Steve Herschbach

Multi-IQ has ground balancing algorithms built in, and so is more forgiving than most detectors. A lot of ground is mild enough the default setting works fine. However, a proper ground balance will always offer the best possible performance on any detector that offers the control. Both depth and target id may suffer from an improper ground balance.

I hope so - the Gold Monster could use a makeover. But I doubt it.

You say you wanted a GMZ but you bought a counterfeit instead, which means you do not have a GMZ. All you have a copy that may or may not perform as well as an original. Putting all the legal and moral questions aside, the reason for buying genuine product is to get genuine performance, and most counterfeiters don’t worry much about getting that part right. You are lucky it works at all.

Or just a weakness in a sourced component that quits randomly if you are unlucky enough to have one.

The less you invest in the hobby, the easier it is to quit. Most first time detectorists find out the hobby is boring for a lot of people. They got a cheap detector, gave it a go, and decided digging bottle caps is not as fun as it’s made out to be. This is doubly true when the detector is a gift, as is often the case with these inexpensive big box deals. Detectorists are a rare breed. You could probably give everyone in the country a free detector, and you’d not really see that much more activity out there.

There are no U.S. states that make detecting impossible, though within any state many areas are off limits. There are plenty of countries where metal detecting could land you in prison, but it’s not on my radar. I spend all my time thinking about where I can go, not where I can’t go. http://www.mdhtalk.org/articles/legal-to-detect/legal-to-detect.htm

It’s by design. I use as light a touch as possible, and I do not consider hardly anyone on this forum to be a griper. More like demanding users who in many cases are better detectorists than you or I. People reporting their honest experiences are not griping, and I value thoughtful critical commentary over salesmanship. What I see elsewhere is significant pushback against anyone saying anything remotely negative about the Apex. I think people should be listening to it, instead of being so intent on rebutting it. There is a balance to be had, and I do not want to suppress critical commentary. It just needs to be constructive and in the right place. It’s a balancing act, one I’ll never get right, but long story short, I’ll take a few “gripers” over none at all. I personally think the Apex is better than some users have made it out to be, but not as good as dealer interests would have us believe. I’m glad to hear you are feeling better! I have to admit age is slowing me down also.

PI detectors are like shotguns when it comes to frequency, and transmitted frequencies is a meaningless number. The 96 frequency thing was actually an in joke, with Garrett tweaking Minelab over it's reliance on transmitted frequency claims in it's marketing. The ATX does have ground tracking, and the TDI does not, but the ATX tracking is no big deal - I always left it off. But it is nice to have available as a fallback position for truly extreme ground. Personally I have lobbied for many years for an ATX circuit in a light weight, less expensive, dry land prospecting version. The ATX is actually the newer, more advanced circuit over the TDI, and has far more room to grow. The main improvement would simply be upgrading the circuit and battery to allow for more power. But the current housing is a fail for most gold prospectors. I'm not holding my breath, but the shakeup does offer me a glimmer of hope. The easier path for Garrett unfortunately is to just leave the ATX as is, and slide the TDI SL into the lineup as the lighter, less expensive PI.

thanks Jim, very kind of you! PM sent.

That's the challenge, getting the Equinox to mount to a larger diameter rod. Good job on the workaround!

When I did my review the AT Gold was very unique - a waterproof nugget detector! Now that’s not so rare, but Garrett did it first. It’s still a solid little detector though, and not surprising to me many prefer it over the AT Pro, as that’s the way I’d go also between the two.

Any attempt to go to the https://www.whiteselectronics.com/ website is now redirected to the Garrett website. We do not know if Garrett will maintain White's as a separate product lineup, but this is a tiny bit of evidence they may not. On the other hand, it may simply be that a redesign of the White's website is underway. But for now, the old White's website is gone.

This is a Garrett forum for people who like Garrett detectors, so they can learn about how to get the best out of them. If you want to compare brands, or just state your negative opinion of Garrett or it's products, please use the appropriate forums, like the Advice & Comparisons Forum. Thanks.

This forum allows threads to be tagged as a way to group and find similar threads cross multiple forums. Since the forum started, there have been numerous threads by people asking what the "best detector" is for various situations. Yet there was no tag linking all these opinions together. So I created the new "best detector" tag for these threads, hunted them down, and tagged them. All told we ended up with over four pages of links to these types of threads. There is lots of good info that gets brought up in these threads, so check it out..... best detector After this thread runs out of steam I will pin it to the top so new people will be able to see all that info before asking their own version of the question.

I'm sorry nobody replied.... I try to make sure that never happens, but some how this got past me. Probably because there is not much info here to go by. argyle seems to be advocating for a louder threshold sound. Most people run it faint. Not really anything different here other than an opinion on the volume of the threshold level. I run mine as faint as I can set it and still hear it. Turning it up higher tends to add a smoothing effect. That might or might not be beneficial depending on the ground. Long story short the question is a little vague so there is not much to say.

We get continual requests about advice on the "best detector" for various purposes. I have therefore created a new tag "best detector" that links all these together for easy review. Click below for a list. It is not relic specific, just any time a person asks about the "best detector for...." question. best detector

Can’t get any more clear cut than that - thanks for the report!

Jeff covers it for me. Of the machines mentioned I prefer the 24K for gold nugget prospecting (GMX is just a waterproof 24K) but the Gold Kruzer for anything else, including in water hunting.

And Multi-IQ does have built in ground handling that makes it less susceptible to the kind of ground conditions that will mess with other detectors that lack a manual ground balance. A person who never ground balances an Equinox will do far better than one might expect, and that carries over into the Vanquish models. The Vanquish 340 being priced at $199 is truly a remarkable amount of power for the money, and in almost all cases will do as well as the Vanquish 540 if outfitted with the same coil. Which in turn is neck and neck with Equinox on most targets.

Mineralization differences mess with a lot of people. Person reads a detector easily hits a dime at 10”. Gets detector, can only hit dime at 6” where he is. Detector defective! Tester was lying!! But it was the mineralization. Not only does mineralization reduce performance, but it does so at different rates with different machines, depending on frequency and ground balance efficiency. Test results for all machines tend to compress at extreme mineral levels, so machines that have a two inch difference in mild soil, may only have a half inch difference in bad ground. Or results can flip entirely, with machines that do exceptionally well in mild soil, performing the worst in bad ground. I was doing a lot of tests like this three years and more ago with Equinox. Good stuff Jeff!

I’ve got one, have not used it lately so no finds to report.

It’s possible depending on how large the item actually is, and the detector used. How Deep Can I Detect Coins & Relics?

Welcome to the forum Bill. Sounds like we tread a lot of the same ground!

This guy finds a lot of deep silver with a GPX 5000 - Check It Out More Here

The latest..... Man Damages Yellowstone Cemetery Hunting for Forrest Fenn Treasure “A Utah man accused of digging in Yellowstone National Park while looking for the Forrest Fenn treasure faces two federal charges, prosecutors said. The treasure, a chest containing jewelry and gems, was hidden by an art collector a decade ago, with seekers trying to decipher clues left in a book he wrote before it was found in June.”