Steve Herschbach

18” Nugget Finder Mono Advantage. Commanders are actually good coils, but the 18” is far too heavy given the alternatives.

The Minelab GPX 5000 is a popular and well proven detector with a long history of successful use by many people worldwide. Any concerns about functionality are unfounded or based on excessive and unrealistic performance claims. Depth is related to target size and most gold nuggets are small so max depth will be a foot or less for typical small gold nuggets. Nuggets weighing an ounce or more can be found at up to two feet, with nuggets a pound or more being found up to a meter in depth. My favorite large coil was an 18” round mono. The GPX 5000 has been around a long time and is in the process of being discontinued, but can still be found for $4000 - $5000 in the U.S. To put this in perspective a GPZ 7000 is $9000. How Deep Can I Detect Coins, Relics, Gold Nuggets, etc.? Coil size versus measured nugget depths - Minelab GPZ 7000

https://www.detectorprospector.com/topic/25584-algoforce-e1500-vs-the-rest/

Obviously not much action on this forum. Like many I had a Tarsacci but sold it. I would gladly buy another if it had better tones and less irritating menu navigation. It’s more a hobby than a business for Dimitar so who knows, might happen someday, might not. I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime I am genuinely curious. Is there an active Tarsacci forum, Facebook group, or other spot where Tarsacci owners are discussing the detector online? I’m wonder if it is this forum only that is quiet, or just that there is no real Tarsacci discussion going on anywhere? I know it was a Tom D favorite until Manticore came along so nothing happening there either.

The TDI and the Eric Foster Goldscan it is based on were designed to use mono coils. DD coils offer no real advantage on the TDI. The pulse delay is your main tool after the ground balance for dealing with the worst ground. Always readjust the ground balance after changing the pulse delay as they are interrelated. For beach use it is also very important to experiment with ground balance off as this can add depth, especially on targets that happen to fall into the ground balance hole.

Like I said, I do not have enough hours to say anything definitive personally. I do know that in high mineral ground gold can read as pure non-ferrous, pure ferrous, and anywhere in between. In some ground with some gold the Manticore could be very accurate. In other locations on different gold it could be very unreliable. I’d caution anyone against getting too comfortable with using discrimination when nugget detecting.

I have not used it enough to make specific recommendations but I did nothing special - gold field mode, sensitivity to suit conditions, hunt Low and Slow.

Thread will be locked at the first hint of political commentary, opinions on fiat currency, etc. For those of us with gold to sell high prices are great. But discussions on the what’s and why’s of it have made it onto my short list of subjects that often seem to go off the rails, so let’s just avoid that right now. Thanks.

No, they are not compatible. Totally different detectors actually. The original Lobo is a Tesoro Jack Gifford design, the ST a Dave Johnson design done under contract for Tesoro. The old coils had a female coil connection and the new coils have a male pin connector to prevent people accidently using them on the wrong model. The frequency is close enough that maybe an adapter would work but I have never heard of it being done. It might work but would probably be off spec with side effects both in ground balance and disc, if it worked at all. I'd not bet on it since they really are two totally different detectors internally.

Garrett does not make a DD coil for the Axiom. It’s a unique Focused Core (FC) coil design and as explained many times before on this forum, anyone equating their performance with what they think they know about DD coils is headed down the wrong path. The FC coils can be as sensitive or more sensitive to small gold than the equivalent size mono coil, and that means they can also react to certain ground conditions or hot rocks more than one would expect with a DD coil. Different ground conditions from one person to another may give conflicting results. In some places a mono might be the better choice, in others the FC coil. In some places the Fine setting may not work, Normal will be better. Personally if something is not working for me I switch to my other options until I find what works best in any given area. That’s why we have different coils and different settings. But again, me comparing what my machine is doing to what other people are getting for results in different ground just seems like a rabbit hole to me. I expect things to be different and not universally the same for all people in all locations. Unless people can get together and compare detectors on the same ground and the same targets it confuses as much as enlightens. There is exactly one version of the Axiom on the market. This also has been asked and answered before. It is always possible a person has a defective detector, or more likely, defective coil. If there is any suspicion about that contact your dealer or Garrett with your concerns. I’ll see that this thread gets forwarded to the engineers but other than that it’s my last comment on the subject.

Hear, hear, yes thank you for saying that Hugh. No pins and needles. A person really does have to be persistently abrasive and argumentative in the face of obvious pushback from the general forum membership. It's really you all that as a group are setting the tone, and it becomes obvious when somebody is not going with the flow but against it. T.H.I.N.K. before you post!

You know, that's a very good point. I started this forum purely with the intent of sharing information and helping people. This whole this versus that thing just kind of snuck in and so I did finally create one forum to contain it, the Advice & Comparisons Forum (the one we are on). Even there the Advice part came first or was supposed to. My mindset has always been simple. If a person has a Ace 300 and wants to get the best out of it, how do I help them do that? Tell them their choice in a detector sucks? People would be absolutely stunned by the number and quality of finds made worldwide by Ace detectors. This should be about having fun and fellowship, helping others. Instead people on social media are getting angry, getting in fights - over metal detecting! Yes, please to all of you, let's talk about this detector versus that one, but with the understanding they all can be used to make good finds, and that what is great for one person is too much or too little for someone else. We are all here to just help one another and to have fun. If anyone leaves the forum in a bad mood or angry, something is wrong. Bottom line, anyone who makes a habit of making people feel that way needs to go away. And will. The mods and I have discussed this and we are doubling down on civility and good cheer as being the forum prime directives. T.H.I.N.K. before you post!

It's only the company that is dead, not the detectors. Tesoros are still some of the best and lightest detectors ever made and highly regarded by those that hunt by ear in trashy ground. Analog offers audio nuance that most digital models lose with their overprocessed output. New detector cell phones on a stick also tout their 3 lb light weight when my old Tesoro Silver uMax weighed in at 2.2 lbs over two decades ago - lighter than a Deus!

It says Manticore in first the post and numerous ones later and reality it is not Manticore only. It’s not a put down, it’s advice to you and others. All members should read enough of a thread to understand what they are about before commenting. If that’s too much trouble, don’t comment. This was thread was far longer than it should be for answering the same question repeatedly for people who could not bother, but expected other people to tell them once again what was already covered in the thread - if they would just read it. More advice - prickly won’t get anyone very far with me as I’m all the prickly the forum needs. As Simon notes it’s an issue for any highly sensitive detector, not just Manticore, it’s just that nearly all highly sensitive detectors do not come with conductive lower rods. Again, this was all covered in the thread already. It’s all there, over and over. Thread relocked.