phrunt

I can see the day in the next few years where dealers may still exist but sales will be low compared to the "good old days" as buying direct will become the norm, and big box stores will start taking more sales also especially when the people are more commonly buying online anyway. There will be those that always buy from dealers, especially if they're convenient but when your dealer is half way across the country and the manufacturer sells direct at the same price it makes no difference which you buy through so often people would feel more comfortable buying direct especially if they've never bought from the dealer before. If I had a dealer nearby, I'd be in the store buying my stuff if they had reasonable pricing, but seeing my nearest Garrett dealer is over 22 hours' drive away including a ferry ride to change Islands I just buy from wherever gives me the best price and fastest shipping so I buy all my stuff online and don't overly care who I buy it off as long as the price is right and shipping is available. Warranty is handled by the manufacturer anyway so to me it makes no difference.

Bugger, that got me excited, then I went to buy a 6" Garrett Concentric coil for my 24k and it's for US only. They need to go global, not just local, yes, they're cutting out their local dealers that way making a higher profit or just making it easier for customers but they're not fixing up the international availably problems they currently have on their products.

The airline condition seems to be the battery has to be inside a device to help contain a fire should be there be one, I guess.

All good, you missed the joke in it 🙂

I got scammed, I bought a Pro-Find 35! I paid full price too.... 😭

Golden Eye 007 there used his spy skills to find a monster of a nugget. Very cool, and motivation and inspiration for those that think the days are over for Rye Patch area.

yes, he did point out he normally can't run normal so taking advantage of it while he can I guess 🙂 With me being in very mild soil, likely even more mild than he is I notice the difference between normal and difficult easier, even with the 6000 I see a notable difference in performance. The people who see little difference I think their soil is playing a role in that. some people likely even find normal performs worse than difficult. I just hope the goal of the GPZ 8000 is to provide people who currently have to run in difficult the performance I see in normal in their difficult soils. They've narrowed the gap on the 6000 so fingers crossed they can do it on the 8000 too, it would sure make old ground new again I think.

Yep, I thought the target really brightened up quite a bit when he switched the 6000 to normal, in difficult he had to have the coil pushed to the ground to get a reasonable response. Videos like this are a bit problematic too as he knows the target is there so he can really zone in on it, if you're sweeping normal speed on the search would you see a target that needs a bit of work to find even when you know where it is, if you're cleaning a patch maybe but looking for one, very unlikely. He also pointed out due to the rocks all over the ground it's unlikely he would have been able to find it in difficult on the 6000 as the coil needed pushed to the ground, whereas in normal he said he thinks he would have found it as the extra depth was there. I am wondering if many people can't really see the difference between difficult and normal as if you're trying to run normal in soil it's not working properly in, you're not seeing normal working to its potential. Difficult and normal do appear closer in performance on the 6000 than the 7000 although for me normal is still noticeably better, on the 7000 the difference is significant. for me at least with normal leaving difficult for dead.

I found this guy's video interesting; he bought a 12" Concentric X-coil prototype for his GPZ off Dave Dench and was using it to compare to other coils/detectors for his own interest really but decided to film some stuff. He's not associated with X-coils in any way and bought both of his X-coils and the 12" Concentric he is using is a prototype and never released to the public for sale so he was lucky to be able to buy it off Dave. I already own all the coils in question in the video so already knew my results so I wasn't all that interested in that part of the video however what stood out to me in his video was the performance difference between Normal and Difficult on the 6000, I've heard a lot of people say there is very little in it, I always felt differently that difficult is fairly neutered compared to normal but I put it down to my soils, then I see this guy's video in Western Australia's red dirt and he's seeing the same as I do by the looks of it. You can skip to about the 10-minute mark to just see the difference he's seeing between normal and difficult on the 6000 if you don't have interest in the GPZ side of it. He found some targets and compared the detectors and coils on them, the targets turned out to be gold. I guess the people confident that there is very little difference between normal and difficult could be basing that off their soil where normal isn't working as well as it can so its performance is hindered making it more like the performance of difficult but for people that can run in normal on the 6000, they will quite clearly see the difference in performance between the two modes with normal being significantly better. The GPZ is the same although I think the performance difference is much more dramatic, if I had to run the GPZ in difficult I'd be quite disappointed by its performance as I've been spoilt by my soil conditions meaning I can mostly run in normal everywhere and I think that's partly why some think the 6000 is doing better for them than the 7000 did, as the 6000 even in difficult is better than the 7000 on very small gold in standard coil setups regardless of which of the modes you're in. In 7000 with a smaller coil in soils that it can run effectively in normal is a beast so I hope if there ever is a GPZ 8000 they have improved the ground handling enough so people stuck in difficult can experience the power of normal in their soils and that I think will be the key to the 8000's success along with offering the right size and types of coils. I even go as far as putting up with a noisy normal than switching to difficult on the GPZ as I've proven to myself time and time again that if I was in difficult on the GPZ, I'd miss so much gold and by the looks of his video he would be missing a lot of gold in difficult on the 6000 he'd find in normal too. If he had not cleared the rocks around where the nugget was to get the GPX coil very close to the ground it would entirely miss the gold in difficult but likely would find it in normal.

Thanks for the report, Jeff, looks like they've fixed it up and it's a viable prospecting option now, the final piece in the puzzle is a better coil so hopefully that's on the drawing board, and they're not holding it back to still get some Deus 1 or ORX sales.

Nokta has sure changed the detecting landscape for the better in a very short time quite dramatically. Some of the earlier leading brands are now largely forgotten by most or collapsed and Nokta has come out swinging and up there with the best. I remember when the Nox hit the shelves many of us including myself though it was the pinnacle, it can't be beaten and they have reached peak VLF. Now we can pick between 3 brands including Nokta have have either equalled or beaten it in many ways, not just build quality either.... performance which is "everything". I wonder if the Score models will be available in the US, they may just take the easier route and avoid the US market for some models.

stuck up against a fence, windblown 🙂 pure luck! but if they weren't detecting it wouldn't have been found.

As I said earlier on this post, the methods used to make Xchange 2 work on Google maps were dodgy with a resident memory patch, they've now made a better version just released, good to see them keeping it working, although very likely a necessity by Australian consumer law considering they still sell the GPZ and CTX which are associated with it. I believe this is why they never bothered with an application for Mac computers, far more likely to make it work on Android or iOS than for Mac computers. Operating Systems Percentage Market Share Worldwide - August 2023 Android 39.2% Windows 30.12% iOS 16.48% OS X 8.77% Unknown 1.84% Chrome OS 1.44% Skip back a few years when the CTX and GPZ came out and see the figures and you'll know why they never touched OS X. And the direct link to the program. https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/514407/XChange2-1.8.7-1.4.1.exe XChange 2 Application (PC Only). Version 1.8.7-1.4.1 Released 2023 September. Installation Guide: Download “XChange2–1.8.7-1.4.1.exe” Restart your computer Locate the downloaded “XChange2–1.8.7-1.4.1.exe” file, then double click on the file to start the installation process. Installation will take approximately 5 minutes and will uninstall the current version of XChange 2 that is installed on your computer. Once installation is completed, restart your computer. Open and run XChange 2 as normal

The Nox 800 in defaults is basically the Vanquish which is designed more for beginners, only they've added an option to ground balance which in some situations makes it even easier to use than the Vanquish, most need not trouble themselves with advanced settings, I rarely venture outside of defaults myself and I do just fine, I think. The Target ID stability of the 800 makes it a great beginner's detector, set it in your desired mode for location where is easily set out and understandable how to use and off you go, if you pass over a coin and know it's air test ID you'll likely dig it, even my daughter at 9 years of age was using the Nox on her first time detecting and found it easy to use and found a heap of $1 and $2 coins. I tried to put her on the Go-Find and then the T2 that day, both were rejected so I had to hand over my Nox as she wanted the good ID's and I used the T2 my wife refused to detect using the Go-Find and didn't want to use the T2 with its dodgy ID's so she just didn't detect even though we were in a place loaded with dollar coins. When she saw a 21 or 22 repeating over and over again on the screen, she knew she had herself some money and that's great fun for a kid. It ended up encouraging my wife and daughter to come back with me over the next few days seeing we were staying in the area and we cleaned up real good, all the gold coins are $1 and $2 coins. It's nice to be able to grow into a detector rather than have to replace it upgrading when you feel the time is there to dabble with settings.

The 900’s target ID stability is a fatal flaw for my needs, I’d take an 800 any day, if they keep the 800 alive I hope they put it in a 900 body, if they do I’ll upgrade my 800.

Hopefully he just has a nice dealer that updated it for him.

It's a known issue with early units and a bad batch of speakers, Nokta will certainly look after you.

Game Changer compared to which pinpointers?

Thanks for that video, it does appear the 40 is more stable and doesn't go off in the air all the time like the 35, can you confirm this? You said in the video it seems better, but do you think it is much more stable or just a bit? It's damn frustrating with the 35 that you have to have it in the hole and try not to move it around much or lift it out of the hole or it goes off and you have to turn it off and on again. That's the thing I dislke about the 35 the most especially when I can't understand why they made it like that when no other pinpointer behaves the same, even a cheap $20 Chinese generic one. The sensitivity seems improved too, a little. The 40 appears to be what the 35 should have been and the 35 should never have made it past the testing stage to be released. I may end up with one after all.

Well it's pretty nose heavy but when I mainly swing the GPZ the Bug with Detech feels light 🙂

I often use mine for bedrock cracks which is why I've always been on the hot pursuit of a very sensitive pinpointer, they're invaluable in finding gold inside rock, sometimes we have cracks that can't even be seen like they've healed over so we are left smashing up schist to try find the gold, the detector knows its there but can't narrow it down so you're left smashing up a lot of rock to try find this little 0.03 of a gram nugget, very difficult task, with the pinpointer being able to narrow down right where the gold is can be invaluable and means you only have to break up a small portion of rock. Another instance is when you're smashing rock on a cliff edge, you can't be aggressive as the gold can go by by over the edge, so the pinpointer narrowing it down really helps. The best for the task I think are the Sphinx 03 (near impossible to buy), Whites TRX (also near impossible to buy), Garrett Pro Pointer AT, keep in mind it's only sensitive on the side of the tip to small targets so this can cause problems when trying to locate targets in bedrock cracks, and the XP Mi-4/6 which are not quite as sensitive as the others listed above but is very stable and is quite good on the tip. The new Minelab Pro-Find 40 maybe a viable alternative as the PRo-Find 35 was reasonable except for stability and quality problems, and with its boosted sensitivity over the 35 it may well be able to match the Garrett and XP for small target sensitivity. The Sphinx 03 and Whites TRX are the most sensitive to small targets although the Whites is a bit unstable when sensitivity is on highest and also doesn't handle bad ground as well as the others.

It would be best if it defaulted to everywhere, I'm sure it used to, maybe not but I don't remember having to change it, either way it works a treat if you remember to change it 🙂

yea, I had to find it with trusty old Google as the forum search came up with nothing.

They're a long narrow DD coil, excellent coil too, I really like mine, I bought it for my Gold Bug Pro. A thread on it here

That's an outstanding collection of finds, some hard works gone into that. A real shame your gold nugget natural gold box was empty, but shows you're an honest man as you could have easily put something in there to complete the collection. Very well done.