VicR

Just get the same person who proudly made the soft carry bag and hard carry case that comes standard for the MDS-10 used by our military to design it. Its not that hard - and they are very cheap to make when done in volume in Asia and im sure would do a better job than bags designed for other equipment.

Agree - thats why i said "unstable in some environments" - so the standard Minelab answer will be " switch to DD coil when you encounter unstable conditions"?

I think the official reason why in Australia we are getting the small mono and the the DD is that field testing has shown that the mono will be unstable in some environments while the DD will work - so including the DD as standard will head off complaints about the 6000 being unstable - the standard reply will be "switch to DD coil to eliminate ground noise". Pity there is only one battery - always good to have a spare when you are thousand of kilometres from a Minelab distributor. Also Minelab have always been poor in providing accessories with their detectors - why no hard case to transport your $8k AUD investment in?

"GPX 6000" and "Geo Sense-Pi" are now officially registered trademarks in Australia. So all systems are go. Local distributor is saying latest release date is Mid April. I was one of the first to get the Equinox800 3 years ago and that turned out to be a great decision - I am hoping for a repeat of that experience with the 6000.

If it is any later than a May product launch for the 6000 Codan (Minelab) would have to officially advise the Australian Stock Market that they have (stock) price sensitive information as they have previously advised their shareholders and the market that the GPX6000 will be launched this financial year (F21 ending 30th June 2021).

Minelab would have a marketing plan for the release of the GPX6000. One of their objectives in the plan would be to inform their target market(s) that there is a new high end gold detector about to be launched in the near future - it doesn't matter how annoying the sales pitch is as long as we are talking about the new GPX6000. Once the 6000 hits the market we will be focused on actual field reports - whats good , whats not so good , what accessories are available etc & the currently marketing tease will be forgotten. Minelab would be happy for sales of GPX5000 and SDC's to have slowed down to a crawl - all of this built up demand will be transferred to the higher margin GPX6000 which will lead to a profit surge.

The pandemic creates a lack of confidence in forecasts which is why we have no firm product launch date from Minelab - who are waiting to have all their ducks in a row before announcing a date. Looking at Plexus Malaysia financial report for actual quarter ending December 2020 and their forecast for 1st quarter 2021 they appear not to be affected too much by the pandemic but you only need one vital component shortage to slow things down for a particular product - like the current chip shortage out of Taiwan. An option to make up for lost time is airfreight which is viable when you have high value product. For me whether its a March, April or May launch i can wait - have been waiting many years for this type of gold detector - a few months either way is no big deal.

Well the market believes Codan's (Minelab) future is bright - their share price has increased by 90% over the last 12 months.

Interesting that there has been a large number of used SDC2300 machines being advertised at the moment with a corresponding fall in prices - no GPX4500/5000 machines though. Maybe people are seeing the GPX6000 as an upgrade from the SDC but not so much an upgrade for the GPX4500/5000.

There's a saying in business "under promise and over deliver". Forecasting the future product direction is fraught with dangers so Minelab takes a conservative approach to information sharing about new technologies and products with their customers and competitors. If i was in Minelabs shoes i would do exactly the same - controlling your own agenda and focusing on developing improvements to your product range.

One thing you can be sure of Minelab are not resting on their laurels - in less than a year they have applied for 5 patents for an improved metal detector and 1 patent for a metal detector. They would have a very full and busy development pipeline.

The beer bottle washers are not to replace the inner teardrop washers which just need to be in good condition. I use the beer bottle washers on the other side of the teardrop washers. They provide a large degree of shock absorbing properties, impossible to over tighten which allows the coil to be adjusted easily while swinging but its not that loose that its floppy. The beer bottle washer is a perfect fit - both inner hole and outer diameter - no need to cut to size. I do home beer brewing so buy the large grolsch style bottles by the dozen - the bottles come from China and i replace the cheap silicon seals with quality European seals. The cheap China seals are the ones i use on the Equinox coils. I have given some to a few mates who are still using them. I have no proof that they actually will stop coil lug cracking but i cant see them doing any harm and makes easier coil position adjustment on the fly when detecting.

Flip top Grolsch beer bottles - the silicon seal of the stopper fits perfectly. Good excuse to buy a few bottles of beer.

Will be interesting to see real world test of the Manual sensitivity settings or the no threshold Auto settings - which one will give the best results for mono coils? No threshold sounds great to me - i certainly have become use to that with the Equinox. Page 5 section 6 Headphones Connection - have they the wired & Bluetooth headphone symbols against the wrong description? or am i just not understanding it correctly?

i must have funny ears - haven't found a earbud headphone that will stay put and not fall out of my ears - tried plenty over the last 30 years with same result so the QC20 is not an option for me. I have the Bose QC35 over ear headphones but there is wireless lag in signal response and i don't want to be wired up to the detector in anyway.

I am in the habit of switching arms to swing a detector to lesson pain in my right shoulder that develops after a few hours of use - having a totally cordless metal detector certainly makes it a lot easier to be ambidextrous making it very easy to swap swinging arms. The GPX6000 headphones look to have big ear muffs so should be good to keep out local environment noise but may be more uncomfortable in very hot weather because of the size of the muffs - i suppose you have the option of the built in speaker then. I am a great fan of noise cancelling headphones - it is interesting when i listen to music that i have heard nearly all my life how i hear new things in the tracks that i didn't hear before when i use noise cancelling headphones (Bose). I wonder if the singing ground we detect on would also offer new sounds if noise cancelling technology was used - does anyone have experience using noise cancelling headphones while detecting - especially for gold? I wonder if Minelab looked at including noise cancelling as an option for the GPX6000?

Well Minelab may not be be the best communicator in the world but they sure know how to listen to their customers (existing and potential) - which is what the successful companies and sales people are good at. "Fun", "Ergonomics", "Light Weight", "Stability", "Ease of Use" would have all been on a white board when the GPX6000 developers went to the Minelab accountants and asked for a bucket load of money to have a revolutionary rather than evolutionary change to the GPX product - I'm sure there would have been push back to this proposal and would have required some strong leadership to get this project over the line. Reviewing Codan's latest P&L shows they are currently in a very favorable financial position - no debt and about $100M AUD ($75M US) as cash in the bank. So expect to see more product development in the future (unless they have a change in policy) and enjoy the ride.

I am jumping in straight away to get a 6000. Im looking at it in another way - cost is $8000 AUD - i hope to get 10 years out of this technology as it is a big leap forward (especially for me as i dont have a GPZ or SDC) and gone are the days where we have a new GP/GPX every 3 years. So thats $800 AUD a year or $15 AUD a week - so for the cost of a weekly movie ticket i get to go to the best show in Australia - the gold fields - and try my luck. Naturally this assumes i have 10 more active years left in me.🙂

yes - I've found owners of many a ring over the years. Usually something comes my way. His logic was that he was going to find it anyway with the shovel and colander!

Found a guys $3000 custom wedding ring last week at the beach - he was in the surf with a shovel and colander digging for his ring(no detector!) that he lost in the water the week before. I found it in about 20 minutes - reward was a hearty hand shake - so maybe i am overcharging Gerry with the hearty handshake and should ask for a vigorous wave.

Two independent local sources (in Adelaide) have said that the price for the GPX6000 will be $7950 to $7999 AUD in Australia. Using the current exchange rate in (AUD to USD) would make it $6080 US but as i have noted the exchange rate is not a good indicator of the US price - it is usually more than the exchange rate - So i am guessing it will be more likely to be in the $6499 US to $6999 US price range for American buyers.

Hi Gerry - a hearty handshake would suffice should our paths cross.

Hi Gerry & Steve - i kept the Vanquish 340 box (see attached) - clearly states that the skid plate is a optional extra. I double checked with Miners Den here in Adelaide and they also confirmed that the 340 does not come with a skid plate - you have to buy it as an extra. To their knowledge this is the only detector Minelab has released that does not come standard with a skid plate. The other Vanquish models come as standard with skid plates. This maybe different for other markets.

Not entirely correct. I was lucky enough to win a Vanquish 340 in March last year at the Wedderburn (Victoria) metal detecting jamboree. Unboxed it at home and found that the skid plate is an optional extra and not included! - so i had to go and buy a skid plate before using it. I am not sure its a good thing that a entry level product misses out on a vital part just to keep the price down - i am sure some new people to our sport would not realise the importance of a skid plate. I suppose they are relying on distributors to educate people who buy this product. Cant see them doing this on the GPX6000 though.

I have my name on the order list at a local distributor in Adelaide , South Australia and they confirmed in Australia that the 6000 will be coming out with the small mono and the DD coils - not the 2 mono coils as the Middle East videos suggested. Unsure what coils will be released as standard in other countries. They believed that the 17" elliptical will be released at a later date but did not know when.