phrunt

I wonder what age you need metal detector walking aids?

Pinpoint mode on many detectors gives a better signal response over a deep target than normal detecting modes, someone with more knowledge than me maybe able to explain why. On the Go-Find pinpoint mode is approximately the same depth as not notching out any targets, so using no discrimination but with louder audio. With my Go-Find 40 if I am blocking out iron and I get an iffy target, rather than just enabling iron which is cycling through all the modes I just press the pin point button and the signal response of the target improves dramatically and I use pinpoint mode to size the target and work out if I think its worth digging. Keep in mind on the Go-Find like many detectors a deep good target will often be identified incorrectly as iron anyway. The Pinpoint audio on the Go-Find like you've worked out is much louder than the normal audio on the targets too. The cool thing about the Go-Find is you can enable pinpoint by pressing the button and it just stays on so you can hunt in pinpoint mode, and I've done this successfully at the beach, it gives better depth which is a good thing in our soft sand with deep targets and with the easy digging in the sand it's best to dig everything anyway as it's so easy to do. The Go-Find loses depth with discrimination enabled like most other detectors do so it's best to not notch out anything if you're chasing deeper targets.

Yes, that's why I alluded to the GPX 4500 being re-released, they've done it before... they may do it again if they see any sign of competition in the lower end PI price range the 4500 may then make another appearance as the 4500SE (Second Edition), a simplified less settings version to keep it well away from the GPX 5000 ? If they wanted to do it properly they'd do it in a new modern housing in line with the GPX 6000 and 7000 with cut back settings options making it easier to use and understand more suited to the weekend warrior market, I only expect to see this happen if Nokta or somebody comes out with a cheap PI to take that area of the market. That's a stepping stone to a higher end machine and Minelab won't want that happening. If they just wanted to do it on the cheap as a quick remedy to competition they'd just release it in the current platform and cut back a few timings or something.

These seem the way to go for those wanting those funky neck style speakers. I'll try get some, hard to get as they seem to be only sold in Japan. These are a high end brand so they won't be cheap, currency conversion from the Japanese price indicates $168 USD. They're certified atpX Low Latency and splash proof so suitable for detecting I'd imagine. A lot more hardy than other options available. https://www.audio-technica.co.jp/product/AT-NSP700TV Unfortunately in Japanese but you can translate with Google ? Listed on the aptX website as certified low latency. https://www.aptx.com/products/audio-technica-wireless-neck-speaker-system This is the model number: AT-NSP700TV 13 hour run time, and they have a charging station which doubles as a transmitter for your TV etc. They also just turn on by the knob on the right side in the photo, it also does volume control.

I did a significant amount of research into this and settled on this one. https://www.xmpow.com/products/mpow-bh390a-2-in-1-transmitter-receiver-aptx-low-latency-bluetooth-5-0 14 hours battery life, decent well known brand and it has the Csr8685 chipset. The latest version while many on the market still have the older Csr8650. https://www.qualcomm.com/products/csr8675 The receiver mode supports atpX HD not LL, so may not be suitable for some but I'm using it as a transmitter. Of course like everything Bluetooth it's backwards compatible so will work with older chipsets like the atpX Low Latency Minelab use in their headphones, It's very simple to use which I found a must, I didn't want a bunch of options and input ports that I'd never use seeing it's just for a detector. Simplicity and lack of "features" was a plus. I intend to use it as a transmitter for my older style GPX 5000 to pair to the Minelab Bluetooth headphones that came with my Vanquish that I've never used, the same as the Nox ones my 800 came with which are also never used , along with a Bluetooth LL portable speaker as an alternative to the much slower ProSonic seeing I had to return mine and was left without an option other than seeking an aftermarket replacement. I'll report on how it goes once it arrives.

There are two pricing models they could take. Cheaper with more sales hoping to recoup the money that way which I'm sure they would. They took this path with the Equinox. People in the coin and relics market were already accustomed to cheaper detectors with the CTX being the top dog in the market for price and possibly performance at the time prior to the Equinox but it didn't have a huge market share compared to the lower priced units which were the bigger sellers. Before the Equinox came along what was the most popular coin and relic type detector? For me it is hard to know, it seemed more of a spread around various brands. The Equinox came in giving people a large step up in features and performance at a similar price to the existing detectors and just basically took the floor out from under the other detectors market, almost everyone quickly jumped onboard and bought one. Although their profit margin would be a lot smaller on the Equinox they've more than likely made up for that on the massive number of sales of it and then we look at accessories, if you want to buy both of the other coils for it they're making a big profit there. Check out the price of a WM08 or headphones for those that bought a 600 and want them, mental. I went to buy a v10 coil for my Vanquish 540 to complete the set. I looked at the price of the coil and thought OK, a bit pricey considering the price of the detector. Then I looked at the Vanquish 340 which includes the v10 coil and for just over $100 more I can get the V10 coil and another detector. I think this is the path I'm going to take to get the coil. I've never bought a detector just to get a coil before but it makes sense to do so. Now, the Gold detector market has been different, people are used to very high prices and for those that are fortunate enough to be in a location with gold that can make these prices viable, it's really no big deal and that's their target market, people that would fall into being professionals really. I'm a hobbyist and my finds in my area limit me to being so, I'm not their target market. They set the price by the bulk of the buyers of the detector and what they will pay, not by people like me. I've heard people say If I buy a 6000 I can pay it off in a week or two in gold finds, it'd take me a year or more, I'd have to go out much more often than I do now too. Minelab are selling more 6000's than they can produce already, waiting lists all over the place. A bulk of the detectors seem to have gone to fill the market in Africa and I guess rightly so, the bulk of the buyers are there. Australia they just had to give a bunch of detectors to for their reputation to stay intact supporting local plus the Australian's are great for marketing purposes flooding Social media with photos and video of the detector in action, the African's don't do this, they're too busy using their detector to make a living. The smaller markets just have to wait to get one and they knew there would be less sales in these markets, and with sky high shipping costs from Covid and even chip shortages and production constraints again related to Covid lock downs and social distancing at the production facilities the high price low sales volume method was really their only realistic choice at the moment, they would have no way possible of keeping up with the orders if they sold the GPX 6000 at $3000 and they have no reason to with no competition. I think it's how it has to be, so my hopes are on one of the other manufacturers throwing caution to the wind and coming out with the lower cost PI option, Garrett are already there they just need to do a redesign of the housing and set a cheaper price point and they can make the lower cost PI for those that want a cheaper unit, they also have the TDI up their sleeve they could redevelop into something a bit better. First Texas have the Impulse Gold if they can ever get it to market, the AQ has left me a bit troubled there. And Nokta have said they were doing a PI.... maybe they'll do it. QED is far too limited by various things we don't need to get into here to really make an impact at all except to a very small user base so can't really be included as an option for worldwide distribution. I think any manufacturer that can fill this void of a low cost good performance lightweight modern PI will do very well, they may create a hobbyist market that didn't even exist due to price constraints. If someone else doesn't do it Minelab might just do it soon to make sure the others have no hope. A modified simplified modern housing built in battery GPX 4500 and a lower price point and bang that opportunity is gone.

This letter should have been: Dear Competition, Please get your act together and make a decent prospecting PI detector, Minelab currently has total control of the market charging extremely high prices for their equipment as they have absolutely no competition so it's money for the taking if you can come out with a reasonable performance, good quality, light weight, modern automatic ground balancing PI detector with good sensitivity to small gold and affordable to the weekend warrior market along with EASE OF USE it will sell like crazy to those not willing to pay Minelab's pricing but still want to have a bit of fun prospecting. The weekend warrior market is likely a huge untapped market largely due to insane pricing limiting the buyer pool to only those more serious about it. You don't have to beat them in performance, just make something that is worth using and built to last, support for GPX coils would help it sell. Thank you for listening Fisher, Nokta and even Garrett, not pointing out any names of course. Simon Even if you didn't want to buy the competitions detector it would drive down some of Minelab's pricing when they see it eating into their market.

I tried tweaking the Nox a bit more and using Park 2 and Field 2 and adjusting recovery speed and ground balancing to try get a better hit on the deeper coin with no joy. I maybe wrong but it appears to me the Vanquish with V8 8" × 5" coil goes a bit deeper than the Coiltek 10x5" coil on the Nox in my mild soil conditions on this coin.

I think the problem for Coiltek will be related to production, they won't want to expand their production and put on more staff and buy equipment and so on for something that is likely to be a one off big demand for the coils, once everyone who wants one has one from the pent up demand from Minelab not proving enough coil options then the sales will slow to a crawl and they'll unlikely every see such demand for coils ever again so scaling up for mass production might be a bit of a mistake. From everything I've seen and heard so far only the 10x5" is popular too. The few in NZ that bought the larger sizes have not been overly impressed.

My CTX 3030 6" coil arrived today so I thought I'd compare it to some other detectors with small coils including the Nox with it's 6" coil and the Coiltek 10x5" Nox coil. I was pretty happy with the CTX, in fact I am pretty sure it did the best by a significant margin, the only issue is even though it was giving a pretty damn good ID on the deepest coin it wasn't giving any sound on it, other than the break in the threshold. Perhaps I have a setting wrong or something I have no idea what I'm doing with the CTX although I found the default profiles useless for deep coins so I just made my own based off the coin program and changed the ground type to ferrous coin and it seems to do pretty good. I tried recovery deep an the sound doesn't work on the deep coin, I haven't messed around with any of the audio settings. 12 38 is what it should show on an air test on the $1 coin and it is often showing 11 38 on the deep coin but no audio, weird. The rest of the detectors do poorly on the deepest coin. The Gold Bug Pro surprises me, it's quite deep but reports it as iron. The Vanquish did semi OK, it at least had the audio tone of the coin, It occurred to me after doing the video the Vanquish was in jewellery mode, so I went out and tested in coin and in relic mode and neither did any better than jewellery mode, it's been my favourite Vanquish mode on coins in the past so I just leave it on that all the time. I didn't bother with the T2 and it's 5" coil, it wasn't worth my time finding the coil to put on as I already know it can't detect the deeper of the two targets with the 5" on, again it's just iron to it and that's when in all metal. Any advice on the audio issue with the CTX would be appreciated. The deepest coin is on the left at 8", with the other target at 6" and I put white stones on the grass to show where they are. They were buried about 2 years ago, who knows how deep they are now, the ground is very soft in winter so they may have sunk lower since then.

You are right, it is there, just hidden ? Great news.

Well, ordered the Superfly, Although I think the Mars Tiger is awesome it's main benefit over the Nel coils is its EMI handling, the AT Gold is already great with EMI, than 18kHZ an 19kHZ frequency range seems a good one around here for EMI so EMI handling wasn't on my list of requirements for a coil. I'll see how the Nel goes. I notice on their coils now they all appear to have that funky red coil cover, I'd rather the old school black ones. I don't like standing out like dogs nuts.

I doubt it, I'd just think they're missing that feature. Once you've got the old one out just pull it apart and see what that 3rd wire is doing, it maybe just attached to a temperature sensor that you can move across to the other battery. The detector would likely work fine without it anyway you'd just have to be careful yourself not to charge it if it's too hot like in a car on a hot day as charging the batteries in too high heat can damage them.

Those Ebay batteries look like they were two wire, the battery that comes out of the Equinnox has an extra yellow wire, not sure what for? Temperature maybe to stop you charging when overheated?

Norvic, you should be sleeping! ? I think Reg will like the 6k, he liked the QED for it's lighter design and the GPX gives him that to an extent. Not near the weight of the QED but still, lighter and better performance. He always hated being strapped up like a turkey and the GPX doesn't have turkey strapping like previous models. Reg likes big coils though, and for that he's a bit limited with the GPX, unless X-coils come up with the goods for it, which may happen! It will be interesting to see what he thinks, especially seeing he often hunts with jrbeatty and he now swings the GPZ. It looks like they'll be in NZ very soon, the dealer has updated his website with a little yellow line of text which indicates so. The newest GOLD Detector from Minelab will be in stock very soon.

Well ,I sure don't have much to look forward to by the look of it. At least in my 50's I'll get a s sports car, although that was done in my 20's so maybe I'll end up with a Volvo instead. I'm not much of a car person though, I buy one and use it until it dies, it's probably the thing I care least about as to me it's just a mode of transport. I just hope in my detecting lifetime a PI comes out with accurate Target ID's, if it does I'll be satisfied. A PI CTX 3030 and I'd be satisfied. I'd like if it draws the outline of the target on the screen as you waive over it too with some sort of ground penetrating radar technology! The more swipes over it the more detailed the image becomes. Ahhhh, I can stop dreaming now, that can be my sports car in my 50's, a detector of my dreams.

Wow, since posting on here that my dealer has them sitting in stock all of his stock has sold out! They were sitting there for weeks unsold. Crazy! ? It shows the demand is high people are willing to buy them from another country, maybe people may want to keep an eye out on his GPX 6000 stock levels too ? Oh yea, I forgot, Dealers are not allowed to sell Minelab to overseas markets. Interesting fact, all his coils he had in stock sold to US customers!

Understood, my reasoning was there is no known date, putting a deposit down saying it'll be here in 2 weeks for delivery to you or something I'd understand more than you'll get one someday and in that situation a deposit is very reasonable They don't even know how many they'll get so if they take too many deposits who knows when you'll get it? As described above they may get 2 detectors per dealer and take 25 deposits, that's not going to work too well so some people may wait 6 more months or more, who knows? It worked for you Matt, but maybe your same dealer had 20 other people paid deposits, and he had more deposits than detectors. Still first in gets it. The big issue is no delivery date and no security over numbers of detectors that they'll even get. Then what if you've put a deposit down with one of the big popular dealers and they get a delivery of 5 detectors, and you'd also put your name down with a few other dealers and some obscure little dealer gets a delivery for 5 also and only has 3 customers wanting on one so calls you up to say your 6000 has arrived, please deposit the coin and we'll ship it today. Then you've got the hassle of trying to get a refund from the other dealer that took your cash with no security on even being able to deliver the goods. Look at the situation with Coiltek Nox coils, the same thing...with many people waiting for many months to get one, and still none available, and then my smaller dealer here has them sitting in stock ?

I have the Mars Tiger on my T2 and I agree how good it is with EMI, put the stock T2 coil on in my front yard and the T2 goes nuts with EMI, put the Mars Tiger on and it runs perfectly even in maximum sensitviity it's pretty stable, impossible with the stock coil. I think I'll get another Tiger for the AT Gold or the Superfly. I really like the Detech Ultimate but it's nowhere near as good in EMI as the Tiger and the Tiger is a shape I prefer. I'm not bothered by weight as I'm growing a Popeye arm from swinging the GPZ so these VLF's all feel pretty light by comparison. At the moment it's between the Tiger and the Superfly, I've never owned a Superfly so perhaps I should get it so at least I've tried one. You know you've been swinging a GPZ a lot when you pick up a CTX and it feels very light ?

Where I could see taking funds up front could go very badly is if each dealer gets a small trickle like what happened in Australia, yet they have deposits from 25 or so people and get 4 detectors to sell. How long is too long to hold onto someones money without giving them what they've paid for. No dealer is likely to lose out with all stock selling immediately anyway so there is just no need to take peoples money prior to having stock.

I think in Auto the CTX was settling on 14, it was quiet as a mouse with no EMI but struggled on the deeper target with that sensitivity. Manual certainly seems the way to go, I tried Auto +1, +2 and +3 ,they do alright but I'd just rather set it myself based on conditions than worry about Auto doing it for me. I forgot to include the Go-Find 40 in my test video above about why I like certain detectors for their Target ID's, it's a prime example of why I much prefer detectors with an ID than without, having these 4 segments for ID on the Go-Find is useless. It has to be a very easy target to get a good segment to be stable and even then a massive range of targets fall into each segment. People complain about the Nox having 50 ID's, well the Go-Find has 4 ? You'll see on the deepest coin the Go-Find actually did better than the AT Gold, while also reporting it as junk quite often it flicked across to the correct ID segment to say it's likely a deeper coin. If you really learnt the detector you'd get used to the indicators of deep good targets. The nail response on the depth meter is very shallow, while the times it hits the coin it shows as very deep. I've marked the depth meter in Red on the image above, watch it when on the deep coin to the left while looking at it's ID. Now, to give the Go-Find some credit, it does do reasonably well on the deeper targets for such a small coil but it's really a dig it all detector, certainly not suitable for cherry picking in parks, unless you're just after modern near surface finds but how many modern coins are there these days? Nobody uses them anymore so you'd mainly be digging modern junk. I'm not overly versed on US pricing but I'd imagine Minelab want a similar price for the Go-Find 66 to an Ace 300 which has full target ID's and a range of coils including aftermarket options and the Go-Find 66 just has 4 segments of ID and a fixed coil. The real competition to the Go-Find is the Nokta Mini Horde kids detectors which have similar features and specifications, and the same ID segments. I'd never want my kid using one though, what a way to put them off detecting forever by digging so much junk with the limited target identification. A hundred bits of junk later they'll hate the hobby, with an Ace 300 or Vanquish they could cherry pick NZ $1 and $2 coins quite effectively and fill their moneybox in no time. The Go-Find was built off the same V-flex technology as the X-Terra series though, it does work quite well and even works pretty good at the beach on dry and wet sand. The real downfall for it is the lack of ID's which they resolved with the Vanquish as a more realistic entry level machine, in fact a really good one. We had a warm day today and the frozen ground melted ?

I think it's really dodgy dealers taking money off people for a product they can't provide that's coming in the future at some point. Our local dealer just puts names down in a list, first in first served. We have two Minelab dealers, one of which I like the other I don't as one treats their customers well with good old fashioned service, the other not so much. There is no need to take money other than to secure the deal to benefit them and make it less likely you going to go to another dealer if you're not happy with that dealer. If for whatever reason during the waiting period you change your mind and don't want the product it's easy for him to just delete your name off the list then the next in line moves up a spot. No big deal for anyone. If a dealer tried to charge me money for something they can't provide at the time I'd go elsewhere. Whatever excuse they come up with for doing so would not be good enough in my opinion.

Geof, you obviously went to the exact same beach I did ?

Yes these NZ $1 and $2 coins are simple targets, they're similar to the Aussie $1 and $2 coins except we got ours around the right way with the $2 being the bigger coin than the $1, they made their $2 the small one ? EMI is a depth killer, I've noticed that a fair bit in the past, I know if my detector is being bombarded with EMI not only are my target ID's messy I'm also losing depth. The Vanquish for some reason handles local EMI conditions better than the Equinox. I've displayed this on video in the past. 5kHZ is a troublesome frequency for me with EMI, I wonder if seeing Minelab were experimenting with 4kHZ and released that 4kHZ update for the Nox that for their Multi-IQ variant on the much newer Vanquish they used 4kHz instead of 5. Just a thought. I've always said the Vanquish is better with EMI as I really believe it is. I guess it could be the elliptical coils helping? I really like the Vanquish/Nox ID's too Jeff, The T2 having more ID's and so jumpy makes me far less likely to dig in a park situation when I don't want to dig many holes where I rely on ID's more for dig decisions as I can be more confident the target is good on the Vanquish/Nox, if it's jumpy on the Multi-IQ machines for me it's less likely to be a good target. If it's jumpy on the T2, it's either good or bad ? If the Vanquish or Nox lock onto a target, life is good especially these $1 and $2 coins as they're such easy picking. You do have to do some pinpoint size tests sometimes as you can mix them up for a buried coke can. ? If I left the CTX in Auto sensitivity it struggled on the deeper of the two targets, manual sorts that out. In my nearby park I can run the CTX in manual 25 before EMI causes me trouble, as apposed to 16 at home. I don't have recovery deep turned on due to the nails, once in the field I have it turned on. I'm finding the CTX outstanding for depth so far, beating the Nox in default park 1 gain of 25. My little 6" coil should arrive for the CTX today or tomorrow, that'll be the depth tester as the 6" on the Nox will not hit the deeper of the two test targets in this video. Will the 6" on the CTX? I hope so ? The idea of my post wasn't to say detectors are better than each other or anything like that, it was just showing how well a new to detecting person could do using even entry level detector in my hunting grounds, the higher end machines with their extra features isn't really going to be much of a game changer for them. It's a shame the coil the Ace 300i came with is relatively useless on these deeper targets as it would be serious bang for the buck if it came with a Garrett made Tornado alternative and I'm sure there are plenty in Europe that would agree, those Europeans are who inspired me to get a Tornado for the Ace as based off their forums and Youtube it's a very popular Ace coil for deep coins. These coin depths I've got the coins at are quite shallow compared to coins I usually find, I would say 10 to 11" would be near average around here for coins. The reason I've put them in a little shallower is the EMI from my house. I should put another in at 11" and another deeper one I guess for my challenging tests but when I need to know that I just take the detector for a spin and the local field and let the detector show it's stuff. I'm not big on buried target testing when so many coins are available in their natural habitat so close to home ?

I've always wanted a vintage detector and never been able to get my hands on one, I've always got my eyes open but missed a couple for sale, perhaps one day I'll get my hands on one. My closest is a Fisher Gold Bug 2 ?