abenson

Thanks for doing those tests Jeff. Looked like once you buried those nuggets they where virtually invisible to the Deus 2. Maybe with headphones you would dig it but didn't sound like anything I would stop for. Both the Equinox and the Legend were giving ID'S in the ground number ranges, so looks like a dig it all scenario with a VLF. I'm surprised the 6000 doesn't do that well in that dirt. I would think it would. How does your 5000 handle it?

I'll second what Steve said. I've found nuggets with both the Equinox and Deus 2 and IMO the Equinox is a better gold nugget detector. The Equinox is more sensitive to small gold and has a better coil selection.

If you are in an area with lots of EMI it will amplify the EMI. I've had places I've had to turn the Deus 2 down to audio response 2 (in conjunction with lowering the sensitivity) just to get it run stable.

Nice right up and nice bunch of gold. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences with both machines.

You can also turn the threshold off on any of the manual sensitivity settings by long holding the ground type button. So you can run with or without threshold in manual as well as auto sensitivity settings. But it sure would be nice to have threshold volume adjustment.

Nice bunch of gold for the first time out with the 6000. I just got one myself about a week and a half ago after using Steve's for a few days. Really liking it so far and have no problems with its performance. I've been charging my headphones until the light goes soild blue. So if it's different than that I was unaware of the right way to charge them. They have lasted days charging them like that. I also try not to touch the coil with scoop, thinking about putting some tape over the coil or something just to keep it as nice as possible.

Took the Deus 2 back out to Nevada a week ago and spent 1/2 day with it trying to find some gold. Used the 11" coil as it's all I have right now and hunted a very trashy area where I think the dry washers were setup. Worked on digging through one of the waste piles for a while and found one small nugget. But decided the effort wasn't worth the reward and just started hunting around the same general area and found 1 more bigger nugget. So 2 nuggets with the Deus 2 kind of made my day, now I can say I've found gold with it. Because of the salt in the area the Deus 2 and most other VLF's are subject to coil knock because you just can't get a correct ground balance in the gold mode. The settings I ended up using were Gold Field, GB 87, sensitivity 95, threshold 3, IAR 0, reactivity 2, audio response 3.

After some initial testing with the GPX 5000 vs the GPX 6000 last week on some buried relics. I decided to take the GPX 6000 out for a few hours yesterday to one of my permissions that dates to the late 1850's. Based on what I learned from the previous weeks testing I set the 6000 in difficult, threshold off, sensitivity at 4 and used the 11" mono coil. I started out by digging every signal just to confirm my findings from the initial testing and to see where the targets fell in the tone range, high vs low. Most of the wire and nails (whether high or low tones) were identified by the double beep they give, but were dug anyway just to confirm. If you refer back to Steve's original post found here: He discusses where targets fall based on the timing used with the mono coils (this will most likely differ when using the 14" DD). What I dug in the photo below, top of the picture low tone, bottom of the picture high tone. Cutoff off for targets on one end whether high or low appears to be right at the .22 brass range. Shorts are a high tone, longs are a low tone. So this puts small round balls, pewter buttons, all gold coins (except maybe the $20), cuff buttons, coat buttons and bullets in the low tone bucket. On the other end, flat tin, most nails, .22 lead, percussion caps, and other really small brass/lead items as a high tone, this would also include silver coins (except maybe half dimes and trimes) and I would assume belt plates unfortunately. So based on what I found (for my soil conditions) I could setup the GPX 6000 and dig only low tones virtually avoiding most junk targets. One could go one step further and evaluate all the high tones as well and only dig the ones that had the right sound, size and shape and pick up the occasional deep coin, you would also be digging flat tin. So if a person ran over a site with a VLF and picked out all the high conductors (which usually happens anyway) grabbing the silver coins and possible plates. You could then hit it with the 6000 digging only low tones and pretty much clean the rest out avoiding most unwanted items.

That sucks! Did you try another battery to see if it is just a bad battery?

Nice bunch of relics. Place looks familiar! Congratulations on the Barber.

If you are using the big Minelab battery system is sounds like the amp has gone bad in it. I had one that was doing the same thing. Steel Phase used to make a repair kit for that issue. But I think they stopped making it.

If you want a machine that has the ability to do some gold prospecting, then the Legend is the obvious choice. Legend is better built too. I've used one for a few hours and decided not to get it. But that's only because I already have an Equinox 800. For the money it's easily the best detector in it's price range.

I'm going to revive this thread. Hopefully others have done some experimenting and can add to the discussion. First I wanted to talk about the pros and cons of the GPX 6000 if you're going to in fact use it for relic hunting (Yes much of this has already been discussed) . Pros-GPX 6000 is rain proof, light (compared to the 5000), attached rechargeable battery, wireless headphones, very simple to use. Cons-not many coils available (but that is changing), not many timings to choose from and no iron disc. And before I get into the actual test part of the discussion, I wanted to talk about the targets you typically run into relic hunting and how each machine handles them. Low conductors such as aluminum, small gold coins, small buttons, large buttons (depending on timing used) small pieces of flat tin, small wire, .22 brass/lead, etc. etc. etc. All those types of targets are going to sound good on both the 5000 and 6000 and you will dig them regardless of iron disc in most situations (more to follow specific to the 6000 below). High conductors-silver coins, large bullets, square nails, large iron, belt plates, etc. etc .etc. is where iron disc comes into play and can be useful. Took the GPX 5000 (sensitive extra timing) with a 12.5" DD coil and the GPX 6000 with the 11" mono to do some comparisons this morning on some buried relics and square nails. The goal was to see if I could in fact use the GPX 6000 for relic hunting and how it would compare to the GPX 5000 with iron disc. Keep in mind the results may vary depending on your soil conditions and my targets were freshly buried. But I think this should give most people a good idea of how the GPX 6000 will do when relic hunting. For those of you that haven't used the GPX 6000, it's very noisy and hard to get a steady threshold. Noise cancelling often is the key. I'm worried it will have trouble in a group of other closely grouped people using GPX's. This makes it very difficult to hear deep targets. So running the sensitivity at it's lowest setting is a must and does cut down on the threshold noise considerably. Lets talk about the iron targets first. The following targets were buried. 2" long square nail 6", 3" long square nail 8", 3" long square nail 10", 4" long square mail 12", flat tin the size of a dime surface and 2" long bent square nail surface. Iron disc on the GPX 5000 only worked on the 2" bend nail on the surface and the 2" long 6" deep nail. Would I have dug them with the 6000? No because they both gave the typical double beep of a nail. The flat tin I would have dug with both machines and all of the deeper nails except the 12" deep nail gave the double beep and I wouldn't have dug with either machine. The 12" deep nail sounded good on both machines. Now Steve talked about what the timing does to certain targets at the beginning of this post and at first I couldn't wrap my head around part of what he said. Just talking about square nails-normal timing on the GPX 6000 gives all the nails a low tone, switch it to difficult and they all go to high tone. This is very important to remember. Now lets talk about the buttons and bullets I buried. .58 bullet 12", .58 bullet 14", US coat button 12" and small pewter button 9". The GPX 5000 heard all these targets although the 14" .58 bullet could have easily been passed over if you were swinging too fast. Bullets low tone and buttons high tone on the 5000. All these targets were low tone on the GPX 6000 on both difficult and normal timing, which surprised me. The 6000 struggled on the 9" small pewter and the 14" .58 bullet and could have easily been missed if swinging too fast. So with those coils mentioned I feel like the GPX 5000 has the advantage on the deeper targets, definitely a better signal on the 9" small pewter button. I have yet to try the 14" DD coil on the 6000, which could change things up a bit. So from what I found out today with the 11" coil on the GPX 6000 in 3-4 bar dirt on the F75. Running the GPX 6000 on the lowest sensitivity and in difficult timing, I can essentially ignore all high tones and dig most of what I'm looking for relic hunting and dig very little in the way of iron. Being able to switch between timing, could also help with a dig or not dig decision on those questionable targets. Looks like everything from small pewter buttons up to large bullets would fall in the low tone category. Now silver coins, belt plates and possibly the small $1 gold coin (probably not) may get missed. But those targets are far and few between and if the target sounds good on the 6000 regardless of high or low tone, I'm digging it anyway. If you hunt Culpeper VA, the soil conditions may change what I have outlined above. But I kind of doubt it. I will conduct further testing with the 14" DD coil when I get time and possibly the 17" mono. The 17" mono should have similar results but get better depth. I almost feel like I could get rid of my 5000 and do just fine both gold and relic hunting with the 6000. Put the 14" DD on and could cover the beach as well.

Nice nugget Simon! Thanks for the detailed write up. Too bad on the 11" coil at least it's still under warranty.

Legend is starting to look better and better all the time. Used one for a while and didn't really care for it. But I was running version 1.06. May have to rethink getting one after I see some reports on the new update.

Wow nice bunch of relics. Looks like you had a fun filled day.

Wow that badge is a nice relic and in great shape too. Congratulations!

Nice bunch of gold you found. Congratulations on your research paying off.

I will wear a hoodie and pull the hood over the headphones. There's also lightweight hooded t-shirts you can buy for warmer weather.

Thanks Strick. Yea it does take away from detecting time. But it's nice to be able to take others along on the trip and be able to go back and watch later. Not sure on the depth on that big nugget. Hopefully Steve will chime in on that one.

Nice one! I've dug a few big ones like that with other detectors that come up in the zinc penny range.

Simon I was also surprised that first nugget was gold. I only dug it because it was one of the only signals I got on the hillside. In Arizona where I usually go, there have actually been quite a few nuggets found in the surface stuff. We call it desert pavement. Areas of broken up rocks and quartz right on the surface. If you find one nugget in a patch of that you will typically rake off all the rocks and find more nuggets just laying on top of the dirt. Most of them small. The gold monster and Equinox do really well on those areas. My friend Jeff down there will sit on one of those patches for hours and almost always finds a nugget or 2. Like I said the Legend was kind of funky. One minute it would be all choppy with signals blanking out and the next time you turned it on it was fine. I really think it was version 1.06 that screwed it up. But I was running with digits 1 and 2 notched out which is supposed to be the ground values. Yea probably be my first and last nugget with the Legend as I have no intention on buying one at this point. Too much like the Equinox and I'm perfectly happy with the Equinox. Honestly I think I was just lucky that weekend. I went with an open mind and and attitude of I was just going to have fun and enjoy both Steve and Steve's company. No pressure to find anything. the fact that Steve loaned me his 6000 was the ticket to most of the success. Had it not been for that I would have probably come home with 1 or 2 nuggets.

This is Day 2 of my trip to Nevada with Steve and Steve. On day 2 after having some gold in the poke we decided to pull out the VLF's for a while in the trash to see what we could find. The Legend was running version 1.06 which I later found out had issues and noticed the machine was running kind of funky at times. But still managed to pull a small nugget with it. Wasn't long before I went back to the GPX 6000. Love that machine, never thought I would own one but now that I've used one I think I'm going to have to get it.

Congratulations nice find. I'll never forget the first one I found. Just sat there looking at it taking in the moment.

The x coil on the 7000 looks pretty impressive on that small stuff. That junk plate is what a typical Arizona gold hunt would look like for me LOL.