Steve Herschbach

Welcome to the forum! Efforts to try and prove that any one of these three is vastly superior is nothing more than an endless rabbit hole of other people's opinions. The detectors you listed will all get the job done perfectly well. It's like you are looking at three cars, and they all will go as fast as you need, and get you where you need to go. So you look at the features and decide which one seems to suit you best. It's actually that simple. But as far as information, there are dozens of threads with hundreds of pages of information already here on the forum covering the questions you are asking. Read it all, but I think I can promise in the end it will still boil down to you picking the one that seems to best suit you for your reasons. Often it's budget, and for many it's ergonomics. I can use any one of these detectors and will do just fine. What will matter is the locations I choose and the hours I go detecting, not which one of these models I use. The thing you have to understand is this is mature technology now. You might be very surprised how little difference there is between a Vanquish and these higher priced detectors, and in most cases a Vanquish will find the same targets they will. It's only at the extremes where differences show up, extremes often only apparent to hard core detectorists who obsess over a tenth inch difference in capability. So again, I will reiterate that all the top end detectors have rabid fans because they all actually do work and allow people to make very good finds. It is your skills at learning and knowing whatever machine you choose and how you apply those skills that matter. A Vanquish used properly 100 days a year will outperform any of these detectors used 10 days a year.

Agreed. But I don't think any metal detector magazines are left now. A master class in reporting - thanks for posting!

"16x10 isn't even made for the testers" Test coils have been in use for months, with pictures even posted of them. This is from June 8th of last year! https://www.facebook.com/goldballarat/posts/quick-peek-at-a-prototype-16-x-10-nugget-finder-exceed-coil-695to-suit-minelabs-/5416949128413199/ Maybe he means final version is not made, or their "we get one first since we tested production coils" are not made. If not that then it's just wrong, but the warning not to put money down for things before they actually are on shelves is good advice for any metal detecting product.

No, the real problem is a Minelab PI will hit a nail way deeper than a magnetometer, so it does not solve the problem on the targets where you most need it - the deepest. I know because I tried using a portable mag in conjunction with a Minelab many moons ago. Once you got the hole half dug you would get the mag start saying you were zooming in on a ferrous target, but by that point it was kind of a “might as well finish this hole” sort of thing. For the shallower stuff you could use a VLF as much as a magnetometer, but lots of people including myself have tried toting two machines around to do that, and in the end again it’s just easier to go ahead and dig them. Now, if it was all built efficiently into one light detector with an easy way to switch modes and check, that would be another matter. It’s technically feasible, one of those things no real company has yet tackled for some reason.

That's the problem with the "it's not illegal, I got a right" mentality. Just because it is not illegal to use a shovel in a particular public location does not mean it is a good idea. If I could wave a magic wand and stop anybody from ever using a shovel in a visible public location in an urban area, I would do it. It is the sure death of detecting in places where it occurs, because while it is not illegal now, it will be very soon if people keep it up. Arguments in any way saying it is ok simply ignore reality and human nature. Being invisible is our best protection, and shovels are highly visible. When people are digging holes in public places with shovels, it's going to get banned. Not a matter of if, but when. How to do it...

Please reformat your posts before cutting and pasting from a translator. No matter how long your post, only the first few words will be visible. Here is what I see and others see: GPZ 7000 failure status, who knows where the failur I have been trying to reformat posts for people but it is far easier if they are posted as plain text by the person doing the posting. Thanks.

The answer may lie in the supposed Pro-Switch trademark. Can anyone find where Minelab has applied for a trademark on that term? A brief Google search on my part came up dry.

no

Hi John, Good to see you post, thanks for doing so. Nice showing of gold flake you got there!

Most people don't like metal detecting permits. Here in Reno we have a free one good for several years. All it does is say you are good to go, just don't dig in ballfield infields and a certain garden park. A little card I keep in my wallet. So I get a karen approach me a couple years ago in a park and challenge me. Typical "you can't do that here" stuff like she actually knows what she is talking about. I pull out my card and say "Well mam, actually the city is just fine with this and here is my permit saying so." The look on her face made that permit worth gold to me. She actually ended up apologizing to me for disturbing me. It's not always bad having a piece of paper saying what you do is ok.

Garrett may have faults but lack of great service has never been one of them.

With old analog circuits and coil assembly there absolutely were hot machines and cold machines. And lots of substandard coils. The old stuff was basically hand made, and new production practices have at least lead to more consistency in production. However, I do think quality control used to be better, partly because detector sales used to be a low volume business and so at some companies every detector was checked before it shipped. Now they crank them out in high volume and just ship them, and figure all is well as long as the warranty failure rate falls within an acceptable amount. Part of that equation is that some people will never file warranty that really should have. Many detectors get minimal use, and can sit in closets until they get sold used, and then somebody else owns the problem. I'm convinced that many "this is better than that" fights on the internet are caused when somebody is unknowingly using a substandard detector comparing to somebody else with a machine working correctly.

Has been covered elsewhere on the forum but Steve answers it all again officially and very well in this interview: https://focusspeed.com/garrett-axiom-technology/ Forum discussion related to interview

Rusty IS an awesome guy!

I might leave up but delete the links at least. On one hand it's good people see this stuff should be avoided, but I don't want to boost their traffic with links either.

I’d say the 6000 has the edge, albeit a pretty small one.

The site is a front for metaldetectors.com - thats where the be a distributor contact email goes, info@metaldetector.com, if you want to be a dealer. I'm seeing a trend for flashy looking foreign made detectors put out on flashy websites at absurdly high prices. The people involved only have to sell a few to make a years wages fast, no cost really but a cheap website and a low cost item sold for huge profits. Ironically it is the high price that makes people think there is something to this stuff, because you get what you pay for, right? Nobody would pay attention if they were $299. Supposedly made by MWF Group. Possibly the same folks making the Gold Stinger X5 as both seem based in Turkey. Here are some other examples of the fine technology they offer. Do you need to know anything else? Frankly, I hate giving people like this airplay and links so don't be surprised if this thread goes away in the future.

The guy hunts the Great Salt Lake because that is where he lives, and makes fantastic finds doing it. One of the best detectorists I know, and I pay very close attention to what he says. So yeah, just blow him off.

Hopefully people pay attention to this. By increasing voltage to the coil, you can lower EMI if you reduce the other settings. Increasing the output increases the target response and the noise. The effect is uneven, so then reducing other settings reduces the noise more than the target signal, resulting in a clearer target and less apparent EMI. Very much like good old Dolby sound processing. This explains some of the observed differences in Manticore sensitivity and disc settings as compared to Equinox. And the increased battery consumption, offset by a larger battery. And extra performance in low mineral ground. Little to no gains in high mineral ground, and in fact in some high mineral ground the other reduced settings could result in reduced performance on some targets. There is no free lunch. Due to the inverse relationships imposed on metal detector depth gains, and the need to alleviate the ill effects of increased transmit power with offsetting reductions elsewhere, expectations in most circumstances should be moderate at best. But where conditions are favorable, there will be good increase over the Equinox. Unfortunately my areas are not those places. If I was a Florida beach hunter I’d have one already, but I’m not. Now, keep in mind Minelab is using more advanced processing than V3i and has no doubt done all they could to reap the benefits of increased coil voltage while reducing the problems associated with it. The lunch may not be free but they have tried to make it worth it. They are trying to get some Dolby magic via advanced processing. The V3i also had a fatal flaw in its multifrequency ground balance that surely Minelab does better by now. But again, none of this is new, and if people just put more work into understanding what they are talking about and the trade offs required, we would not get all this debate over marketing claims that suck in people who have no idea what’s being discussed. If a car company said this would you fall all over yourself to buy the vehicle, knowing nothing else about it? “Our 8 cylinder engine has 33% more cylinders than the competitions 6 cylinder engine." That is all Minelab has done, made a perfectly true statement. Anyone that says it's a lie is ignorant at best. It's the people taking that tidbit and deceiving themselves by reading more into it than it means that deserve the slap on the wrist.

Honestly this is all old hat. The TX Boost on the V3i bumped the voltage to the coil for 10V to 30V. White's could have made a big deal about this 200% gain in power. But they did not. They said this instead (V3i Manual page 48): Tx Boost – (On / OFF) Over-power the search coil to supercharge depth. Note; Causes rapid battery discharge and is susceptible to noise & overload. Recommended for very low mineralized grounds. Also recommended for high external electrical (EMI) interference, (Tx Boost ON, reduce Rx Gain, Discrimination, and All Metal sensitivity as necessary to regain stable performance). Sound familiar? The stupid exceeds FCC limitations objection BS is also an old one, comes up every few years. It was BS then and is BS now. Half the videos I’ve seen are just people putting their ignorance on public display. Luckily for them most of their audiences also don’t seem to know any better. Search Coils Are Not Antenna Metal Detectors and More Depth

Was this thread about gold prospecting with the Manticore? With all due respect to Tom his quoting of depth numbers and percentages are wildly inaccurate in highly mineralized detecting environments. If you hunt low mineral ground then for sure pay attention to what he says. But anyone running with his numbers in high mineral ground will think their detector is defective. Tom is the last guy you would want to pay attention to if you are interested in gold prospecting with the Manticore. There are far more qualified people on this forum, and I'm not talking me either.

No, it is a 6" mono coil made for PI, specifically all Minelab models GPX 5000 and earlier, plus the White's TDI. Great little sniper coil for those models. Small Coils For Minelab PI

Do you check out the other forums? The AQ users are on the Fisher Forum every day. The AQ does not ground balance and is useless for nugget prospecting (I tried it) so not likely any users here except by accident.

Lots of people have pacemakers and go detecting. One of my buddies has one. Given the average age of the detecting community it is not rare. But the person to ask really is your doctor.