Gold Catcher

Thanks for sharing, Nenad. This is a very nice demonstration. I usually shy away from high smoothing but I agree in your case this was a nice and clear target ID. A good example of how the Zed can operate in high EMI conditions and still be productive.

I like Ferrari-gold. There might be different ways to get there however...;)

What a great motivation and attitude. The more you know about your detector the better you will use all available settings to your advantage! I find the GPZ to be an incredible versatile machine. Although each of us have their own to go settings, no settings are universally applicable for all situations. Knowing the underlying principles for each function and how they relate to each other will make you an expert. Alot of gold is waiting for you 🙂

I suggest to go into JP's posts and read what he has written over the years on this topic. There is such a wealth of information in his posts and I highly recommend to read it. I don't think many questions will remain about GPZ settings after reading through his posts. He is by far the most qualified to speak on this topic. 🙂

This is a matter of opinion. I prefer to run sensitivity in more conservative ranges but keep all filtering off, whenever possible, and make adjustments to volume/treshold if needed. Works great for me. An to quote the "man with the ring": " High Yield Normal has oodles of sensitivity even with sensitivity set to 9. Do not be afraid to lower the Volume right down to 4 or 5." (JP)

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JP has written about the settings extensively and I recommend to look into the previous threads on this topic. Some really good info there. My bottom line, everybody runs the GPZ somewhat differently. The general consensus is (with some few exceptions...) that HY/Normal/ Smoothing off/ semi-auto GB gives the biggest bang for the buck, assuming the ground allows it. Some of the main differences come from how you prefer to ID your target. Some crank the sensitivity all the way up and tolerate a very noisy threshold with alot of ground/EMI signals mixed in, some others (like me) prefer to reduce the gain to make the target stand out clearer, but the response might also be fainter. However, gain up or down does not matter that much in Normal as you will always hear your target, it just depends how you want to hear it. Normal offers alot more tolerance to parameter changes than Difficult which filters out alot. Here, you need to make up for it by increasing gain and volume. HY/difficult/smoothing is very much reducing the power of the GPZ, but seems necessary for many Au soils to ID targets. My starting settings are HY/Normal/smoothing off, GB: semi-auto, gain 6, threshold 25, volume 9. Then I adjust from there. Threshold-volume is incredible sensitive and reducing it from the default 27 to 26 or 25 has already a big impact. At sensitivity 6 I usually also never have the problem to do GB with the ferrite. In contrast, at sensitivity 12 or 13 in mineralized/conductive grounds I often can't get the ferrite quiet during GB. Cheers GC

I find the treshold volume and volume controls to be the most imapctful GPZ funtions. Together with low smooting (if needed) you can rescue Normal mode for many difficult grounds. Sensitivity in Normal is somewhat less important. I keep it at around 6-7 and that has plenty power.

Very good point you are raising. I think the problem is that high-end gold detectors by nature struggle with discrimination in the high performance mode because both ferrous and mineralized soil produce the same type of signal (called +X). Non-ferrous targets produce -X. This obviously causes a major problem, as the soil signal interferes with target ferrous/non-ferrous measurements, especially because the strength of signal from the soil is often much larger than the target signals (small gold nuggets embedded in large +X producing soil). For large targets or targets very close to the coil this works better, but for typical gold machines that specialize for very subtle changes in X and R signals the discrimination is a challenge. That being said, I totally agree with you that this is a missing feature. Perhaps Bruce Candy will figure this out one day!

That looks awesome. For how long does it last?

For sure not me, for several reasons!

I am not thrilled with the ML headphones and mostly use the Grey Ghost, or Bose if needed. But this is a matter of personal preference. The Grey Ghost have a volume control which is great when used in combination with the SP01 booster. I set the SP01 to a bit higher level and then fine regulate with the volume control of the headset.

Thanks for sharing, Steve. Very interesting. Two things I noticed So more to come for sure. He was referring to the consumer products (which presumably is everything else than for pure gold). That suggests more products in the consumer section are about to come soon. Overall great news. Looking forward for these new products to show up. Fasten your seatbelts...

I always hunt with headphones, so with strong wind I just switch to my noise cancelling Bose earbuds. Otherwise nothing changes much. You definitely want to keep listening to those faint threshold variations. That won't be possible with speakers in these conditions.

This is our "theme" indeed!...Right comrades? 😁

And those pictures are mouthwatering! Thanks for sharing.👍

Fantastic write up, Gerry! 100% agreed on everything you write. Also, a reminder for desert operators who mostly look for brutal force and depth that many terrains here require a different approach and equipment, mostly enabled with some sort of discrimination. This is a must have in super trashy old gold mining areas to be productive, and currently no high end gold machine is fitting that need! PS: A high end gold machine (PI or ZVT) with advanced iron probability meter, kind of a supercharged and more sophisticated version of what the GM has, would make a nice next gen. flagship detector, and worth likely >$12k. Of course, the ultimate (and perhaps pipe dream) would be to discriminate for lead as well. I wonder if this would be possible in my life time.

Now, it will be interesting to look ahead from here. The next ML flagship machine needs to be substantially better than both the 7000 and the 6000. Tall order?

Very interesting indeed, thanks for sharing Steve. I noticed the gold monster and SDC are still shown in the fleet. So apperantly no change there as of now.

Doc, put me on the pre-order list! 😁

Wow this is incredible, Gerry! And thanks for your excellent comments. Can't beat the results, can you? 👍I wanted to post a pic with the GM 5 in coil loaded with tiny small gold pieces that I found with it. But after the pic you just posted, I somehow don't feel like it anymore...😉

Thanks for sharing, Rob. Very nice!! And yeah, I love the Two Toes crevice tool too and have it always with me. But probably unlike you, I had to pay for it 😉

If I go to some of the hydraulic mine pits none of my detectors are of any use, but the GM. I hunt in deep but use the iron meter to discriminate, after some minor scraping to get clear ID's. The GB2 is completely useless in these areas as the grounds are highly mineralized and it goes off everywhere. The iron reject of the GB2 is a joke, but granted it is using an ancient technology. The GM is such an easy machine, but you need to actually properly condition it to function at peak performance. The processor and automatic tracking works great but I often reduce sensitivity to get it stable. I have the version where you can do the quick track which really helps. The GB2 works only well in super mild soil, at least for me. But then however, is is a real shallow gold sniffing beast! As said, the Nox/ 6 inch will give you more bang for the buck, also due it's versatility. I will wait for the next gen Nox before I pull the trigger. Since I am not a relic hunter, the GM works fine thus far to fill my needs. But back to the topic, I wish the 6000 would come with some sort of discrimination feature. I realize this will not be possible with the new DD coil, but to me there is a real need for a next gen.PI to have some sort of iron meter.

That' a matter of oppinion. The GM has found me good gold in shallow ground and IMHO the processor combined with iron meter makes it superior over the GB2 (which I also own), in particular when used in somewhat more difficult ground. True, the Nox 800 is probably a better joice, but I would not call the GM junk. It all depends on what else you've got in your fleet and how well it fits in. With the 5 in coil the GM makes a great bedrock scraper. 😁

Well said. Something tells me the SDC won't go away anytime soon. It was a huge sales hit and there are hords of SDC freaks out there who swear on it, for its applicability in those special circumstances that was mentioned. I think rather than dying out it will at some point be reborn, hopefully sporting the features that you mentioned 😁