Steve Herschbach

Grips and rods are just one of those things that will never please everyone. Personally I never had a problem with the White’s “Lazy S” grip so go figure. White’s MX7 Details & Specifications Here

I will not only second that but I want to commend everyone who has participated in this thread. I watched as stuff like this can head off on a wrong tangent easily, with accusations, etc. The goal always on this forum is to educate and this thread has turned into a great example of how to go about doing just that. Thank you everyone!

This new lower price is so aggressive that there really is no competition if you are looking for a VLF gold prospecting machine loaded with extra features for a bargain price. It is so aggressive it shook up my latest Nugget Detector Guide and replaced the basic 19 kHz Gold Bug at $499 as a Steve's Pick. The Gold Bug is a great little detector, but it comes nowhere close to having the features of the X-Terra 705 at the exact same price. The most obvious difference is a Gold Bug comes with a 5" round DD coil for $499 whereas the 705 offers a choice of 9" round concentric or 5.5" x 10" DD coil. You also only get Ground Grab with the Gold Bug, whereas the X-Terra 705 offers Ground Grab, Manual Ground Balance, and even Automatic Ground Tracking with Tracking Offset. That just scratches the surface of what the X-Terra 705 offers at $499 and so it is now my pick for general purpose VLF good for gold prospecting.

Everything is just speculation at this point. If it is Nugget Finder building the coils then Minelab may approve of it. If not and warranties are made void that would certainly hurt sales. I do not think you have to mess with the waterproof integrity of the main control box to do a coil swap. It is also not trivial so this will be an open question until real information is available. I would prefer feuds fostered on other forums be left on those forums. They have no place here.

Coil Selection Guides - click for larger versions.

Here is a screen capture of the White's MX7 controls and display from the video below....

Minelab X-Terra 705 metal detector It was just this spring that I noted the price for the Minelab X-Terra 705 had dropped to $600. I thought that was good, but somewhere along the way the price dropped again to $499. As of today I find these internet prices... X-Terra 305 $259 X-Terra 505 $349 X-Terra 705 $499 This makes sense with the new Equinox 600 coming in at $649 and Equinox 800 at $899. The X-Terra 705 can be had standard with a 7.5 kHz 9" round concentric coil for $499 or you can also get it standard with a 18.75 kHz 5.5" x 10" elliptical DD coil for $499. The higher frequency elliptical coil variant is known as the X-Terra 705 Gold. Note that the X-Terra can change frequencies by changing coils so owners of either version can have the other by buying the appropriate coil. I don’t think there is another detector out there that matches the X-Terra 705 for features at $499 and it has an excellent threshold based all metal VLF Prospecting Mode. In particular the X-Terra 705 has every ground balance option possible - Ground Grab, Manual Ground Balance, and Ground Tracking with Tracking Offset. It also has a special Beach Mode that allows it to properly ground balance to wet salt sand conditions. The $500 segment is really heating up! Understanding Your X-Terra by Randy Horton is a free 95 page color booklet on how to get the most out of your Minelab X-Terra but with information that owners of any metal detector will find valuable. Minelab X-Terra 705 Owner's Manual / Instruction Guide

Hopefully Mike/Rob finds the affirmation he is looking for. The Impact is a great general purpose detector that can run with the best VLFs out there. Makro / Nokta have said for some time a waterproof detector is in the works, but that is all that is known about it. That and the Equinox prospecting mode would probably be better subjects for new threads though so will leave it at that.

Looks like the new White's MX7 model has the 950 concentric as the stock coil based on Chuck’s photo above. Here is the old MX5.... White's MX5 metal detector and the TreasurePro.... White's TreasurePro metal detector and the MX7... White's MX7 metal detector

Chuck, I believe you now and I believed you then!!

Magazine ads have to be placed way ahead, and it is not unusual for a mismatch to occur between when a magazine reaches customer hands and when the manufacturer thought the magazine would reach customer hands. Not really surprising when we are just halfway through October and you are holding a December issue of a magazine in your hands. Do you own a time machine Chuck? So we had the MX5 and then the MX Sport and now the White's MX7. At $599 it has to be a mid-range offering and with the MX5 now discontinued and previously selling for $599 this looks to be the replacement for the MX5. White's had also discontinued the $599 M6 model but then recently resurrected it. I wonder if it will go away now or stick around? Is it actually orange? I figured that was just the prototype to make it easy to identify as a prototype.

You have a photo account here - just load them up when you post!

If this quote from Minelab can be trusted then it sounds like you will get your wish.... ”Multi-IQ achieves a high level of target ID accuracy at depth much better than any single frequency detector can achieve” Since 2014 I have been on a quest to find my perfect all around detector. So far without success, but the Equinox 800 comes closer than anything yet. The next few months are going to be interesting!

From the Minelab Facebook page

Well, best of luck to you with your new detector! I do recommend you read the following information - then go use the detector - then read it again.

The 71 kHz Gold Bug 2 and the various 19 kHz Gold Bugs are totally different beasts. The modern 19 kHz Gold Bugs are general purpose detectors with full discrimination and target id options. If you want versatility then look at the 19 kHz Gold Bug versions described here. I am going to assume you really meant Gold Bug 2. The 71 kHz Gold Bug 2 and 45 kHz Gold Monster are more along the lines of “dedicated nugget detectors”. The Fisher Gold Bug 2 has been on the market for over twenty years and is as well proven as a detector can be. It is very much a manual tuning detector requiring some operator expertise. The Minelab Gold Monster 1000 has been on the market for less than a year. It is the opposite of the Gold Bug 2 by trying as much as possible to automate things for ease of operation. I own both of these detectors and I have to admit your question is a tough one. I believe that I can find gold about as well with one as the other though I give the Gold Bug 2 the nod for the tiniest gold due to the 71 kHz frequency and manual ground balance plus the magic of the little 4” x 6” concentric elliptical coil. The Gold Bug 2 control box can be chest or hip mounted which means featherweight on the arm and good for working in and around water. Yet if I was going to take one right now to go prospecting I would probably choose the Gold Monster. In general I just like the grab and go design and ease of operation. The control box unlike the Gold Bug 2 is sealed against water and dirt and the rubberized controls are easy to clean. The knobs and switches on the Gold Bug 2 really like to gather and hold dirt and so I find the Gold Monster to be a relatively robust design that I can toss around and roll in the mud and even use in the rain with no worries. Operationally I like the automatic ground tracking and I definitely prefer the metered visual discrimination system versus the constant “switch to iron disc mode” required on the Gold Bug 2. Both the Gold Bug 2 and Gold Monster are more powerful in all metal mode. Going into the iron disc mode on either cuts depth quite a bit, like 10% or more. With the Gold Monster if you get a target in all metal, the meter will slam hard left of ferrous targets. Anything much less than that hard left slam you should probably dig. Now, if the nugget is deeper than the discrimination can reach, the meter will do nothing. That again is your clue to dig. The Gold Bug 2 iron disc mode identifies ferrous by simply not beeping on it. You get the target in all metal, then switch to iron disc, and if it still beeps, you dig it. No beep, it’s ferrous, so no reason to dig, right? True, but the catch is a nugget that is deeper than the disc mode will reach will also not beep when you flip to iron disc mode. So was the target ferrous, or just too deep? Savvy Gold Bug 2 operators know that on very weak targets switching to iron disc mode basically does not work. You need decently strong signals in all metal in order to be sure the machine is even seeing the target when you switch to iron disc mode. Otherwise you can be passing on gold because the signal is too weak to trigger the iron disc circuit. This can’t happen using the Gold Monster in all metal and relying on the meter, because the meter can only register if there is enough signal to play with. No meter action means “too deep, don’t know, dig it”. I therefore prefer the GM1000 when it comes to efficiently working with ferrous trash. As Lunk notes, the Gold Monster also costs less and comes with two coils and a rechargeable battery system. So why am I hanging on to the Gold Bug 2? There are two situations where I still might break out the Gold Bug 2. I prefer the Gold Monster for covering ground due to the automatic ground tracking. The Gold Bug 2 requires you really be on top of the ground balance in difficult ground. But if I were trying to sanitize a 10 ft x 10 ft area by finding every tiny bit of gold possible, I still prefer the Gold Bug 2 with 6” epoxy filled coil due to its efficiency at “scrape and detect” operations. At full gain the Gold Bug 2 small coil resists knocks and bumps better than the Gold Monster small coil, and this means I can operate more efficiently not having to baby the coil to avoid false signals. The other situation is when in small nasty hot rocks. In all metal these are both very hot units, and you will find ground where the hot rocks just won’t shut up. The solution with either is to go to the iron disc mode. This treats most hot rocks as ferrous targets and they simply go away. So far at least it seems to me the Gold Bug 2 runs cleaner in iron disc mode. The Gold Monster offers up these little spurious “ghost signals” that have me hesitating although they are obviously a false signal of sorts. I admit however to having not used the GM1000 nearly as much in disc mode as all metal mode so part of the problem is probably my not being as used to the Gold Monster in iron disc mode as I am the same mode on the Gold Bug 2. These last two situations are oddball situations and so the truth is I have not spent enough time yet with both the Gold Monster and Gold Bug 2 comparatively under those two exact situations to really sort it out. I believe the Gold Bug 2 has the “scrape and detect” edge but in a year, just how much more gold will that edge put in my bottle? We are talking the tiniest of tiny gold here. Like 1/10th grain flakes. There are 15.4 grains in a gram. So if the Gold Bug 2 can find 154 of these that the Gold Monster misses I will be a gram ahead. One does have to consider diminishing returns and at what point does a gold pan or drywasher make more sense. And then the dealing with hot rocks and trash, running in iron disc mode versus iron disc mode? Very much a question due to a location I visited recently. Nasty ground, hot rocks, ferrous trash galore. I started in with the Gold Monster but decided I really needed to come back with both the Gold Bug 2 and Gold Monster to run them both on the location as a learning experience. Long story short you will not find many who will praise the Gold Bug 2 more than I, and I am still convinced it holds an edge in some situations. Yet right this moment if forced to keep just one it would be the Gold Monster. It just seems better suited overall for what I am up to these days. I am hanging onto the Gold Bug 2 as much for nostalgia as anything. I swore when I got my latest shiny new model I would keep it forever “just because” but the reality is I am not one for keeping things around if they are not serving a real need. Your question as you can see is one I am personally invested in and I really just can’t come right out and say one of these detectors is markedly superior to the other. For me it is almost sure to be a style thing and how well anyone person meshes with a particular detector. These detectors are at the same time very similar but also complete opposites. Old timers comfortable with the Gold Bug 2 will no doubt continue to be comfortable with it. But for a person totally new to both detectors? That is an extremely interesting question. Part of the problem here is I am so very familiar with the Gold Bug 2. What I consider an easy machine to run most novices would find to be just the opposite with the totally manual operation. When I was a dealer you would be amazed at how many people struggle just to learn how to ground balance a detector. I can see how a person totally new to both machines might take to the Gold Monster far more rapidly. That was one of the main design goals - get novices up and running quickly. Anyway, that was a tough question. Right now my answer for myself is “have both” but in 2018 it is very likely my Gold Monster will get a lot of use while my Gold Bug 2 may get little or none. It may even find a new home. The question in my mind keeps coming back to whether or not I should sell the Gold Bug 2, while there is no such question in my mind regarding the GM1000. It stays for sure. And that’s as close an answer as I can offer right now. Rest assured, if mastered, they both can deliver the goods.

The GPX does not require you to disassemble a detector not meant to be disassembled to use another coil. It is not the use of another coil, but the disassembly and modification of the detector that is likely to void the warranty. I don’t know this to be a fact however and it is simply a question to be asked when and if an accessory coil is ever available for the SDC 2300.

I missed this video when it came out. It is well done however so I am posting it now - better late than never! Slick little detector for only $309.00. Fisher F44 Owner's Manual

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Thanks Tim. I actually do try hard to spread the love around when it comes to manufacturers. That reveals itself on the forum by my posting the new stuff no matter what the brand is. I always want to know what everyone is up to whether I want a particular detector or not. The AT Max is a good example. I am not getting one but I do want to know all about it. Just part of being a “student of metal detecting”. However, the last few years U.S. manufacturers have really left me wanting. Most of the time a new detector is just an old detector in a different package. Or an old detector but with one new feature added but still basically the same. It seemed like nobody, including Minelab, was listening at all to what people want. Nokta / Makro was a real breath of fresh air in their “aggressive listening” posture. It does however appear Minelab was also listening, and listening hard. This statement is very telling: ”When Minelab started developing our EQUINOX detector, we looked very closely at all of the current market offerings (including our own) to reassess what detectorists were really after in a new coin & treasure detector. A clear short list of desirable features quickly emerged – and no real surprises here – waterproof, lightweight, low-cost, wireless audio, and of course, improved performance from new technology. This came from not only our own observations, but also customers, field testers, dealers and the metal detecting forums that many detectorists contribute to.” The Equinox of course reflects this, but there is also the work being done on the new Minelab online parts store and the new Minelab service center coming online. This tells me Minelab has been listening in more ways than one. Parts availability and service have been two real weak areas for Minelab. With the Equinox launching there is no better time to clean up these other loose ends. It appears to me that Minelab is making a full court press in 2018. Anyway, I just sold off several other VLF models though I am hanging on to a few still for oddball reasons. As I look forward to 2018 however it would appear nearly all my detecting will be with just two Minelab detectors - the GPZ 7000 and Equinox 800. Between the two I can do just about anything so the other machines I have will be bit players by comparison.

Whatever works best for you Harry. Just depends on the person. One way to really weed out the Unread Content is to check the "Since My Last Visit" option. I personally just look at the master list. I am working on a new Tag List at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/tag-list/ that will also allow quick access to any given subject. Still a work in progress though.

Hi Bryan, I am probably more excited than most people by this detector for various reasons but have been trying to keep a lid on it. I have slowly been forced into the "Minelab camp" over the years by the lack of progress from other manufacturers. I simply seek out what works for me, and the reality more and more is that just happens to be Minelab detectors. You add that to the work I have done with Minelab on recent products and I now am in danger of becoming just another "Minelab shill". So while I could go on at great length about all the positive attributes I see in this machine I so far have remained fairly silent about it. Frankly, you are doing such a great job with some of your lengthy posts Bryan that anything I say would be redundant anyway!

Great results and photos - thanks for posting!

I agree Keith - sorry for tripping over your posts!