF test coil that was just plain fun.  No backpack, no bungee, no headphones, just uncomplicated fun.

[Jonathan Porter]

Also if you want to chase deep gold with the 6000, I highly recommend you rig up with a bungee, Hipstick and a Guide Arm even with the 11” coil. Deep gold requires careful coil control, the 6000 bleats out tiny threshold disturbances so if you do not have good coil control the nuance signals can get lost in the general clutter created through imperfections in the sweep. I personally cannot get the level of coil control needed one handed with the 6000 as light as it is on the arm, think of it being akin to a freehand sign writer, even those guys use special sticks to control hand movement. 

When you control the sweep of the 6000 there is a whole world of depth available if you can train your brain to “listen through” the threshold for those repeatable broad signals, I’m sure the more experienced guys like Steve will be able to relate to what I am referring to. To my mind the effort that is required do this I may as well go put on the 7000 and keep the 6000 for uncomplicated fun based detecting. Having said that there is a range of deep irregular shaped nuggets that the 6000 performs well on compared to the 7000 so it pays to go over some ground with a modicum of coil control to cover off on them. Like everything you can microscope way down into the methodology of a thing and find advantages unique to it that only it can offer.

JP

[phrunt]

I'm the first to admit I'm not super experienced and highly skilled and the first thing I noticed about JW who is far more experienced than me was he was using the GPZ swing arm on his GPX , he was also only using headphones on his GPX even though on his GPZ he was almost always 99% of the time using his B&Z booster twin speaker setup so I think you're right on the money there JP and I'm taking the advice.

Their target market however on the GPX has been inexperienced users, easy experts, I find the GPZ easier to use but in saying that I've had a lot more hours on it, I don't recall my first day using it but I think I came back pretty happy and found it easy to use, in saying that my soil conditions significantly take a lot of the challenge away from detecting.  As Sheppo pointed out he's constantly using the quick trak to keep his 6000 happy, I can't notice the difference between using it and not using it although I do use it just in case there is something I don't know or understand which is very likely 🙂

[Jonathan Porter]

Any edge of detection target is still gong to require good coil control to be heard (especially sweep speed) no matter how quiet the soils are. The 6000 is a PI after all so even though your ground sounds quiet it is still mineralised which is why you do not get PI depth with a VLF. 

[phrunt]

9 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Any edge of detection target is still gong to require good coil control to be heard (especially sweep speed) no matter how quiet the soils are. The 6000 is a PI after all so even though your ground sounds quiet it is still mineralised which is why you do not get PI depth with a VLF. 

Yes you're correct there, I always say its not mineralised but that's just compared to Australia, as you've likely seen in some of my videos even the GPZ was reacting to the ground badly on occasion, there are patches of it where the GPZ has trouble balancing or reacts to the ground giving false target responses, if its in normal and requires difficult and I've demonstrated my pick handle covered in black sand many times from my dig holes.  If I bury a nugget in my backyard and try detect it with my Equinox I get far more depth than if I bury the same nugget in the gold areas, the soils look completely different too.  My backyard is nice brown vege garden looking soil, the gold areas are this very light coloured almost golden colour soil and so different.   The Equinox doesn't get near the depth in this golden coloured soil as it does in the brown stuff. 

Would you say the GPX prefers a slow or very slow sweep for harder to get edge of detecting targets?   You may notice in those comparison videos I did whenever I was trying to really get a target I took the swing very slow hoping it'd appear as I've found this works on the GPZ.

[Gold Catcher]

59 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

I don’t use the 6000 for outright performance on DEEP gold, I have the 7000 for that, I use the 6000 because it is fun and uncomplicated and ergonomically brilliant and I’m just about assured to get a nugget on just about any known gold nugget area I have ever worked.

That's precisely why IMHO both detectors have a right to co-exist and are not redundant, even not for here in the US. Not everything here is shallow or medium shallow gold, and I have recovered some quite deep gold here with the GPZ too. In addition, I use the GPZ for shallow gold (although not it's design intent) in cases where I don't care about microscopic iron filaments. Regarding easiness of use, I think the "ready to go detect" statement for the 6k only holds up when the sensitivity is dialed all the way back (which is perfectly ok). For maximum gain or for any of the auto functions you need to do more work to keep the machine really user-friendly. This is certainly no problem for more experienced users, but I don't think new-beginners will be able to do that effectively (or at least not as easily as advertised). Just my 2 c.

GC

[phrunt]

It's easy for experienced users to forget how difficult things such as EMI can be to a beginner, and how confused things like that can make them, I don't think it's a good beginner machine.   I think the GPZ is significantly easier to use mainly due to the EMI/Geosense stuff and more stable threshold, of course the GPX has no settings you need to mess with and is more like the Gold Monster in that way, but nor does the GPZ for me, its been a set it and forget it detector for the most part.  Although I'm finding the GPZ reacts just the same if not more so to tiny iron fragments and little tiny bits of wire especially, it goes nuts, that could be to do with my coil selection though more so than anything, iron and steel are the easy targets and I find bits I can barely see, the small round lead is the more difficult.

If anyone thinks they can hit a number #9 lead pellet with the GPX 6000 they're a hell of a lot better at using it than I am.... not a hope in the world would I ever find one with it.

[Aureous]

Who else noticed that JP was using an Xceed 12x7 coil on his GPX6000? How are you finding it Jonathon? Looks the goods....it will be my 1st aftermarket coil on my 6000 for sure.....

[Jonathan Porter]

1 hour ago, Aureous said:

Who else noticed that JP was using an Xceed 12x7 coil on his GPX6000? How are you finding it Jonathon? Looks the goods....it will be my 1st aftermarket coil on my 6000 for sure.....

It’s an absolute treat to use. Pinpointing is a joy, sensitivity is ridiculously good, nook and cranny detecting is where it shines especially in amongst woody brush, grass and leaf litter etc. Early days yet with no doubt a few more revisions as things get finalised, but all in all a compliment to an already excellent machine.

JP

[phrunt]

I look forward to trying one out 🙂

I intend to try all the small coils.  Fortunately GPX coils should be cheaper than GPZ being simpler to make.