goldenoldie

I do have issues with that test site and how the tests were performed however I will keep them to myself and let others judge for themselves.

Oh okay thanks Steve.

You know that I found that Minelab test pit - and I went all over it, inside and out thinking that they may have left a   or two behind - no luck. Haha

G'day Nenad, 

I am not familiar with or have read about the test pit you found, or is that a tongue in cheek reply with your last wording of Haha?,

G'day Steve,

When I first checked today in that other thread for any further replies from that discussion I was shocked that they had been removed however to your credit  I now find them here under this thread, so good on ya for that.

As you say we can draw our own conclusions and anyone else can do the same to rely on this type of marketing material.

As I said the charts do not reflect what I have observed although from from the replies so far I may be the only one with that view.

Because the Minelab tests were not conducted in air! 

I never said they were however do you know how they were conducted? 

Okay thanks Steve as from what I have observed those charts do not reflect the same.

***Editor's note - the following thread was split off from one about air tests and their reliability or lack thereof at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/1472-minelab-x-terra-705-vs-garrett-ace-250/*** Steve H


How are we then to believe the depth charts released by ML comparing the 7000 with the 5000 and 2300?

Using very high sensitivity settings on the Z works very well if you tweek everything else to keep it quiet and I have yet to confirm a significant loss of depth by doing so. 

Yep have to tweek everything else also if using a high Sensitive / Gain setting on the GPX although the Timing and different Coil sizes can regain any significant depth loss. Have some in-ground test results between a GPZ and GPX using one of the newer coils which showed the GPX to hold its own on smaller nuggets that were out of range previously. Therefore for me personally I will stick with the GPX.

Again thanks fellas for your replies.

Thanks jasong for your opinion and you have raised some interesting observations.

Who came up with the Stabilizer 20 figure being equivalent to the Smoothing Off setting unless Minelab has stated it somewhere?

In regards to the GPZ Sensitive setting in comparison with the GPX Gain setting then I would now think the default setting of 9 on the GPZ would be equivalent to the default Gain setting of 11 on the GPX ? 

G'day all,

Been some time since I posted on this site and have followed the GPZ threads with interest and how it now compares to the GPX. 

In one particular thread I read the GPZ Audio Smoothing when set to its OFF position is similar to a Stabilizer setting of 20 on the GPX.

Therefore my question is in relation to the GPZ Sensitive setting, which is like the Gain setting on the GPX, and since both detectors have their range between 1 and 20 would you say the GPZ Sensitive default 9 setting be the same as running a Gain of 9 on the GPX 5000?,

Thanks in advance. 

If you consider after watching the available videos, that the GPZ7000 with the one and only coil currently available (14”x 13”) can find the small bits down as small as the SDC2300 using an 8” coil, can also find the mid-range nuggets that a more conventional PI like the 4500 or the 5000 does with a 14” coil, and also find the deeper bits that the 4500 and 5000’s need an 18” or a 20” coil, and as an aside can find bits that the current range of detectors  cannot get with any coil combination.

 

For some people that will mean that they can cover the ground once and be reasonably sure that they got the lion’s share of what was available. We will always leave gold behind no matter how good we are, or like to think we are and that is a fact, but I see the GPZ as being the tool that minimises that. Another consideration is that just because we have a detector capable of punching deeper than previous machines, it won’t necessarily follow that we will get huge amounts of nuggets.

I agree with what you say here "We will always leave gold behind no matter how good we are, or like to think we are and that is a fact," and I know I have returned to the same ground I've detected gold from and bingo out pops another.. Damn how did I miss that as I remember detecting slowly and carefully over this spot previously with the same coil, detector and settings.

Interesting that you also say"and as an aside can find bits that the current range of detectors  cannot get with any coil  combination"  which is an impressive statement if referring to the GPZ..

We will have to wait until video evidence of a faint nugget signal being detected with a GPZ and its 14"DOD coil and then being checked before any ground disturbance  by an operator nearby with GPX and a larger 18" or 20" mono coil. The nugget then would need to be dug to find it still in-situ for the exact depth measurement and hopefully it turns out to be a large one and deep.

I suppose the chances of that happening are very rare and also depends on what settings were being used at the time with both detectors.

goldenodie

Good one JP, That's what we like to see.  An insight please, At what depth and what type of ground ?

 

Cheers

Ashley 

( Australia )

Amazing, so the GPZ is capable of detecting LARGE nuggets.

Yes I would also be interested at what depths these beauties came from and if using the Normal or Difficult setting ?

Thanks for the pics.

goldenoldie 

Great video "dudes" and makes me feel like trying my hand at Coin hunting however I only have a GPX 5000 and an old ancient GT 16000.

Had to smile when you blokes kept calling one another "dude" as us Aussie's would be saying "maaate". 

My guess is the Super Gold Machine 2015 will be similar to the CTX 3030, screen on the hand grip, GPS, wireless headphone, a mid size mono( maybe a 14") and all the extra PI goodies inside for detecting larger nuggets. 

Wow going by the latest info posted on this forum under the GPZ 7000 thread it appears I was not far off the mark with my guess above which I posted one month ago. 

My guess is the Super Gold Machine 2015 will be similar to the CTX 3030, screen on the hand grip, GPS, wireless headphone, a mid size mono( maybe a 14") and all the extra PI goodies inside for detecting larger nuggets. 

Just something to think about. We all want to find a lot of gold. But think also about the quality of the gold you are finding, and ways to sell your gold to obtain the best price possible.

There is always the other strategy. Never sell it, until you die, then the wife or kids sell it for you!

Mine I sell simply because gold itself holds no real value for me. It just sits in the safe deposit box doing nothing. I can't even show it off. So my goal is to just get a price for it that I consider acceptable so I can use it to fund my prospecting activities, buy equipment, etc. I prospect as a for profit business and so have to maintain a positive cash flow to stay in the black. That being the case, getting top dollar is the name of the game.

Definitely something to think from all of what you've said Steve and in particular from within the quote above, is the decision I find the hardest and yet to make, do I leave it for the rest of the family or part with it as you do.  

On 10/24/2014 at 5:41 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

Great video, though I am not sure Alan's technical explanation is correct. I believe the SDC employs multi period pulse technology. 

Alan Mash is a Garrett dealer who specializes in videos that put Garrett detectors in a good light versus Minelab detectors. 

Alan mentions the "Hole" in his Part 6 video tests from the 5.35 min mark through to 5.48 min mark and the SDC2300 is a "Single Channel Single Pulse" detector regardless of what Minelab tells you as that is what it is.. 

When I first heard Alan say that I expected that is what Garret had checked and tested the SDC to be.

So who is right and who is wrong, Steve or Alan ? 

Just goes to show in the 2 previous postings that you can not that rely on what I said above.

I wonder will the next model Minelab PI detector for nugget hunting look similar to the CTX 3030 with a screen on top of the hand grip a built in battery system, wireless headphones and no cables exposed or to get tangled up in, just turn on and off you go as is the SDC 2300, but not standard with a small coil for small nuggets, but with a larger coil for larger nuggets.

Just my thoughts on the next ML detector going by the success people are having with the, compact turn on and go, SDC 2300. 

Nails or pieces of wire will produce a double type tone such a ..woo / woo...woo / woo.. on a PI with a mono coil but only if they are laying horizontal to the coil.

But how far away from the coil will this type of response still persist to enable a reliable discrimination at depth over a VLF on this type target is the question?

Although nails or pieces of wire would be more likely to be laying at the horizontal in the ground so a PI would detect them at a greater depth with the double tone.

However in a tailings situation they would be laying in all types of directions.

Would the CTX 3030 discriminate a nail at the same depth no matter which direction the nail was to the coil for example, vertical, horizontal or at an angle?

Chris have you been over that location previously with an 8" or smaller coil on the 5000 in Fine Gold and if so just proves FG is not all that it was cracked up to be on small gold.

To all that have a SDC 2300.

 If I swing it over a nugget say a 1/4 oz. will it detect it 12 inches down. The whole thing is will it get most if fair size?

  Chuck Anders 

Check out JP's 65 gram nugget in the other thread that he detected at 14 + inches with the SDC.

Imagine if the SDC had a larger coil.

I read on a Aussie forum about the SDC's "sample delay" as shown in the SDC MPF graph and therefore it is able to sample way way earlier than GPX and the reason it can detect nuggets under a gram way better and I expect deeper.

However JP's 65 gram nugget at a depth of 14 + inches ( maybe even deeper) then "sample delay" might not have too much to do with its abilities.

Makes me now wonder what the SDC would be capable of with a larger coil?   

 He didn't have his earphones on for the nickel, he even said that he needed to have them on to hear the signal better, if you turn your sound up you can hear the nickel signal on the SDC 2300.

 

 I couldn't tell if he had them on for the necklace, but I think he did, but the ocean noise was too much for me to hear a signal if he didn't have them on.

Okay my apologies as I took it the wrong way when I heard said "you have got to have your earphones on" and now having played it back a few more times the SDC has the weaker response on the Nickel than the ATX.

Also when re-playing back the Gold chain test and during a pause I cannot see a cable coming out from the side the SDC so it appears he did not have earphones on for this test either.

I wonder if the tests with the SDC in Normal mode instead of Salt would have made any difference although I expect the Salt settings is made for that environment ? 

Sorry to confuse you all as the ATX seems to be more sensitive on both of these test targets.

On 7/11/2014 at 11:32 PM, Jonathan Porter said:

The SDC runs extremely quiet in regards to mineralization, due to this the higher sensitivity settings sound to the ear like they have more instability (variation in threshold), however this is not quite the case as the instability is also partly due to the almost compete lack of ground signal response. I find the variation in the threshold takes about an hour to accustom your ear to on the higher sensitivity settings of the SDC, however it is still quite workable because it is consistent therefore easy to ignore. In the lower sensitivity settings the SDC still has excellent performance and is of course much quieter due to the lower Gain.

JP

The instability of the SDC's threshold was the first thing I noticed when I first viewed your video clip using the SDC, then in following video clips by other operators. As you say your ear does get accustom to it although I imagine a very faint signal response could be missed within this instability.

In your interview with a ML technician on your DVD he mention 3 types of detector noise, that being EMI (from the electrical environment around us), Ground Noise (when sweeping the coil over the ground), and Detector Noise (from within the detector's electronics which can make the detector itself inherently noisy).

Since you say it has almost a complete lack of ground signal response then out of those 3 types of detector noise that leaves the threshold instability could be more to do with it being inherently noisy or maybe it has more to do with it being so extremely sensitive its electronics are more prone to EMI.

Not having had an opportunity to operate the SDC I am only going on what I have viewed and listen too from the video clips of the SDC on YouTube and the like.  

In the above video test on the Nickel and Gold chain why didn’t they use the external speaker on the SDC as they did with the ATX. Therefore not fair comparisons as you are only taken the word of the fellow wearing the SDC headphone that he can or cannot hear a signal.

In regards to the depth test on the Nickel the SDC definitely got a response on the Nickel at 14” from what I heard coming out of the headphone.

In regards to the Gold chain test well without the use of the speaker you again have to believe the fellow wearing the headphone.