PhaseTech

All wired headphones I have tried on the Simplex have been super loud! Recon-ST's (same drivers as Sunray Pro Golds) Yoga earbuds Sony MDRv55 headphones Technics dj headphones Anything half decent quality around 32 Ohms should be giving you plenty of volume

Worked with Des for many years while we were both at Minelab, and worked together (even through it was remotely) on many new detector projects. Was happy we got to meet in person a couple of times, and kept in touch quite regularly. A good friend gone. RIP Des

If it meets the following criteria, it should be a success here in Oz. 1. Must be able to handle highly mineralised soils. If it can totally blank out hot rocks like most modern Minelab's do, that will go a long way in becoming a success 2. Long run time, preferably 10 hrs plus 3. At least as sensitive as the SDC 4. Good EMI immunity 5. A good range of coils - three different sizes at launch is a good target 6. Light but also robust. I.e. don't shave too much weight and we're left with a very flimsy toy. 7. A manual analog frequency tune pot. 8. An adjustable tone - probably should be top of the list!

The Minelab clip on knuckle protector has been an addition on new SDC's for a while now, maybe several months?? They are really nice fitting, and have a very nice finish to them - unlike many of the 3D printed versions around.

Well done! Nice gold

F1A4, F3 and F3C were all landmine detectors, so MF5 certainly seems to be leaning in that direction.

The 7x4" Gold racer coil on the AU gold is deadly. The little 5" isn't too shabby either, and gets a touch more depth in my testing. Got this little tiddler in a pounded patch first time out with the AU gold.

I like having the choice, and even though I mostly use the GPX in Fixed, there are times I use tracking. I find Slow Tracking is very unlikely to track out a genuine target, especially if you use wide sweeps across the suspected target area, getting the coil across lots of ground as well. At the end of the day, if something's pulled you up, you should have a dig at it. I know a spot where I used to take small groups out for training, where the surface of the ground looks pretty uniform, but the soil underneath is very variable, red clay, to white clay to pink/schisty type stuff all within 3 metres. I had buried a target for demo purposes some months before. Setting the detector to Fixed, ground balancing and then sweeping across the ground to the target I got a signal which was a bit drawn out, and not too exciting sounding. I went back to where I started, put it in Tracking and started swinging towards the target. Whammo, clear, crisp response. The thing I learned with Smooth timings especially, was that just because your detector isn't giving you false signals, doesn't mean you're perfectly ground balanced. And even being slightly out of balance will cost you signals. So when running Fixed, I always re-balance as part of my sweep technique - don't wait until your detector is upset, as then it's too late....how much ground have you waked over with a less than optimum ground balance?? If you are lazy, you'd be much better off in Slow Tracking.

Yep, there's a lot more to making a good gold machine than simply a higher frequency.

The update is worth it even just for the adjustable threshold for the All-Metal mode. The new dual range volume adjust now means I can use a variety of different wired headphones. Also the extended time-out when adjusting settings is very welcome. Just gives the whole unit a much more "complete" feel.

I find it interesting how many detectors have now taken inspiration from the original Quest Pro design concept - retractable shaft with smartphone style control box on the handle. This Mars unit looks like a Simplex/Equinox hybrid, but audio sounds very X-Terra to my ears. Would like to know more about the tech stuff, like does it have a threshold based true all-metal mode. Also solid coils would be preferred for chasing small nugglets.

Yes, definitely has an eerie feel when the sun is going down, but I love it out there.

See my post above. The Xpointers and PulseDive are both PI.

I tried a few different pin-pointers to see how close I could get them to the Simplex. Pro-Find 25 - needed to be over 1m away from Simplex coil Xpointer - 55cm Xpointer Pro - 50cm Pro-Find 35 - 25cm Nokta PulseDive - using the PulseDives frequency shift, I could get it as close as 30cm! The only Garrett I have here is a dead carrot, so can't try it.

Thanks Lunk. I have dug other cornflake nuggets over the years, even one not too far away with the 5000 and old 18" mono, but with the GPZ they are very common up there. A few have also fallen victim to the 14x9" Evo in more recent years - something about the flat wound elliptical that really sniffs out flat thin pieces.