Steve Herschbach

These forums are by and large are pretty respectful. FT has made it clear for quite some time the marketing and management people don’t care what we think, and don’t care to engage. What you are seeing is the result of years of customer neglect. There is no point in pretending they (management or marketing) will ever show up officially, and no reason to be fearful of hurting their little feelings. If you are going to be in business, you need to put on the big boy pants when it come it comes to critics. You think a Minelab does not get an earful here? But they still lurk and learn. Or Dilek - fierce warrior that she is, she takes it and gives it right back. Ultimately, it’s First Texas loss, not ours, if they choose to ignore their most rabid fans…. and critics. Any company whose social media strategy is “let’s engage, but only if people are sweet, and treat us with kids gloves” knows nothing about social media, or how to engage with it. If I was running the show at FT, I would show up once a quarter at key locations to talk shop. I’d make it clear it’s just for the day. It would not have to be much, even the barest tidbits. The idea is to show you care enough to bother to engage at all. It’s a two way street, and FT could show a little respect also. Ultimately though, they say a relationship is still alive, as long as there is some passion left. People at least care enough to be sarcastic. It’s when nobody cares at all anymore that it’s really over for FT. They are in serious danger of sliding into irrelevancy.

I have seen pure cubic galena that is quite invisible to a detector. Other forms, especially those that carry silver, can be quite reactive. Rough rule of thumb, the dustier and darker looking it is, the more silver content. I have some high grade galena/silver that I found quite by accident while looking for gold in Arizona - stuff just screamed on my detector. I’m guessing that is less an issue with the Missouri stuff, where some beautiful cubic specimens occur. Actually is the state mineral. https://www.sos.mo.gov/symbol/mineral

Don’t know. I think Aaron is fine, but has dropped off the map on purpose. Moves like shutting down his forum, taking his videos private, etc. all reveal conscious intent. He clearly does not want to offer any explanations in person or by third party. So time to let it go and move on. I wish him the best in whatever is going on, but it’s clearly not really our business, or he would make it so. Too bad Dimitar never took me up on my offer for this to be a place he could interact with his customers. Must be an engineer introvert thing.

The 600 and 800 are same detector, and will do just as well for most people and uses. Gold Mode adds some edge for nuggets, but I could use a 600 and field mode and not come up very short by comparison. If a person can afford it I’d always say get the 800, just for all the extra options. But I genuinely also think a good 600 operator will miss very, very little by comparison, if the two machines are run head to head. The 600 is probably the best bang for the buck value on the market today, though the new Nokta Legend might change that. Jury is out on that one.

Having spent my entire adult life running businesses, I have a short list of culprits where it comes to business dysfunction: Management Management Management Was that Tom Dankowski in the video? He wins my prize for engineer geek speaker.

Are you trying to buy a NF GPZ12 coil? If so, you need to contact Nugget Finder directly. You also speak of paying online, as if you are selling coils. That’s not allowed here, so I’ve deleted your links and contact info. again, if you want a coil from Nugget Finder to go to China, contact them directly at the link to find out the best way to get one.

Maybe more going on there I think than we know about, like 5 kHz not optimal as a multi pick? Both Nokta and XP picked 4 kHz. EMI? 4 to 40 in multi is becoming a thing.

Not enough difference between 40 and 45 kHz to matter. I ditched the Monster and kept the Nox for that very reason. The Monster was redundant.

Gold alloys especially. Almost nobody detects pure gold, but alloys that are all over the map. Regardless of the metal type, as long as it and the shape is the same, the larger it is, the higher it reads. Throw in differences in shape and purity as pimento notes, and it’s a Wild West crapshoot. These gold nuggets vary wildly in purity, shape, and porosity. It means some small nuggets read very high, and some big stuff very low, the big nugget reads like a silver bar. Australian and California gold is relatively pure and clean, so the numbers climb nicely with size. Alaska gold is crap by comparison, lower purity ( yiu can see the color difference), lots of quartz inclusions, etc. The numbers are all over the place.

I do enjoy sarcasm. I heard a rumor a year ago that 2022 was more likely to be "the year" than 2021. And they did kind of clean out the sites to make room, so it seems an ok bet something will come along in 2022. But it can't be close at all, or they would try and head off all the sales they are losing right now to NM and XP by at least dropping a hint, and it is pure radio silence. Could very will be an end of year thing.... and that could turn into next year. I mean, right now, just getting the Impulse AQ out the door would seem to be a miracle, let alone anything else. And like Simon (phrunt) notes, it could just be yet another old box with a new label.

The gist of my post is that no, that's not actually necessarily true, despite what the manuals say. If it was all about theory, maybe, but there is simply more to it than raw targets and frequency.

OK, new forum is done, threads moved. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/forum/61-xp-deus-ii-forum/ I normally keep detector comparison stuff in a separate forum to stop detector wars. But the Deus II versus whatever videos have been pretty favorable, and not much dissension, so I have moved them all there also. Just seemed like one stop shopping is best. As long as people keep acting like adults it will work. Thanks in advance for that.

It's begun, go here https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/forum/61-xp-deus-ii-forum/

New Member Signup - Click Here! Lost Password - Click Here! Forum Tips & Tricks Advanced Search Tag List/Index Welcome to the XP Deus II Forum! Anything remotely related to the subject may be posted here. Forums for other subjects may be found here. The main goal here - to inform and educate. Please keep threads and posts on topic. Off topic posts may be moved or deleted without warning. The main goal of the forum is to share information. If you see something interesting on another forum or anywhere else, please link to it. The only goal here is to inform and anything interesting or informative is not only allowed but desired as long as it is on topic. While visiting this forum please act as if you are visiting my home. Treat others with decency and respect. Politics is not strictly prohibited but limit it to items of concern such as public meeting notices, comment periods, etc. No detector wars - every detector serves a purpose for somebody. For general editorial purposes this forum is treated as if it is a magazine. Do not place ads for your detector or equipment for sale here. That is only allowed in the Classifieds and is only for participating members - read the rules. A note about the Google Ads - I know we all hate ads but they pay for the website. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. All I can do is to promise not to go overboard with them. Special Note To Dealers - Dealers are welcome here, with minimal guidelines. Please read My Policy Regarding Dealers If you have problems logging in or any other issues while on the forum send me a Personal Message (PM). Information on other general forum use and features can be found here. Steve Herschbach

Thanks. I hope so. I look at what I write, it's long, a little repetitive, just blah, blah, blah. I don't do more than just type them out, post, and then edit out typos, so it's all very much off the cuff. I just kind of barf them out. But it seems to work, so thanks.

I missed that. You said Carl Fisher? No, it's Gerhard. But yes, I mean Carl Moreland (Geotech)

Good question. I think it's just that it is in effect just a huge coil, so huge it is insensitive anything smaller than a baseball, and ground also. It certainly does not act high frequency when it comes to what sets it off, targets and ground alike. It acts low frequency though we know it is not. Just very low gain maybe? We are talking quite literally about the oldest and simplest detector design ever sold commercially. Interesting, but I think more of apples to oranges in a way. Carl would know.

You see it very easily with Bluetooth and water. Nice high frequency distance for above water, but you only get inches at best with Bluetooth underwater. I know radio and detectors are different things, detectors are more alternator theory than radio theory, but you see similar issues as regards wavelength and signal propagation.

I will never forget this guy that visited my Moore Creek gold mine in Alaska, where the goal was finding multi ounce gold nuggets in bad ground. He had a 71 kHz Fisher Gold Bug 2, and I was sporting a 13 kHz Fisher F75. He swore his Gold Bug 2 could out detect my F75. I told him yeah, on small stuff, but not the large. He said "nope, tested them, the Gold Bug 2 wins." I asked "air test." He nodded. I knew I had him. So I got a larger nugget, forget exactly what, but 1/4 - 1/2 ounce type thing. We air tested the machines, and sure enough, the Gold Bug 2 blew the F75 away. He was smiling. Then we buried the nugget at about where I knew the F75 would reach. Decent signal. Gold Bug 2. Nothing. Not a weak signal, no signal. The guy was stunned. Absolutely stunned. This simple story is why I tend to scoff at air tests. They serve some purpose in showing theoretical depth max info, so if he and I were in Florida on white sand, he would indeed have beat me. Air tests are a nice way to learn target id numbers. But air testing detectors is like testing race cars with wheels jacked off the ground. Dyno tests only tell you so much, what counts is when the rubber meets the road, and with detectors, when coils meet the ground. I habitually hunt bad ground, and not only find air tests of little value, but even results from most detector test gardens, as they are in mild ground. 12" dimes? Are you kidding me? Not even close in my ground. I see often see results half what others see in mild ground. I wonder how many newbies have that happen, watch the internet, and think their detector is defective?

I like this image because it is one of the only ones I have seen that illustrate the effect on size instead of type. Minelab tried to take credit here, but it really was White's that found the 40 - 50 kHz sweet spot for small gold. Again we have marketing at work. This frequency range is great for many small gold locations, while still doing well on large gold. But it is the gold on site that matters. If the location is old bucket line tailing piles, then there may be no small gold at all. Just larger oversize nuggets, say 1/4 ounce or larger, with main hope a multi ounce nugget. Then this chart is simply wrong, and that 18 kHz detector is now the winner. Conversely, what is there is nothing but 0.1 gram and smaller gold? Not that unusual actually in the goldfields. Now that 71 kHz machine reigns supreme. You have to know enough to read between the lines when it come to marketing, and in this case it is really telling you lower frequency for larger stuff, higher frequency for smaller stuff. Again, does not matter if it is silver, copper, or gold. It's all about size.

This post was a response buried deep in a thread on the Equinox Forum, but got long enough on a subject I think about a lot, that it deserved its own thread. Here you go. I find the whole George Payne way of conceptualizing things to be rather out of date myself. That was back in the day when only one thing mattered - detecting coins. Silver coins in particular. So he was looking at frequency, and most importantly, coin size targets. If you do that, fix target size, you get the false idea that frequency corresponds to type of metal. Nickels respond here. Gold coins here. Copper coins here. And the biggie, silver coins here. That's how the first coin discriminators were conceived. But it has also lead to this mythology that frequency corresponds to metals. Gold is high frequency, silver low frequency. No, it's not. There is no correlation between frequency and type of metal if you do not fix the size at some artificial limit. In fact, gold ranges from ground readings all the way to so-called silver readings. If you fix the metal type, frequency corresponds to size. Low frequency big gold, high frequency small gold. There was also ground to deal with, and ground reacts less well at low frequencies, so a double bonus for silver hunters. You might think it is low frequency working better with silver. But you might also think of it in terms of the detector simply being better able to see the silver, for not seeing the ground. It's all about conceptualization, and you can conceive of the same thing from different angles. I consider the old George Payne way of looking at things as obsolete from my perspective. It really was only something that worked well in the United States, and only because of an accident in our coin size and metal types. It allowed a scale to be created that worked well with silver coins and nickels, while knocking out a lot of trash items. In most other countries, our target id scale is worthless because their coins do not fit our classic scale. I detect for gold. I think in different terms entirely. For me frequency does two opposing things. Higher frequency is better for small targets. Small gold, small silver, small copper..... small stuff. But high frequencies also enhance ground, and especially, hot rock responses. The two effects offset each other, and can reverse things if ground is severe enough. This also totally applies not to nugget hunters like myself, but almost anybody hunting coins and relics under any situation but the classic U.S. silver coin regime. Let me explain. So I want to find gold nuggets. I must first think about the nugget size that I am looking for. I can look for the more common small gold, or the rarer large gold. If I want tiny gold, I usually want a high frequency detector, the higher the better. Now, here is the kicker. High frequency does just fine on large gold also. In fact, high frequency just detects well on everything - in the air. So air test a Gold Bug 2 on things, and it is amazing. Unfortunately, the high frequency also "lights up" the ground to an amazing degree, and it is hard to get good depth on anything at very high frequencies. The signal attenuates rapidly in the ground, and the worse the ground is (more magnetite in general), the faster the depth drops off. Hot rocks that never responded at low frequencies are now everywhere at high frequencies. Lower frequency starts looking better not just because it does better on large targets, but just as much because it is less reactive to the ground. The 71 kHz Gold Bug 2 is an amazing detector. I can find pinhead gold with it. The big caveat is that in most nugget ground it has low penetration, and is very poor on large nuggets at depth. Not because it air tests poorly on large gold, but because the ground sucks up the signal. 71 kHz is great for small gold, and even large gold in the mildest soils, but in bad ground it has poor depth, and makes hot rocks a real issue. If I am looking for large gold at depth, I might very well use a lower frequency VLF in the old days, just as much because it is responding less to the ground as anything else, allowing large gold to be more easily found at depth. For my purposes, a PI detector for a long time was just a high power, super low frequency detector. Huge punch on large gold, with minimal ground response. So PI took over early on from the VLF low frequency, large nugget detectors of the time. I mentioned relic detecting and coins in other countries. If you detect Europe, our U.S. coin scale is garbage. It's not "low frequency = silver." Over there silver can be all over the target id map. Huge silver coins. Or tiny silver coins. Or small coins hammered thin as foil. Or those hammered coins cut to make change. Silver under those circumstances occurs anywhere on your target id scale from ground to the highest reading, 0 to 100. It all just depends on the size, with a little ground effect tossed in to drag things down. So in Europe, if you want to chase tiny silver cut coins, or very small gold coins, higher frequencies work well, whether it is gold or silver. The metal does not matter. It is size that matters. Relic hunters see the very same thing. High frequencies find the small bits, regardless of what they are - worst fact being tiny ferrous. I long ago tossed the frequency and metal thing in my garbage can. Here is my reality. High frequency will help me with smaller targets, but also make dealing with the ground harder. Low frequencies simply have less ground and hot rock response, and also less tiny trash stuff response, making them better if I want want to focus on larger targets, like coins or rings. In my lifetime experience there is a crossover point for gold, and going too high enhances tiny gold nuggets, but also loses depth due to ground issues. A sweet spot develops around 50 kHz, which White's chose ages ago in the Goldmaster II, as being great for small gold nuggets, while still retaining punch in bad ground on larger gold nuggets. Minelab rediscovered this with the Gold Monster, and went with 45 kHz for this very reason. They found pushing high did better on tiny stuff, but the cost in larger heavier gold was not worth it to serious nugget hunters in bad Australian type ground. If I was hunting tailing piles for ounce type gold nuggets, it is hard to beat a 15 kHz type detector, just like that ancient 15 kHz Garrett Groundhog circuit, that was at the time a high frequency, but in retrospect was a great large nugget lower frequency. The White's MXT at 13 kHz is superb on large nuggets in trashy locations. If you are in Europe, that 15 kHz sweet spot applied for a long time, but more recently people have discovered the benefits of higher frequencies on these tiny cut silver and small gold coin finds. Pulse Induction did serve as super low frequency for a long time. You gave up small gold to get big gold as deep as possible. The lack of ground response allows use of extra large coils. It is interesting to me that as newer PI detectors are pushed to get more sensitive to small gold, that ground and hot rocks have also become more problematic. The newest PI nugget hunters suffer from hot rock responses you never saw on the old PI models. PI is getting more like VLF over time. So Billy, does Minelab put all this in Multi-IQ processing? Of course. But not in the way you think. They think more like me. It's every bit as much about ground, and saltwater, and even EMI, and what you do not want to detect, more so than metal types. A primary choice is saltwater - that forces a low frequency mix simply to avoid the salt response. Which, as I seem to have explained to beach guys a million times, also knocks out small gold responses. For large coin detecting a lower frequency mix gives clean responses on larger targets like U.S. coins and rings, while getting less ground response, fewer hot rocks, and far less tiny trash signaling. It is not targeting silver coins per se, just larger stuff. For tiny items, gold nuggets, small hammered silver coins, a higher frequency mix works well, but you will deal with more ground and hot rock response, more tiny trash. Forget metal type. Think size and ground, including saltwater, and hot rocks. As you increase frequency, everything responds better, and small items that respond poorly or not at all at low frequencies will do better. Ground, saltwater, and hot rock signals also increase with frequency. The first cut off is at saltwater. To work there, you must have a lower frequency mix to eliminate salt signal, and you lose all tiny stuff as well, tiny aluminum, tiny gold. This can also do very well on large targets in any ground. The teens are really nice for general detecting, right on the edge of the salt range. 12 kHz - 15 kHz hits really well on most desired detecting targets, while not being overly sensitive to ground and the tiniest trash targets. 40 - 50 kHz is a sweet spot for gold nuggets and all really small targets, like the smallest cut silver coin, targeting the sub-gram range kind of stuff with some alleviation of ground and hot rock issues that develop at extreme frequencies. You get up above 50 kHz and you really are just surface skimming for the tiniest bits. Depth just drops off rapidly due to the ground, and so this is specialty range for the smallest targets. Multifrequency changes none of this, and making a machine that found everything best at all frequencies just gives you a detector that reacts to everything and finds nothing. It is about picking a few divergent frequencies that when differentials are applied, can add extra target information. This is as much about ground as anything else. The classic is the salt beach, where you want to notch out both salt response and ground response. Single frequency can't get you there except in crudest form, eliminating both, while losing a lot of gold. Using two frequencies lets you notch back in some gold jewelry missed by eliminating both ground and salt with a single frequency. Looking at two frequencies that are close together is a waste of time and processing power. The target and ground response is the same. But pick two very divergent frequencies, and you will see differences in target response and ground response. This whole idea of having a detector look at and analyze 100 frequencies simply makes no sense, and reveals the nonsense we have been fed for ages about more frequencies being better. Again, there are only a handful of gross frequency ranges that really matter. Under 10 kHz = find U.S. large coins well, minimal small trash and ground responses, few hot rocks. Call this Park Mode, with a special subset that tunes out salt, called Beach Mode 15 kHz plus or minus, great on a large range of small to large targets, while still not being overly sensitive to ground and very tiny trash. Call this Field Mode. This is an excellent all around compromise mode between low and high. 40 - 50 kHz is great for sub-gram targets, but will make dealing with ground and tiny trash problematic. Let's call this a Gold Mode. 70 - 80 kHz is basically surface skimming for pinheads, max hot rock and tiny trash response. Pinhead Mode? A niche area for sure. Four basic options, and really three, since the highest is very niche. It is also comparing results in these three or four options that give you the most bang for the buck in multi. They diverge enough to provide the basis for good differential algorithms. Again, multifrequency really just adds better ground and target id capability for cleaner, more accurate responses across the board. It's not some magic about finding all targets best at all frequencies by lumping them all together. Most frequency discussions simply miss the reality of what is going on, and what is being achieved by going multifrequency. I will say it one last time. Think of frequency, whether single frequency, or a mix of frequencies, in terms of the desired target size, offset by the added ground/salt response. Think of the target id scale as a size scale, low numbers are small targets, high numbers large targets. Think less about it being an indication of type of metal. Aluminum responds anywhere on the scale. So does gold, lead, silver, copper. Small foil a low single digit, and aluminum can like a silver quarter. Pick your frequency mix and your target id numbers to match the size of the targets you are seeking, and life will get easier. And quit thinking of multifrequency in terms of finding more targets better the more frequencies you use. Nonsense, just marketing nonsense. The White’s chart below kind of says it all. I’d certainly be picking a high frequency VLF for the tiny gold. But $20 gold coins? Any good detector is going to work, and I’d be far more likely to go 15 kHz or lower. Newer Thread in a Similar Vein

Every time we get new detectors for the beach, we get the same question. "Will it find thin gold chains better?" It comes up so often I finally dug up an old post I can just point to whenever it comes up. Here you go. Gold Chains and Other Small Gold In Saltwater Here is a similar question that comes up a lot: Why Won't My Detector Find That Gold Chain? There seems to be a thought process that thinks somehow multifrequency overrides basic laws of physics, that some magic new processing is going to fix the issue. No. Not as long as conductivity is the measure. Once you understand this, you stop asking the question. Hopefully the article helps out with that.

I like this image because it is one of the only ones I have seen that illustrate the effect on size instead of type. Minelab tried to take credit here, but it really was White's that found the 40 - 50 kHz sweet spot for small gold. Again we have marketing at work. This frequency range is great for many small gold locations, while still doing well on large gold. But it is the gold on site that matters. If the location is old bucket line tailing piles, then there may be no small gold at all. Just larger oversize nuggets, say 1/4 ounce or larger, with main hope a multi ounce nugget. Then this chart is simply wrong, and that 18 kHz detector is now the winner. Conversely, what is there is nothing but 0.1 gram and smaller gold? Not that unusual actually in the goldfields. Now that 71 kHz machine reigns supreme. You have to know enough to read between the lines when it come to marketing, and in this case it is really telling you lower frequency for larger stuff, higher frequency for smaller stuff. Again, does not matter if it is silver, copper, or gold. It's all about size.

I find the whole George Payne way of conceptualizing things to be rather out of date myself. That was back in the day when only one thing mattered - detecting coins. Silver coins in particular. So he was looking at frequency, and most importantly, coin size targets. If you do that, fix target size, you get the false idea that frequency corresponds to type of metal. Nickels respond here. Gold coins here. Copper coins here. And the biggie, silver coins here. That's how the first coin discriminators were conceived. But it has also lead to this mythology that frequency corresponds to metals. Gold is high frequency, silver low frequency. No, it's not. There is no correlation between frequency and type of metal if you do not fix the size at some artificial limit. In fact, gold ranges from ground readings all the way to so-called silver readings. If you fix the metal type, frequency corresponds to size. Low frequency big gold, high frequency small gold. There was also ground to deal with, and ground reacts less well at low frequencies, so a double bonus for silver hunters. You might think it is low frequency working better with silver. But you might also think of it in terms of the detector simply being better able to see the silver, for not seeing the ground. It's all about conceptualization, and you can conceive of the same thing from different angles. I consider the old George Payne way of looking at things as obsolete from my perspective. It really was only something that worked well in the United States, and only because of an accident in our coin size and metal types. It allowed a scale to be created that worked well with silver coins and nickels, while knocking out a lot of trash items. In most other countries, our target id scale is worthless because their coins do not fit our classic scale. I detect gold. I think in different terms entirely. For me frequency does two opposing things. Higher frequency is better for small targets. Small gold, small silver, small copper..... small stuff. But high frequencies also enhance ground, and especially, hot rock responses. The two effects offset each other, and can reverse things if ground is severe enough. This also totally applies not to nugget hunters like myself, but almost anybody hunting coins and relics under any situation but the classic U.S. silver coin regime. Let me explain. So I want to find gold nuggets. I must first think about the nugget size that I am looking for. I can look for the more common small gold, or the rarer large gold. If I want tiny gold, I usually want a high frequency detector, the higher the better. Now, here is the kicker. High frequency does just fine on large gold also. In fact, high frequency just detects well on everything - in the air. So air test a Gold Bug 2 on things, and it is amazing. Unfortunately, the high frequency also "lights up" the ground to an amazing degree, and it is hard to get good depth on anything at very high frequencies. The signal attenuates rapidly in the ground, and the worse the ground is (more magnetite in general), the faster the depth drops off. Hot rocks that never responded at low frequencies are now everywhere at high frequencies. Lower frequency starts looking better not just because it does better on large targets, but just as much because it is less reactive to the ground. The 71 kHz Gold Bug 2 is an amazing detector. I can find pinhead gold with it. The big caveat is that in most nugget ground it has low penetration, and is very poor on large nuggets at depth. Not because it air tests poorly on large gold (it tests great), but because the ground sucks up the signal. 71 kHz is great for small gold, and even large gold in the mildest soils, but in bad ground it has poor depth, and makes hot rocks a real issue. If I am looking for large gold at depth, I might very well use a lower frequency VLF in the old days, just as much because it is responding less to the ground as anything else, allowing large gold to be more easily found at depth. For my purposes, a PI detector for a long time was just a high power, super low frequency detector. Huge punch on large gold, with minimal ground response. So PI took over early on from the VLF low frequency, large nugget detectors of the time. I mentioned relic detecting and coins in other countries. If you detect Europe, our U.S. coin scale is garbage. It's not "low frequency = silver." Over there silver can be all over the target id map. Huge silver coins. Or tiny silver coins. Or small coins hammered thin as foil. Or those hammered coins cut to make change. Silver under those circumstances occurs anywhere on your target id scale from ground to the highest reading, 0 to 100. It all just depends on the size, with a little ground effect tossed in to drag things down. So in Europe, if you want to chase tiny silver cut coins, or very small gold coins, higher frequencies work well, whether it is gold or silver. The metal does not matter. It is size that matters. Relic hunters see the very same thing. High frequencies find the small bits, regardless of what they are - worst fact being tiny ferrous. I long ago tossed the frequency and metal thing in my garbage can. Here is reality. High frequency will help you with smaller targets, but also make dealing with the ground harder. Low frequencies simply have less ground and hot rock response, and also less tiny trash stuff response, making them better if you want want to focus on larger targets, like coins or rings. In my lifetime experience there is a crossover point for gold, and going too high enhances tiny gold nuggets, but also loses depth due to ground issues. A sweet spot develops around 50 kHz, which White's chose ages ago in the Goldmaster II, as being great for small gold nuggets, while still retaining punch in bad ground on larger gold nuggets. Minelab rediscovered this with the Gold Monster, and went with 45 kHz for this very reason. They found pushing high did better on tiny stuff, but the cost in larger heavier gold was not worth it to serious nugget hunters in bad Australian type ground. If I was hunting tailing piles for ounce type gold nuggets, it is hard to beat a 15 kHz type detector, just like that ancient 15 kHz Garrett Groundhog circuit, that was at the time a high frequency, but in retrospect was a great large nugget lower frequency. The White's MXT at 13 kHz is superb on large nuggets in trashy locations. If you are in Europe, that 15 kHz sweet spot applied for a long time, but more recently people have discovered the benefits of higher frequencies on these tiny cut silver and small gold coin finds. Pulse Induction did serve as super low frequency for a long time. You gave up small gold to get big gold as deep as possible. The lack of ground response allows use of extra large coils. It is interesting to me that as newer PI detectors are pushed to get more sensitive to small gold, that ground and hot rocks have also become more problematic. The newest PI nugget hunters suffer from hot rock responses you never saw on the old PI models. PI is getting more like VLF over time. So Billy, does Minelab put all this in Multi-IQ processing? Of course. But not in the way you think. They think more like me. It's every bit as much about ground, and saltwater, and even EMI, and what you do not want to detect, more so than metal types. A primary choice is saltwater - that forces a low frequency mix simply to avoid the salt response. Which, as I seem to have explained to beach guys a million times, also knocks out small gold responses. For large coin detecting a lower frequency mix gives clean responses on larger targets like U.S. coins and rings, while getting less ground response, fewer hot rocks, and far less tiny trash signaling. It is not targeting silver coins per se, just larger stuff. For tiny items, gold nuggets, small hammered silver coins, a higher frequency mix works well, but you will deal with more ground and hot rock response, more tiny trash. Forget metal type. Think size and ground, including saltwater, and hot rocks. As you increase frequency, everything responds better, and small items that respond poorly or not at all at low frequencies will do better. Ground, saltwater, and hot rock signals also increase with frequency. The first cut off is at saltwater. To work there, you must have a lower frequency mix to eliminate salt signal, and you lose all tiny stuff as well, tiny aluminum, tiny gold. This can also do very well on large targets in any ground. The teens are really nice for general detecting, right on the edge of the salt range. 12 kHz - 15 kHz hits really well on most desired detecting targets, while not being overly sensitive to ground and the tiniest trash targets. 40 - 50 kHz is a sweet spot for gold nuggets and all really small targets, like the smallest cut silver coin, targeting the sub-gram range kind of stuff with some alleviation of ground and hot rock issues that develop at extreme frequencies. You get up above 50 kHz and you really are just surface skimming for the tiniest bits. Depth just drops off rapidly due to the ground, and so this is specialty range for the smallest targets. Multifrequency changes none of this, and making a machine that found everything best at all frequencies just gives you a detector that reacts to everything and finds nothing. It is about picking a few divergent frequencies that when differentials are applied, can add extra target information. This is as much about ground as anything else. The classic is the salt beach, where you want to notch out both salt response and ground response. Single frequency can't get you there except in crudest form, eliminating both, while losing a lot of gold. Using two frequencies lets you notch back in some gold jewelry missed by eliminating both ground and salt with a single frequency. Looking at two frequencies that are close together is a waste of time and processing power. The target and ground response is the same. But pick two very divergent frequencies, and you will see differences in size response and ground response. This whole idea of having a detector look at and analyze 100 frequencies simply makes no sense, and reveals the nonsense we have been fed for ages about more frequencies being better. Again, there are only a handful of gross frequency ranges that really matter. Under 10 kHz = find U.S. large coins well, minimal small trash and ground responses, few hot rocks. call this Park Mode, with a special subset that tunes out salt, called Beach Mode 15 kHz plus or minus great on a large range of small to large targets, while still not being overly sensitive to ground and very tiny trash. Call this Field Mode, but really its just best all around mode. 40 - 50 kHz is great for sub-gram targets, but will make dealing with ground and tiny trash problematic. Let's call this a Gold Mode. 70 - 80 kHz is basically surface skimming for pinheads, max hot rock and tiny trash response. Pinhead Mode? Again, multifrequency really just adds better ground and target id capability for cleaner, more accurate responses across the board. It's not some magic about finding all targets best at all frequencies by lumping them all together. Most frequency discussions simply miss the reality of what is going on, and what is being achieved by going multifrequency. I will say it one last time. Think of frequency, whether single frequency, or a mix of frequencies, in terms of the desired target size, offset by the added ground/salt response. Think of the target id scale as a size scale, low numbers are small targets, high numbers large targets. Forget aluminum or silver or gold. Aluminum responds anywhere on the scale. So does gold. Small foil a low single digit, and aluminum can like a silver quarter. Pick your frequency mix and your target id numbers to match the size of the targets you are seeking, and life will get easier. And quit thinking of multifrequency in terms of finding more targets better the more frequencies you use. Nonsense, just marketing nonsense.

Because those that were going to sell sold them long ago. Those that still have them either are keeping them to use, or just can’t be bothered to sell. I’d not read much more into it than that. Basic VLF performance has not changed that much in 30 years. So yeah, you can use almost anything and do well, if you know what you are doing. The key is not the latest new toy, it’s research and good locations…. plus hours.