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Gold Detector Competition, We Are All Winners. Is Something Coming Gpx-8000?


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So, discrimination seems to be dismissed as a viable option on the GPZ 8000 although I still hope they can do it, so what can they possibly do to the GPZ 7000 to make it worth the upgrade investment to buy a GPZ 8000?

I'm a bit puzzled where they could go, it was obvious with the GPX 5000 they needed to lighten it up and give it better small gold performance and it was well known they were capable of doing both of these things evident by the SDC and GPZ being better on small gold than the GPX 5000 and the weight loss is helped by technology advancements over time along with using lighter materials for the structural build although I think they took it too far causing some quality issues with the lighter design though as evident by the cracking coils. 

Seeing small gold is most of the gold left in the ground anywhere it makes sense for manufacturers to focus on it but the GPZ 7000 is already virtually as capable of small gold detection as the GPX 6000 when using a small coil and it has the benefit of the extra depth on a range of sizes of gold over the other detectors.

Yes they can lighten it up, as long as they don't sacrifice build quality like they did with the 6000 that would be a nice move but not one worth spending 10k on an upgrade unless you're a very serious heavy duty user out all day everyday finding gold. A lighter GPZ 7000 certainly wouldn't be enough for me to upgrade, it would take a lot more than weight.

They can put in a faster processor to stop the lagging interface and incorporate Bluetooth LE like the modern detectors for better wireless audio although the WM12 system works pretty well and it's easy to just add a Bluetooth LE transmitter and save 10 grand on the upgrade.

They could put in a speaker like they did with the 6000 but that didn't quite go to plan with the speaker causing basically a massive recall and the fact the speaker is pretty quiet means the 6000 speaker idea wasn't overly a success story so they'd need to rethink that and if it's even worth doing.

So, where can they go? What could they do to make a GPZ 8000 appealing and worth the purchase to those already with a 7000?  I've told myself I'm not going to buy one unless its a significant improvement over the 7000 and at this stage unless they shock me I don't see how they could have a significant improvement.   I wasn't really shocked with the GPX 6000 and its performance, they did what they needed to do and it was all stuff that seemed within the current technological barriers, nothing really new although they came up with a fancy buzzword with Geosense.  The auto settings adjustment seems a nice feature that they started working on with the VLF's like the Gold Monster and it works well I think but I wouldn't want Geosense on my 7000 just the same, I like it how it is for settings control and have never wished it would automatically adjust things for me. 

Maybe they have something up their sleeve that we don't know about, time will tell I guess but it would have to be significantly better than the GPZ 7000 and the GPX 6000 to be worth bringing it to market as most buyers in a very limited customer pool would be upgrading from a previous detector like the 7000 or 6000.

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5 hours ago, phrunt said:

Seeing small gold is most of the gold left in the ground anywhere it makes sense for manufacturers to focus on it but the GPZ 7000 is already virtually as capable of small gold detection as the GPX 6000 when using a small coil and it has the benefit of the extra depth on a range of sizes of gold over the other detectors.

This could be the very reason why we never got the small coil for the 7000 that we were promised. They didn't want to shoot themselves in the foot for their next detector they had in the works the 6000...also why they did not let the other guys build a small coil...makes me wonder.

strick

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19 minutes ago, strick said:

This could be the very reason why we never got the small coil for the 7000 that we were promised. They didn't want to shoot themselves in the foot for their next detector they had in the works the 6000...also why they did not let the other guys build a small coil...makes me wonder.

You're 100% correct!

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Depth Discrim. Or an accurate depth gauge.

Doc posted about in one of these threads recently - using his brain and his boot scrape. But it's something I've been posting about for a decade and hoping to see in the 5000, 7000, 6000, and now the 8000.

Because unfortunately, in many places that aren't sandy washes, you can't just bootscrape the first 6 inches and move on. Hard clay, rocky soils, hardpack on top of even harder-pack, etc....these places the gold often is almost always past a certain depth - say 10 inches. But it might take 5-10 minutes to chisel through that first 10" just to get a piece of rusty tin. Having some kind of semi-accurate depth discrimination would save a ton of time and digging.

Depth should be a quanitity easier to determine than metallic composition. Because at the hard end of the scale you can always just brute force it by timing a pulse reflection and then computing the distance. We did this in university and it's not beyond impossible, just hard to measure small distances since light travels quite fast (by "small", I mean, less than ~1000ft) but there are tricks to do it, even with older electronics. 

Something that could just 75% confidence tell me "greater or less than 10 inches" would save me TONS of time in exploration, and would be worth the cost. But that's just me, it's usefulness is minimal for people just working old patches and old goldfields where most the trash is gone, but we're talking pro-grade detectors here so I expect to see features like this myself.

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On 3/14/2023 at 1:20 PM, phrunt said:

at this stage unless they shock me I don't see how they could have a significant improvement

Yes, I'm hoping they shock me to, but it makes me also wonder what they have been designing since the 2015's ZED release, as this is a long time in the making.

I can only hope it is a more refined 7000 that can actually add more depth performance on all nugget sizes, handle the worst ground effectively, and can have a huge variety of coil size options right from the release date, but If you already have X-coils this might not be it's best selling point.

Any discrimination would still be beneficial for surface rubbish, shallow soils and bedrock areas, but I do not like the previous blanking type of PI discrimination, so maybe a different tone could be used or a visual target ID would be even more outstanding.

I expect it to be a lot lighter with better ergonomics since they have been successful at doing this with other newer models. Any lightweight water resistance packaging would be beneficial for accident plunges while working near water.

Being this is a Flagship detector for the most series prospectors I would hope it would have more user control options than the GPX-6000. 

For now I'm just glad Minelab is still taking the lead on this as I have confidence it will be worth the wait. 

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It comes down to PI vs ZVT technology. ZVT has several advantages that can't be met by any PI, doesn't matter who makes it or how advanced it may be (6000, Axiom, etc). A modernized ZVT with better/faster processing time combined with light(er) weight and coil options would do it for me. Oh yes, and please a better screen, not the 50c one they have on now.

GC

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I think you can rule out small coils, or even very sensitive to small target coils as they won't want to hurt 6000 sales, that seems to be a pattern forming.  I think the GPZ 8000 would be a deep bigger gold detector marketed and finding the bigger gold missed by the older models and I'm sure it will be very good at that compared to a standard 7000.  I'm guessing it will have 2 or 3 coil options and large coils will be the coils it has available from Minelab, I'm guessing 17" will be the stock coil.   They may even learn a thing or two off the aftermarket and go with options of Concentric coils.  To add value the package may come with two coils to help justify the price.

The 6000 is a really good small gold hunter where they've limited it to quite small coils, I think the 8000 will be the big deep gold hunter with big coils.

I guess its partly why I'm not all that interested in an 8000 as I don't think the detector they will release will suit me.  The 6000 I guess on paper is the detector that suits me perfectly with it's small gold sensitivity, it's only because I am very comfortable on the GPZ and have small coils and a 15" Concentric coil for it that I prefer it, in stock setups I'd have sold my GPZ and moved onto the 6000 shortly after getting my 6000. 

As it stands now I could live without my 6000, not so my 7000, so hopefully the 8000 will suit me, I really don't think it will...

I like putting these predictions down on the forum, I like going back and seeing how close to right I was when the new detector comes out 🙂 

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Personally I think the only chance we have of better depth and sensitivity is the Half Sine Hybrid technology that Whites developed but never went to market with. I suppose that patent now belongs to Garrett? Perhaps Garrett is hard at it developing a half sine hybrid machine as we speak?

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I also was thinking that the GPX-6000 and GPZ-7000 would always be separated out on performances since Minelab has controlled this market for so long. I hope they do not lose future sales on this past practice as now with the Axiom offering a 14" x 16" mono and DD coils it would seem the competition could change Minelab's previous thinking strategies, especially if it's about making the most profits. Hopefully they are forced into adding more options then what was previously offered to compete with the current competition, kind of like the X-Terra Pro release is attempting to do. 

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