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Steelphase no longer makes them, Nenad took over making and selling them. Good product but being left behind with everyone going wireless these days, I haven't used mine in some time.

Stumbled across it on Facebook.

I have the Nel branded one for my Gold Bug Pro, nice coil on the Bug.

oh, if you can get it grab it, the Cors Shrew is the Nel snake, they just sell it under two different brand names, Cors was sold in the US where as Nel elsewhere.

Some may find this interesting.

That's an old first generation 10" coil. Woody did a video on that blog post, he is puzzled why it has ferrites in it and thinks they won't do anything, yet the original and other aftermarket coils also do. This is the original 14x13" Minelab coil, thanks strick for the X-ray. I'm a bit puzzled by quite a few things said in his video.

Excellent news for want to be Garrett owners in New Zealand, the Axiom Lite package has arrived on our shores and with a much more reasonable price. It's not a direct currency exchange to the cheaper Australian price, but only $400 higher than the currency exchange price. Really good news for people who wanted to give the Axiom a shot, as it's now priced in a suitable price range against the current available competitors products.

I've always found they're very slow on Emails. Hopefully it all works out.

Well, the original question was should he buy the GB2 10x5", and I saw he also has another high frequency VLF that comes stock with a 10x5" coil so didn't think he'd still much value for his purchase, although I'm not overly familiar with the other machine and its performance compared to the well tried, true and tested brilliant GB2,

That statement about Vflex was listed on their website when the first Go-Finds were the only ones, I was quite chuffed at the time my Go-Find 40 had Vflex. Don't get me started on the rip off of printer cartridges, their inks more expensive than gold. 🙂 Go here and click on Tech Specs. The Go-Find's work remarkably well on the Beach, even in the wet sand they're working quite well. The thing I've always found somewhat interesting is Geosense never appeared in their key technologies section on the website where the Vflex information is coming from, although my theory is it's nothing more than auto sensitivity / auto ground tracking so hardly ground breaking.

I was talking about for my needs with the creek detecting 🙂 To justify detectors now I need them to have an advantage over something I've already got, a tangible advantage too, as with detectors maxing out VLF performance for some time now it's very hard to find a way to justify buying another model, often it comes down to very minor things that makes someone like one brand or model over another, in this case having the Nel coils is something I personally really appreciate and that becomes the Legends advantage over other detectors for me. I'm going to buy the coil before the detector, it's quite easy to buy a Legend in NZ on the second-hand market, they're always popping up for sale in NZ, so I'll go second hand as I think the Legend's a bit over priced here compared to other countries where at least in some it's a real bargain. The Nel coils appear like they'll be a challenge to get, at least at the moment so I'll secure my Snake coil before buying the detector, I have a number of Nel coils for other detectors so have a pretty good idea of the coils I'd like to buy for the Legend, the other being the Tornado. I'd prefer the Detech Ultimate over the Tornado, simply as I like the weight better and it's just a really nice coil, one of the best VLF coils the aftermarket have ever produced, I think. Detech have been slow to release Legend coils too, a good range for the Simplex but I guess the same chip that was holding Nel back is holding Detech back, seeing Nel now have access to the chips hopefully Detech will soon too. If the Legend gets Detech and Nel coils, it may well become one of my favourite VLF detectors, if not my favourite. I've wanted a SMF detector that's had a coil like the Snake or the Snake since forever, it's finally becoming a reality.

Sales have slowed down now, you would expect that, down to 21 detectors so only two sold in the past week after the flurry at the start, either way, they've sold quite a few detectors, likely 19 detectors as I started monitoring it a few days after the sale started and they had 37 then, likely started at 40. A lot more Axioms roaming around Australia now, Garrett did the right thing bringing out the much cheaper Lite package, now the owners will show how good it is and their friends might get one, and start the ball rolling.

That's a good point, the operator is going to degrade far more over time than their digital detector 😛

That makes some sense for the VLF's, The GPZ is a different story with its chip up the top end of the coil cable. Oddly, my Go-Find uses V-flex yet it doesn't have a chip in the coil, The Russians managed to get another coil on it by just having a coil made to suit it from Mars, along with just doing a cut in the cable and putting plugs on it. I guess the Go-Find being entry level they were able to sacrifice the benefits of the chip in the coil. The odd design and the fact it was entry level was likely enough to prevent aftermarket coils for it. Detectors like the X-Terra 705 also had no security measures with their chip system, which is why the aftermarket were able to make X-Terra coils, Nel in fact made a really cool one, a three-frequency coil when the original coils were single frequency and you had to own various coils to get different frequencies, Nel put all 3 frequencies into one coil and to top it off were able to patent it 🙂 The new chips are encrypted and are designed in such a way to prevent aftermarket coils, they may serve more than one purpose, but it's pretty clear their intention. A big thanks to @Nokta Detectors for supplying their chips to Nel, as now Nel are having a full range of coils for the Legend.

I thought it shared GPX 6000 DNA, with the shovel being so close to the coil.

If it ain't broke don't fix it, they fixed the 800's issues with the 900 no doubt, it's now properly waterproof, has a better shaft and overall design, yet they decided they would mess with the inner workings, and to me that's blasphemy, when has a new Minelab fallen so flat on it's face? . Adding extra Target ID's while benefiting a small few has proven to be a mistake, I don't see a lot of satisfied customers by this "improvement", I think they got it right the first time, sure they could have rearranged things a bit, but the extra range was a step backwards, detectors a decade or more old had 99 ID's, they moved off that for a reason. Sure, some advanced users may think or even benefit from a larger range at the cost of stability, yet a bulk of their customers won't. The lesser ID's is more of a dig it all approach which the end result is more successful detecting. I appreciate the extra sensitivity settings as my 800 sat on 24 or even 25 and ran well, if it's running well at maximum that's not ideal, so increasing sensitivity was a positive, I shouldn't be roaming around with my GPZ maxed out, yet I can and do., something detectors like the Axiom, Manticore and Algoforce have taken into account by adding sensitivity levels often unachievable yet sometimes they are. With more than two decades of continuous success in detecting incarnations from Minelab, the detectors have been improved and refined to the point that the biggest challenge seems to be finding new ways to distinguish their updated models. Place the 900 alongside its predecessor the 800 and the differences are so minimal to be of little real importance, other than fixing known issues mostly with design rather than performance, they're really clutching at straws. So, I say give me an 800 in a 900's body, and might be high time to stop preventing aftermarket coils, as others are reaping the rewards.

Thank you, Carl, you're a real asset and I appreciate every post you take the time to do, always informative.

I'd rather they put the 800 into the 900 body and keep it alive.

There has been an update on the Algoforce website indicating time frames for batches. Demand does appear to be very high, although somewhat expected when a good performing high build quality PI comes out at a very reasonable price. I think entry into the US market is going to be a slow process based upon local demand. Dear Valued AlgoForce Customer, We appreciate your continued interest in our products and would like to inform you that our popular AlgoForce E1500 is currently out of stock due to high demand. We understand how eager you are to get your hands on the AlgoForce E1500, and we want to ensure that you don't miss out on the opportunity to secure your unit. We are thrilled to announce that preorders are now open, allowing you to reserve your E1500 before the next shipment arrives. To place your preorder, you can choose one of the following methods: Contact us by filling out the contact form. Contact our dealer: Phase Technical. Acting promptly ensures that you'll be among the first to receive your AlgoForce E1500 when the new stock arrives. Our current lead time is approximately 4-8 weeks. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work diligently to fulfill your orders. Thank you for choosing AlgoForce, and we look forward to delivering a top-notch product that lives up to your expectations. Best regards, AlgoForce

I think people get this impression as they buy a new computer, use it a few years and then it's really slow and clunky and they think age caused it when really, it's just bogged down with crap from the years of use and loads of updates, wipe it and fresh install Windows and it's like new again. Run benchmarks on it when it's new, and after being wiped and reinstalled years later and the results will be the exact same, many years apart as long as its not developed any hardware issues, most likely the hard drive being the mechanical component being susceptible to wear causing it to slow down or have performance and reliability problems, fortunately our Nox's don't have hard drives for their software 🙂 I can't imagine a 5-year-old Nox performing any different than a brand new one unless it's developed a fault or the battery is failing.

The thing I like about the size is it can poke into places a rounder coil struggles, especially when creek detecting, and with the Legend being waterproof combined with the Snake, it will be the best in class for that type of work.

My only data like that would be the Gold Bug Pro with its 5" round coil, and the Nel snake on it, and the Snake was more sensitive to small targets, namely gold nuggets by a reasonably noticeable amount.

No Idea, I've never used a Legend, someone like @Jeff McClendon may have an idea. A 6.5x3,5" would likely be more sensitive to small gold than a 6" round though.

I imagine the really large coil like that is probably for hoard hunters in Europe who aren't chasing a tiny hammered single silver coin, the whole point is, they bring a massive range of coils, something there to suit just about everyone, compared to the limited range available for other top tier VLF detectors on the market, the Legend has now gone from having a usual range to now having a very large range of shapes and sizes.

It's great to see Nel still around, they've survived the odds so far and now they've released their range of coils for the Legend. Legend owners now have an additional 10 coil choices for the detector, and this will mean it's fiercely competitive with the best of the best from any brand. That 17x15" Nel Big would have to add some depth, then the absolute tiny gold nugget (flake) sensitivity of the Nel Snake at 6.5 x 3.5. The Nel Superfly and Tornado are also coils to take note of. It was always my condition that I wouldn't buy a Legend unless it had Nel coils, as I have too many detectors and adding another similar one would be a pointless exercise for my needs. However, now with Nel having their range of Legend coils available it is a must have detector for me, the Legend paired with a Nel Snake coil would be a beast for prospecting. He's a link to the Legend's Snake coil. https://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/production/nel-snake-9-5x3-5?id=2376 I'm sure they're going to be hard to come by at the start, and no doubt expensive as shipping from Ukraine at the moment is sky high, a price I am willing to pay though, this has to be a giant kick in the marbles to Noktas competitors.