VicR

Will be interesting to see if Nokta brings something new to the table or it will be similiar to AlgoForce.  What will be equally interesting is to see how Minelab will react to all this new competition (Nokta & AlgoForce) in the PI market they currently dominate - hopefully with better product at a reasonable price rather than litigation. Time will tell.

Maybe you need a different thread listing all your requirements for a PI beach machine - much like was done for the the PI gold machine challenge and just wait for AlgoForce to fill a gap in the market again.

49 minutes ago, Aureous said:

Geosense is simply an automated way of altering the CPU code on the fly. The ground minerals sensed by the CPU automatically alters the receive code to filter more efficiently. Plucking the tiny metal signals from  the overall receive signal. The 6000 is a triple channel detector and 2 of these channels are 'MPF like' with only one being dedicated to code seeking deeper targets. Interesting that MPF is no longer being touted as a technology on the box anymore. Wonder if the patent is still active???? 

So is the 6000 "significantly" different (improved) to the SDC in terms of being able to detect small gold?

I am hoping that Algoforce may force Minelab to become more user friendly rather than buzzword focused - just purchase a set of Avantree Aria ME S headphones that leave the stock 6000 headphones for dead but i cant use them wirelessly on the Manticore. Thats just nuts.

Did we ever find out what Geosense is?

Minelab lists 8 Australian patents for the 6000. I am guessing that 2 or 3 of these patents where used in the SDC developments (oldest patent going back to 2011) and were incorporated into the 6000 development but there are 4 patents from 2019 (2019 x 1, 2020 x 2, 2021 x 1) that look to be specifically related to the 6000 development. Most of these 4 refer to an  " improved metal detector" - so are we saying the 6000 is only an incremental improvement on the SDC?

Patents are not my expertise as well but i went into the two new patent applications and the patent applications from last year are referenced in the new applications as " Associated Provisional Patent Applications" so somehow they are tied together or linked - maybe they reference the old application to keep the effective date from last year.

Thanks Steve - so the two i have quoted  have new application numbers - so have Algoforce just reapplied for similiar patents with some fine tuning of the application maybe to increase their chances of the application succeeding?

Algoforce have lodged some new patent applications in Australia last week. Its looks possible that they may not be a one hit wonder and that they are serious about developing new products - time will tell.

Ambient Sound Control - would this be like a noise cancelling function ?

Time Domain Metal Detector - guessing instead of applying algorithms or filters to frequencies it will be applied to a specific unit of time. Would be great to have some opinions on how this would help a metal detector (VLF or PI) find more targets.

I have had the Manticore for 15 months now - comparing it to the Equinox 800 it is a far better beach machine finding targets much deeper and less prone to EMI interference. In benign soil where you can crank up the sensitivity again you can find more with the Manticore if the targets are deep.  Its more than paid for itself in finds so I am very happy with it.

Yep - if it doesn't show up in auto correction these days errors have a good chance of getting published.

I think they are referring to gold detectors -  quote below from the same patent

The fit-for-purpose high-end commercial "gold" metal detector industry has changed very
considerably since its rudimentary introductions in approximately the 1970s, and this progress continues
unabated. The electronics, signal processing, algorithms and accuracy of these high-end products have
become considerably more complex and demanding. As a result, the R&D investment and design skills
are orders of magnitude higher now than they were a few decades ago. It is imperative at this time of
writing, that for a fit-for-purpose high-end commercial gold metal detector to be successful at detecting as
yet unfound gold nuggets in magnetic soils in know goldfields, it must be capable of highly accurate log
uniform and log-linear distributed VRM ground-balancing, to cope with highly magnetic soils, and have
yet further innovative improvements beyond the previous generation of state-of-the-art products.

Maybe the next gold detector from Minelab will not be able detect deeper but will be able to more clearly identify and amplify the faint signals that we miss - refer to a Bruce Candy / Minelab recently approved Australian patent 2023202011.  The abstract of the patent reads -

A method for detecting a target using a metal detector by producing at least two different modulated
audio tones, by modulating a first audio tone with a first stereo audio modulator signal and modulating
a second audio tone with a second stereo audio modulator signal; and applying at least the first audio
tone to a left side of an audio stereo target indicator indicative of the target, and applying at least the
second audio tone to a right side of the audio stereo target indicator; wherein the modulating of the
first audio tone and modulating of the second audio tone, comprises one or more of the following; a
modulation of a volume of a tone, a modulation of a pitch of a tone, a modulation of relative
harmonics ratios of a tone, a modulation of a chord richness of a tone.

I have never thought about this before but i am assuming that the current signals we hear from detectors are in mono - the same sound in left and right of the headphones. Having stereo signals may give the engineers more scope to amplify the signals we want to hear.

A non compete clause is usually for a set period of time and that he is out of contract now.

Just remember to add the price of coil, battery & headphones - still a good price , especially if you already have these items in your kit.

There would be a few interesting discussions happening at Minelab at the moment.

Forgot to mention runs on Minelab SD,GP, GPX coils. Cheap - light weight - pulse induction. Its ticking some boxes - just need to know how good it is in the real world.

New kid on the block - AlgoForce E1500 pulse induction detector just released. Selling for $2275 AUD (without coils and battery). Looks like a new company AlgoForce Pty Ltd  based in Adelaide, South Australia (go the crows)- if it works as claimed could shake up the market a bit. Check out their website for specs etc.  Does anyone have more information than what is on their website?

Have not yet come across a customer who likes a price rise - but when you have inflation running at between 5 and 8 percent for the last 2 years that increase your business running costs you have three options. Accept a lower profit result because of a reduction in margins due to input cost increases (leads to lower share price & increase in financing costs), raise prices (short term adverse effect on demand)  or cut costs (R&D on the chopping block?).

The large price increase in the high end gold machines is interesting - i wonder if they are getting the market ready for a new whiz bang $15k AUD gold machine that does everything you have dreamed of ?

Agree with Steve - i have had the Manticore for 8 months now and have learnt to back sensitivity off so  it runs smoother. I have my best results by doing this & the trade off in depth is negligible.

With the 6000 i have just come back from 6 days detecting at Tibooburra using the Nuggetfinder 12 x 7 coil - it certainly quietens the machine significantly and comparing it to the 11 inch found a lot more gold. Very happy with the new coil.

Their ex works cost out of Malaysia would be in US$ and they would ship to centralised warehouses around the globe - they would not ship to Australia then to the US - you would be just adding significant cost to the product with no added benefit - they would ship direct from Malaysia to US. Because they buy in US$ there would not be any exchange rate variation when selling into the US market - the exchange rate would only have an effect if Minelab wanted to convert money in their US$ account to Aussie $.

On 6/3/2023 at 8:38 AM, Gerry in Idaho said:

For a 50% more price increase of the GPX-6000 in the USA $6000 vs $4000 for the Axiom, what is best?  I don't see the average person needing to spend the extra $2000 and in fact I would recommend that person get a good VLF to complement the PI.

Different pricing story in Australia - Axiom retails for $7385 AUD and the GPX6000 retails for $8000 AUD - so the GPX6000 is only $600 AUD ($360 US) more - not a very significant $2000 US difference.

I am guessing that Minelab set the GPX6000 US price first  in  2021 at $6000 US , then used the exchange rate at the time ($0.75) to arrive at the Australian price of $8000 AUD.

So the big question for Minelab is do they change the price in the US to get closer to the Axiom? If you take the Australian price of $8000 AUD and covert to US (using current AUD $0.60 exchange rate) you get a price of $4800 US - still $800 US more but a big reduction on the current $2000 US price difference. This would generate more sales but would the increase unit sales volume generate more gross margin dollars than they are currently making ? - that is what Minelab would be pondering.  They would also have to take into account other Minelab gold machines (how they compare price wise) & any new products on the planning board.

Google below for more information on Iron Oxide Concretions.

ozgeotours.yolasite.com/resources/concretion.pdf  

Could be a Iron Oxide Concretion - they can give that layered effect.