PhaseTech

Pinged these three with the Gold Racer and GR19 combo recently. Ground was quite wet so was only running Sens 52. This spot is an EMI nightmare for PI machines with large power lines and electric fences all nearby - no issue for the Gold Racer though.

Great work! My little coil is permanently attached to the Gold Racer. Seems to be a perfect match. I think it maintains a steady threshold even with a slightly higher Sensitivity setting, which helps in hearing those faint Zip Zips, which sound more like (say it really faint) "seup - seup"

JW, if what they say is true about NZ soils generally being of low mineralisation, the Zed in Normal and High Yield would do some serious damage on your old haunts. If you were any closer I'd loan you mine for a weekend

Steve got it at 4ft 3" with the new 19" coil

Nice gold! Have you tried High Smoothing with that set-up? I think it would work quite well. Threshold 27

Okay, here's my dream prospecting detector at the moment: GPX5000 style platform but with the following changes/additions: 1. Fine Gold replaced with MPF (SDC2300) timing 2. LiPoly battery that slides into the side of the control box (or underneath) 3. Wireless audio - can use WM12 if that makes it easier 4. GP series style audio response 5. Built in audio compressor - or Volume Gain control like CTX3030 6. Manual tune control back on the outside of the box for quick adjustments Okay now I'm dreaming.....maybe? 7. A Super D coil that bolts on and triggers ZVT technology. 8. Okay, if 7 is a bit outrageous, then a new "normal" style timing with greater Sensitivity and killer punch specifically designed to be used with a spiral DD coil like the Detech Ultimate. Maybe a mash-up of Sharp and Sensitive Extra timings? 9. Go back to the khaki/rugged SD look

Just thought I'd start a new topic to get some discussion going. There seems to be more detectors on the market then ever. Yes a lot are variations on the same thing, but there are a few unique models such as GPZ7000, SDC2300, Gold Racer, Deus, etc. So what detector in your mind doesn't exist? Could a certain manufacturer mangle together a few of their features/patents and build something unique? Just curious

I found that Smooth mode helped give a better response on little nuggets, especially targets on the edge of detection. The Relic mode has Smooth by Default.

Here's a bit of test I did some time ago. Air test, so ground results could be greater or much less depending on many variables. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTXWqJZS-XU

Hi Steve, I've been selling the universal WR set here and they are very popular. Built in batteries which charge off USB. Long press to turn on, short press to pair, very simple. The receiver unit also has a volume control which is nice, and on max volume you get a little bit of a boost on faint signals. Unlike bluetooth systems, there is no noticeable delay, and no degradation in sound quality. Drawback for some may be the estimated 6hr run time, but the great thing is you can just plug your headphone back into your detector and keep hunting. The drop out issue of the original headphones was quickly sorted by a software update, and the original magnetic contact charging method was changed to a plug in USB. It is now a very good stable plug and play set-up, but most are waiting for the full ear cup headphones from Deteknix.

The minelab 6" coils were dynamite. I tried one on a GT16000 once and was blown away how much of a difference it made. I then briefly tried a 6" round on my 18000 (it was a customers coil that had come in to be reterminated, and I had the job of checking to see if was working properly), and was equally impressed, and always wanted one myself, but they were discontinued. Jim Straight also spoke highly of the 6" coils, so I was keen to see it reintroduced but no amount of pleading by myself to management worked, so after a while I started bugging Trevor at Coiltek that there was a market opportunity for a 6" round tuned to 60 kHz. He eventually became interested in the idea, and the 6" Goldseeker was born. The other coil I wanted to be reintroduced was the 9x6" concentric, as that had a more modern and sleeker appearance than the still current 10x5", but no joy there either.

What I'm liking about the design of the 19 coil is that there appears to be more room for sweeping a scoop across, and may even be easier at the back of the coil. This should get rid of the whole issue of getting too close and desensitizing the coil.

Yes all the usual precautions of keeping metal away from the coil hold true, you just have to be a bit more vigilant on the Zed. I keep my keys in my left pocket or water bottle pouch, and my speaker on my left shoulder. I also tend to take advantage of the WM12 and walk around the front of the coil. This way my body is a lot further away from the coils search field. Flat wide scoops are a must. In response to comparing Normal and Difficult, it isn't as simple as detecting away, get a signal in Normal and switch into Difficult to compare. What about all your other settings? I find that all your audio settings can be drastically different as well as your Gold mode. E.g. during GPZ training, I go through all the options, and then on the trainees machine we go through the process of setting it up for the conditions. I do this for Difficult and then Normal ground types and then compare the end result on test targets that we buried at the start in factory settings. The end result settings vary a little between courses, possibly due to changing EMI levels, soil moisture and different ground conditions (don't always do the training in the exact same spot). On the last course our two final settings combos were: In Difficult ground type: General, Sens - 17, Smoothing - High, Target Volume 13, Threshold 27 In Normal ground type: High Yield, Sens - 6, Smoothing - Low, Target Volume 12, Threshold 26 Both these combos gave an equal response on my 0.3g test piece, with maybe the Normal combo giving a broader response, and less sweep speed dependent, i.e. this would be the better combo for patch hunting. The Difficult combo had a better Signal:Noise ratio, i.e. the signal was slightly less positive but the detector was generally running smoother, so the signal stood out better. However, it required a slow steady sweep, mainly due to High Smoothing, so this would be the better combo for slowly gridding a known productive area. The GPZ definitely needs Modes, where I can bundle all these setting combos into Mode A, B C and THEN you can switch between them a lot faster, and the comparative results would be a lot more accurate. Think of the GPX series search mode switch, but I'd want to add Timings into them. The "timings" in this instance would be the Gold Mode and Ground Type options. Minelab....are you reading this? C'mon P.B. I know how much you like Modes

The 14x9" is the most sensitive mono coil I've used for the GPX series. If you take it to really hot ground and don't alter your settings, then you are going to have some trouble. A drop in Rx Gain, Quiet Audio or a bunch of other options are available to tame it down. A simple thing for a 5000 is to get out of Fine Gold and go to Enhance - usually that is all that is required. I recently hit some really hot ground and wanted to stay in Fine Gold so played around with other options. Here's what I posted up in the Nugget Finder Users group on fbook: Working hot ground tips. Okay here's something that might be of interest. When I was detecting with the 14x9" evo, I went from some pretty warm ground down into some bad ground, real ironstone playground, and the coil was struggling. I dropped Rx Gain from 13 - 11 which helped but ground balance was still a bit touchy. I would normally just drop it back to Enhance, but wanted to experiment a little. I did a Specific ground balance and left it in Tracking. This worked an absolute treat, except when going over a shallow bit of trash, the ground balance would get knocked out of whack and I had to do another re-balance, which when you are in Specific you can't do with the green button. So after a few re-balances I went to the normal tracking, and then when going over some shallow junk I just re-balanced with a quick press of the Quick-Trak with the little "bip" sound. Anyway I was going up a narrow track and got a nice little signal, two sweeps and I was ready to dig but I stopped myself. I tried to track it out by repeatedly going over it, and while the signal response faded maybe 60% it never fully tracked it out. Then i tried Fixed, ground balanced about 40cm to the side and went over it, and the signal response was good, and consistent and didn't fade. BUT, here's the kicker. I walked back 10m to where I started struggling a bit, re-balanced there and walked back up the track without re-balancing. That target was invisible! So what's the conclusion? If you are going to run Fixed, make sure you re-balance regularly which really means as often as practical. If you get lazy or are forgetting to re-balance, then let the detector do it for you and flick into Tracking. Oh, target was a tiny square bit of brass which took way too long to recover.

Great selection of coils there! Go get 'em

Big coils are less reactive to very small targets, but does that mean they see through them, or does their presence still provide some form of masking? What is everyone's thoughts on this? The Smooth and Enhance timings on the GPX series do a very good job at ignoring decomposed iron targets. I wonder if a mid-large sized DD coil in Enhance would be of any use in very old sites where the iron is very badly decomposed? I got a feeling the unit would just ignore a large majority of it.

I'm a Nokta & Makro agent here in South Oz. The Fors Gold is basically a Fors CoRe with white coils, minus the Salt Mode. Both of these units operate at 15 kHz, and have a simple all-metal search mode. The Fors Gold + (plus) is the only Fors unit where you can adjust the SAT in all-metal to give you a smoother threshold. It also comes stock with a 10x5" and 5" round coil. In my experience, the difference between 15-19 kHz is very slight, and if each unit is tuned to conditions, you won't really notice any difference in performance. However, over the years I have seen 19-20 kHz units handle mineralised soils better than lower freq units - I think this is the main reason why the Gold+ and Relic seem to be having a slight edge over the CoRe and Racer in mineralised soils. The Fors Relic is clearly the winner when it comes to versatility - the only reason someone may still opt for the Gold+ is if they are more interested in gold, and don't really see themselves venturing to the beach. Hope that helps. Nenad

. Just get an RC Li-po battery and a Deteknix Wireless set-up and bingo :-)

Steve, I read this about a week ago but wasn't logged in so couldn't thank you, so thanks for the awesome wrap up! Normally when someone is comparing a gold detector to a coin machine I'd say, why bother?? But in this case the two "Racers" share the same name, platform, some modes, iSat in all metal, similar coils etc etc so definitely worthy of a comparison. In oz, most people either coin hunt, or gold detect. Jewellery and Relics are a by catch, apart from the beach wading guys who love their gold rings. The 10 Iron numbers is no issue, as most coin hunters I know will set their Disc to at least knock out small foil. A range of ten is still a lot more than the X-Terras, and by having more conductive numbers, you stand a better chance of using the notch effectively. What i like about the R2 is the full tone adjustment in all-metal, where on the Gold Racer you just have low or high tone options. The DEEP mode on the R2 seems every bit as deep as All-Metal (on similar sensitivity settings) which is very impressive. The other thing worth mentioning is that the All-metal mode on the R2 is really nice (as with the Gold Racer). I haven't used an all-metal mode this smooth on a mid-freq VLF since.....well I don't think I ever have! Maybe the Minelab Eureka Ace Dual - but my memory is a bit scratchy In recent times I have been using the GEN (all-metal) mode for beach hunting with the CoRe, and using it like a PI - slower sweeps and listen for that faint repeatable warble. But with a very slow retune, it can be quite trying unless you crank the threshold up to smooth things out. That smooth R2 all-metal mode should be the ticket.

Zoomed out photo of the first bit, just for better scaling ;-) It's paper thin and only weighs 0.06g!

Awesome coil! Takes the Gold Racer to a whole new level of goodness. Pinged these two in very short time, then the lead appeared. The small flake is very thin - doesn't budge my scales.

When it comes to the Zed I've seen two extremes. I found a piece that was seemingly a solid bit of gold, at respectable depth. When I checked in on the GPX, I could only see it at about 40% of where the Zed was seeing it. Tried all timings and a bunch of different coils. The new spiral coils definitely saw that bit a lot better, but the Zed was on another level. Then, during some coil testing on the GPX, out of interest I pulled out the Zed to see what it would do. It was as good if not slightly better across a range of nugget sizes, with the biggest improvement on ironstone encrusted pieces. But one piece, a 0.5g I was getting very poor results on. This was comparing Fine Gold on the 5000 with HY/Difficult on the 7000. 5000 with a range of coils was clearly outperforming it. However, when switching the Zed out of Difficult into Normal, the depth nearly doubled! This experience really hit home why there was so much variation in opinion when the Zed came out. The type of ground and type of gold being used in the tests would have a massive bearing on the results.

14x9" evo is awesome. For really hot ground I prefer the 12" round, but in milder ground the 14x9" is dynamite. It pretty much matches what an 8" mono will do but with greater depth and ground coverage. In some recent coil tests I carried out, I used an 0.125g nugget my customer brought along, which in his words "is always a hard target to find in tests". It was initially buried at max depth that an 8" mono could find, using pretty revved 5000 settings. The best coil was the 14x9" Evo and the 11" Detech ultra. The 6" Detech mono could also get it quite clearly but you had to be over the sweet spot of the target. Interesting observation was that the GPZ couldn't get that piece. In Normal, HY and the Sensitivity right up the threshold was doing something over the target area, but only because you knew it was there. I wouldn't have believed it myself if I didn't see it.

Based on what you have already, I'd be going for a 17x13" Evo.

John, you hit the nail on the head, but not just Whites, all manufacturers! Any field test report I give is brutally honest - NO ONE benefits from a field test report that has cherries all over it. Being around product development for over 15 yrs now, one thing is for certain, you can never test enough!!