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The Competition Heats Up


Norvic

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My thoughts exactly.  If I was in a place where there was plenty of nice big gold to find my views might be different but my gold barely counts as a flake to some and they'd probably find it a disappointment if the target they dug was one of my little nuggets, hardly worth their time let alone going out on a mission to seek out such small pieces 🙂

I guess it's a bit like computers, for years we saw computers getting faster and faster, often doubling in speed every couple of years, manufacturers made transistors smaller with higher clock speeds to make them perform more computations per second, electronics get too hot if you make them calculate too fast and we were having bigger and bigger fans creating more noise and giant copper heat-sinks to try keep them cool, it was becoming impossible to keep them cool enough and partly why we no longer see clock speeds increasing much, CPU's now have the similar clock speeds as a decade ago so to get around this they put more and more cores in, so essentially we are running multiple processors in parallel to compute faster.   The laws of physics stopped computers getting faster forever.

This appears to be similar with metal detectors, Physics stopped them improving by leaps and bounds.

It's amazing to me the Gold Bug 2 is the benchmark for small gold sensitivity after being released in 1995, 27 years ago and it is, I've not found a detector more sensitive.

I'm done buying high end gold detectors for now and I doubt the GPZ 8000 will excite me too much, they won't want to take sales away from the 6000 so it will be a big deep gold detector with a 14+ inch coil with no small coil options even though it's well proven ZVT with a smaller or Concentric coil can be awesome for small gold and deep!

I'm very happy with my current detectors, I benefit greatly by breaking the rules and having a range of coils on a detector not otherwise able to run them and I've told myself the Manticore is my last VLF for quite some time although I'd probably prefer it was the CTX 4040 I was buying.  I often wonder how many people would have even bought a 6000 if Minelab just released a few extra official coils for the GPZ, similar to those that I run on mine, I guess that's not good for business, they make a lot more money selling a new crazy priced detector than a coil for one we already have.

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From the above discussion it would appear that there is not much reason to make any new gold metal detector from here on. The Axiom as a versatile all-round PI, the 6000 as specialized small/medium gold sniffer, the 7000 for depth and advanced settings and best ground processing. So, is this the end? Really? I personally don't think so. But the point is well taken, the advancements in technology need to be striking to justify a true value return for the money in terms of gold finds. And that is also getting harder with less and less gold in the (reachable) ground. But all that being said, I suspect the same people who refuse any thoughts of buying the new "GPZ8" will eventually change their minds, once they see a horde of prospectors are out there with the latest and greatest, while they are missing out. It is the "gold bug" in us and the obsession for metal detecting that keeps us going and that can't tolerate that someone else "might" have an advantage in the field. And that advantage might indeed be real.

GC

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2 hours ago, Gold Catcher said:

From the above discussion it would appear that there is not much reason to make any new gold metal detector from here on.

There is a big reason. To part people from their money so as to stay in business. And to satisfy the desire of those who clearly are waiting for the next new detector. I sold my GPZ 7000 long ago, and my 6000 last year, and downshifted to a presumably less capable detector. So I have exited from that group already. But I am not the norm by far, and I would expect a GPZ 8000 to sell like hotcakes. When it appears, and it will, it will have a measurable advantage you can hang your hat on. Or Minelab will not make it. They are not a company to simply repackage something and call it better. So have no fear Gold Catcher, the detector you desire is waiting in the wings, though not nearly so close at hand as many people would like to imagine. But it will show up eventually, and then everyone that has a 7000 will have a reason to trade up and go hit all those dead patches one more time.

The only new design that would get me truly excited would be GPZ like performance combined with Deus like ferrous discrimination in dense ferrous nail pits. But I will not hold my breath in the slightest for that.

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I'd like GPZ like performance along with Target ID's.  That would work for me 🙂  I love technology, and I'd be very interested to see the new GPX 8000 and what it has to offer, I just don't need to buy one as I'm happy with my current stuff.

I just don't have the gold in my area to make another high end gold detector viable with their price and just enjoy myself with what I've got now.   I've given Minelab enough money 🙂  If my GPZ ever died I'd certainly buy another one, maybe I'll pick one up cheap when everyone is diving into the GPZ 8000.

I like what has happened with VLF's where the Nox and now Manticore are one detector that does it all, not having to buy a 6000 for small gold and a 7000 for deeper gold and an SDC for difficult detecting whatever they mean by that.  They can easily do a multi purpose unit with the 8000, the 7000 can already largely do it.

819689937_GoldToolbox.thumb.jpg.dadba0134efa9f876cc8ee34daf48608.jpg

The other thing in this image is the mineralization meter, only the GPZ is for heavy.

Perhaps that's where they can go with newer models more so than improving sensitivity as I think they've reached the necessary peak there with the 6000 and 7000, improving ground handling more which gives more depth in bad ground would prove a good benefit for many.  As someone in milder ground I often see depths people find their nuggets and I think it was shallow when they thought it was deep so clearly better ground handling would improve detectors a lot.  The depth cuts are dramatic with people using VLF's in bad ground coin hunting which is an extreme example of how depths are lost with ground handling capabilities.   I wouldn't benefit all that much from this change though where as a lot of others would and that might be the future for high end detectors, improved ground handling and I think that would be a game changer for a lot of people.   Just by flicking my GPZ into difficult I see a decent performance drop and that's without even introducing the bad soil, and that's how many have to run theirs because of their soil, if they could get "normal" performance in difficult ground that would be a big improvement.

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17 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

What sells detectors is not so much the reality, as the dream, and for lots of people the dream is alive. Going to get that super duper new machine, and go out and find a pile of gold. Yeah!!

Steve H has absolutely hit the nail on the head. It is the dreamers that will keep gold detector manufacturers in business. The glory days are well past. It has come down to very expensive detectors to scavenge for surface crumbs & tiny gold a bit deeper that for the majority out there will most likely never pay off their detector in gold finds. Taking in to consideration the cost factor for many in just getting to a goldfield.

Gold Catcher said:  It is the "gold bug" in us and the obsession for metal detecting that keeps us going and that can't tolerate that someone else "might" have an advantage in the field. And that advantage might indeed be real.

That advantage came in the form of X coils for the GPZ 7000, & look at the hornets nest that stirred up. Those who took them on board largely had big smiles on their faces. Like you said Gold Catcher, anything for an advantage....

D4G

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Much reduced weight, perhaps punching a bit deeper, faster ground processing, updated and faster software and better(!) screen would do for me. Asking for acurate discrmination at depth is asking for too much IMO. I am no engineer, but I heard engineers saying accurate discrmination is a pipe dream and not technically feasible, in particular at the detecting edge. If the GPZ8 would come with discrimination I would almost think this would be purely to please relic hunters, and kind of a joke for a high end gold detector. I don't think anybody really believes in accurate discrimination, unless you want to identify a rusty can from a gold watch (perhaps).

GC

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People may be surprised to learn just how much 'noise' there is within a PI circuit, especially when dealing with mineralized ground. This 'noise' detracts a lot from the circuits ability to pluck a real target from the overall signal received from the coil. Couple this with the ability to increase the coil's power, pumping more energy into the soil and you have a very large window of electronic opportunity to improve upon. The improvements in circuitry and components which can function faster and more efficiently also add even more to the picture. Add a final couple of additions in coding (a-la Geo-sense) and coil type/s (CC and DOD etc) and.....you get the picture. Electronics boffins like Eric Foster (RIP), Bruce Candy, Don McCall and Dave Emery all had visions of just how incredible the apex of PI tech for gold prospecting could become, given further, incremental advances in technology. 

We all know that there is a lot of gold outside our reach, its always been the dream that a detector will come along one day that matches the huge 50% Advance that the SD2000 gave us back in 1995. Holding breath......

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Aye MN, prospecting's the go, using methods to locate possible areas that have not been used before, geological methods might sound the most obvious and they have been by actual professional geologists but that`s been done by detector operating geologists for 50 years. Most of us are just amateurs with only a very basic understanding of geology.

Au, the 6K and now the Axiom have refined PI further, Geo Sense works for me, I use the 6K almost always on Auto+, its obviously handling that circuitry noise better than those before, but still a trade off between noise and sensitivity. I am positively excited about running the Axiom with its refinements that have impressed both Steve and Gerry, in a future PI that trade off between noise and sensitivity will be conquered.

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