Jonathan Porter

Lots of elephants in the room here. The biggy being there’s reasons why ML have chips in their coils of which none of the other manufacturers need worry about currently. Pushing the envelope with tech pushes the boundaries of tolerances requiring very tight controls on manufacturing (I won’t go into an X coil debate here because we have wildly differing views, but the main one being the risk of bricking and very expensive repairs), the 6000 especially required a lot of close tolerance tooling for both NF and CT to be allowed to build under license. None of the other available brand detectors currently require this level of accuracy in tolerance control. Constantly lumping all this together in one paragraph isn’t going to change the facts which are: R&D. Technology. Performance. ROI relative to cost. Gold price. Gold being found. Gold still to be found. Cost price. Focusing on cost isn’t going to change the reality, it could however be marketed like Algo have done but even then the volumes are minuscule compared to ML’s bigger picture sales reality. We cannot in all honestly compare a 6000 and other brand offerings other than on price/bang for buck. The runs are on the board now and to suggest otherwise is shutting the gate after the horse has long gone over the horizon. 🐎 Just because they’re a gold centric metal detector does not mean they’re all the same, my Grandmother used to say “you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear”, that’s not meant to ridicule the other offerings it’s just the plain cold hard facts. I can’t afford a Ferrari, I’ll never be able to afford a Ferrari, does that make Ferrari’s bad? Does that make my Toyota landcruiser a Ferrari competitor because I can only afford it? Is it going to stop me from driving around the odd corner with the windows down and get my hair blown back in my Landcruiser? Nope, not on your life! 😂 It’s the best I can afford, it’s my reality, but it also doesn’t mean I’m going to put a Ferrari badge on the bonnet and expect to be taken seriously when I mix the name Landcruiser in with every discussion I involve myself in about Ferrari’s! 🤣 I’m excited for Nokta, I hope for innovation. I’m curious in what they’ve managed to achieve and I wait patiently for its release. But I’m also a realist. It’s a fun conversation to have speculating on what’s going on no different to the Axiom discussions in 2022, but softening the ground with broad sweeping inclusions isn’t going to change a thing, the landing will still be the same with a muffled silence as everyone waits on the reality to finally surface and the clock starts to tick again. That’s the fun bit, the baited intake of breath as the chips fall where they may and the truth emerges on the debate. Fingers crossed for Nokta 🤞 😊 I genuinely mean that.

Like all the aftermarket coil support we saw for the Garrett Axiom? My thoughts on the new Nokta; I feel Garrett came in too hot on their pricing for the Axiom relative to its performance in the market, so this leaves Nokta with the same dilemma as they also try to break into the high performance high profit margin gold market, but be cheaper than Garrett. So what’s the big differentiator between what Garrett have done and what Nokta are hinting at doing compared to what is already available. The Axiom is a quality unit, it has the sensitivity everyone desires and is now at a price point that makes it affordable, essentially the very thing that Nokta have announced. So the differentiator is what? What’s wrong with the Axiom that it’s not rolling out the door by the pallet load? So are Nokta going to just make another Axiom, a nice ergonomically designed highly sensitive PI. If they get more depth out of the Nokta is that going to then push it past the Axiom and make it more desirable? Once again we come up against the differentiator. The current leader of the pack has two things going for it: Outright depth ability. Ground handling capability via Difficult timings. If Nokta increase outright depth they are going to hit a world of hurt in the form of ground noise, to abate this they will need to look into coils to handle said noise so it will likely be a DD or a DOD style coil. This then effects small target signal response which is where the two main competitors of Minelab get their traction, albeit Garrett do it with an interesting style of DD but the small target response is there. To deal with ground noise Garrett and Algo use dead zone to tame ground response and EMI but this limits depth considerably, I would also say they are also restricted by the amount of power they can-push into the ground. Currently the Minelab offerings have MORE outright depth in Difficult than the competition have in their presentation of Normal timings, the competition are forced to use Normal due to patents restrictions (The main differentiator). This is just in the PI sector, when you step into ZVT world there’s a whole new tier of performance boost again on top of the PI bench mark, ZVT in Difficult is capable of outperforming any previous ML PI in Normal. These are lofty places to aim for any manufacturer trying to establish market share in the gold game. This is not a brand loyalty thing just the reality of my own every day detecting based around maximising depth in as wide a variety of ground as possible (both thrashed and virgin areas alike) using the best equipment I can lay my hands on to do the job. Nokta have made bold statements of which time will tell, so far reading between the lines I see them aiming at reasonable performance probably using a DD style coil to handle bad ground at an attractive price point mirroring their marketing style in the CR market. Pinning their hopes on people coughing up money for the underdog will get sales for sure but it won’t drive the demand like nuggets in the hand at a high gold price does, especially nuggets coming easily out of traditional well worked gold fields. Getting the ratio right between price and capability is always a hard ask, going up against the top dog needs innovation, everything else is just brand loyalty and value for money marketing. This method works in CR because the tech is not that different from one manufacturer to another, in the gold game it’s a whole other world with a massive differentiator between the manufacturers.

Pretty bold and very confident statement, but we’ve seen plenty of marketing hyperbole like this in times past so only time will tell on that score.🤔 However I think there is a red 🚩 here for all the “cheap PI” hopefuls, “benchmark competitor models are the most expensive models in the market” suggests the price will be less than the most expensive models but not necessarily Algo or Axiom cheap. Unless of course the performance is not what is being suggested then the price point would ease up on that score. At a guess I’d say it’ll be around the AU$5999 to AU$6999 mark if it has ‘real’ depth capability.

Like I’ve said many times, all the sales are driven by demand (high gold price), demand is driven by results (lots of gold being found with a high gold price), results drives other manufacturers to try and compete to get a slice of the demand pie! The results-detectors keep getting compared to the attempts made by a smaller player in an agenda based turd polished rolled in glitter marketing blitz, one tiny nugget somehow makes it a competitor then when the marketing hype gets questioned the inevitable justification is rolled out (no doubt leaving glitter all over the floor 😂), “but its 1/4 of the price, so of course it doesn’t have the depth” and “the big player is being nasty and greedy and won’t let anyone play with their IP”. Just so we are clear here, I have no problem with Algo having a go and good on them for doing it, they’ve clearly hit the sweet spot in the market. But I own one and I know it’s many limitations, so seeing all the “hype” and attempts at polishing just leaves me pinching myself and checking the sky outside for the twilight zone! The reason I jump on this stuff here (called me triggered if you feel the need) is because there are many readers who don’t know any better and any style of broad brush stroke innuendos glitter promotion is doing them a real disservice. Social Media is full of used car salesman’s guff at the moment (mostly disgruntled Ex ML dealers) implying Algo is “Up there” with the best! It isn’t folks and any company that says otherwise is either non compos mentis or is deliberately misleading you, and then when questioned scurries off in a flurry of glitter to the cheap price excuse. The funny thing is I am genuinely looking out for the little bloke here because there are too many instances of the lines being blurred between Minelab’s incredible PI gold finding successes over many years and “other” PIs as if they are all amazing because they are a PI!! The cheap price is just the sweetener, the shut up money if you will for when reality bites. Keep it real, keep it honest. It’s a great little PI offering better ground handling than a VLF for not much more cost, that’s why it’s selling well.

All based on vast experience and vast successes in a vast variety of ground types over a vast amount of hours of course? 😉 😣 4500/5000 sold incredibly well in Africa, yet the 6000 is NOW going gangbusters, to the point that after-market manufacturers can’t source parts to build coils under license because they’re all swallowed up in production. So in reality this 💬 is just a dot in the ocean type of discussion around what? Say 1000 Algo’s sold world wide? Do the math. 🤦‍♂️

We already have the love child of the Algoforce E1500 and GPX 5000, it’s called the Garrett Axiom. As for the video, no one is going to find small gold regularly in those sorts of environments, I’ve rarely encountered that kind of ground in gold bearing areas, I think Steve has mentioned chasing coins and rings at Lake Tahoe, but a coin or a ring is a massive target for something as sensitive as a GPX6000, Axiom etc, ultimately you can’t ground balance to it. (Hint….. 99) And this is the bit that really made me LOL, lifting the coil above a target and guesstimating the depth as the coil is lifted from ground effect proves what exactly? The Algo runs quieter for a reason, its dead zone is crazy bad, ergo ground effect drops off really quickly which is why the 4500 has MORE depth overall. I can just about guarantee all the Minelab PIs will howl on that stuff including the SD2000. The Algo relies on sensitivity CLOSE to the coil very much like a VLF, it does this by reducing what the operator actually hears, raise the sensitivity to the point where some depth comes into play and it becomes so ratty that’s it’s unusable, everything below 20 is a massive move away from actual depth, so we only have near to coil and big targets that break through the dead zone. 0k so the Algo runs quieter in black sand, show me the money? Show me all the gold that’s being found with the Algo that’s been missed by everything else. Or is this only about finding a negative against ML no matter how minuscule and unrealistic it is in the actual scheme of ACTUALLY finding gold? Let me put this another way, showing off the Algo working (if you can call it that) in ground like that is actually a negative not a positive unless we are only targeting ground like that, it just demonstrates how bad the Algo actually is other than the price. I bet any money the Axiom would also struggle on that stuff which SAYS it’s a MUCH better metal detector than the Algo, same goes for the reduction in magnetic basaltic rocks. 😂 Now of course if you have beaches with horrible black sands that are loaded with coins then this could be a handy tool, if a sensitive PI can kind of work there and nothing else can, I await the results when the time can be found to get away from the keyboard and actually go and test this out. Imagine trying to cover a beach with a Sadie? 🤣 🤣 😂 Showing a video and then broadly brush stoking and interweaving that across a whole spectrum is highly suggestive and misleading.

This forum is a good place to expand on ideas and pass on information mentor style, I can’t do that on social media or more specifically I don’t want to. I’ve been very fortunate over my career in gaining experience from two angles, one was from lots and lots of in-field experience during a time when the gold was plentiful, and the 2nd thing which was fortunate for me, it coincided with my inclusion into the development of the future crop of metal detectors, also a form of mentoring if you like through having access to the people, especially that one key person who I consider a very good friend, who create the very machines I swing. This combination has allowed me to grow as an operator which has then fed back into my usefulness to the company progressing further on with its designs. I’m truly honoured and will always want to pass on what I know as a user so others can get the maximum amount out of their machines as well. None of us know it all, knowledge is gained through experience but also by asking questions, sadly the human spirit is inclined, often through pride, to “think” it’s knows it all preventing learning more, but the reality is you only know what you know, and others who know better can often clearly see the roadblock but are prevented from informing because that person is not open to learning. In my 30’s I thought I knew it all, man was I wrong. 😂 The more I learned the more I realised how little I knew, the more I realised this the more I learnt, so I plan to ask dumb questions and be mindful of my capacity to “think” I know it all and will constantly remind myself I hardly know anything so I can continue to have my mind opened to learn more. With that in mind I try to read everything written by all participants in this space, this also includes my chew chum customers, because I have learned so much from them over the years. A wise old Owl sat in an oak, the more he heard the less he spoke, the less he spoke the more he heard, why can’t we all be like that wise old bird? 🦉 I consider this forum to be the oak and I’m trying my hardest to be that wise old Owl 😊

I would not recommend this method. No matter the mode, Semi Auto, Auto or Manual, when triggering QT always have the ferrite present. The tracker that tracks X is VERY slow, so if using Auto you should use QT over the ferrite and then when you go detecting the X balance will remain reasonably constant or slowly drift away dependant on ground conditions (conductive is the worst for throwing X out in Auto mode). If X is present in the soils the X tracker usually does a good job of things, but if there is conductive present as well things can get ugly, hence why I always use Semi-Auto so I can lock the X to the electronics temp which hardly alters once warm. Conductive is almost always present regardless of the mineralisation levels, and is often confused with mineralisation. So to reiterate, if you are triggering Quick-Trak whip out the Ferrite and use that at the same time otherwise don’t use QT and just pump the coil slowly and let the tracker do its thing, in Manual key your User button to the GB menu and go to either Auto or Semi-Auto to achieve a GB without using QT. The moment you trigger QT the X balance will hit warp speed expecting to grab onto whatever X signal is present, if there’s no X then it might try to extract its readings from the conductive instead, not a problem in zero X ground from then on but the moment you hit some X then Xspurt mode will engage. 😂 (you liked my little pun? X being the unknown and spurt being directly related to conductive signals 😝). If the X balance is out badly in ground with zero X then there’s no issue (it can’t make a signal if there’s no X present), however if X is out and X is present then there will be extra ground signal that will in turn do harm to edge of detection with unwanted unnecessary signals. Hope this helps JP

One of the things I hate in modern metal detectors is the habit of combining functions to a single key, on the 6000 the timings button is also a long press on/off threshold control and causes so much trouble for new chums with a zero threshold in the out of the box default settings, new chums think they’re turning the threshold on but they don’t hold the key down long enough and instead change to normal timings with still zero threshold, but because the ground is often highly mineralised here in Australia the ground signal breaks through the zero threshold sounding like an actual threshold has been turned on, albeit a jerky jumpy messy one. On the 7000 the Quick-Trak button performs two functions at once, which is not ideal if you choose to use the machine in Semi-Auto (an absolute MUST in my opinion). So the only way to achieve a GB on the 7000 is to pump the coil till you can hear it quietens down. Generally I instruct customers to think of it like this, pumping the coil over a given spot gives the GB accuracy, then sweeping gives it averaging. As a rule of thumb if I have a suspect target and I am in semi-auto mode I will pump the coil away from the target zone till the GB settles then slowly sweep up to the target zone to get the averaging right. As such I recommend everyone using a 7000 should have this method in their workflow, I NEVER use Quick-Trak unless I’m performing a ferrite balance. The figure 8 method is just a form of averaging that is a carry over from the first update software when the ferrite was introduced. In conductive soils a sweep method is better than pumping as conductive is exacerbated by movement of the coil away from the ground. However if conductive is present it can often throw the GB out, consequently I tend to do regular micro pumps of the coil in these situations to maintain accuracy then let the semi-auto do its thing. The default settings out of the box on the 7000 are HY Difficult, in Australia it is the go-to way to use the machine and most likely for most users in the world. Minelab provide the difficult timings that make life a lot easier for all uses, it is unique to them since the release of the GPX4000, no other manufacturer does this. A LOT of gold has been found BECAUSE of Difficult. The GPZ is a different beast compared to a regular PI, as such its timings are done differently. Because of this the most sensitivity to fast time constant targets is through the HY pathway, especially in the Difficult settings. I would say to save on confusion this is what is being referred to in literature focusing on the unique aspect of the timings advantages. The advantages also play out in the EMI space with HY being least susceptible but also mechanically with rub and bump/touch noise with HY also being less problematic compared to General modes. In Normal timings things switch around a bit, as everyone knows the detectors are two channeled hence channel flipping and also why one timing will manifest as a high/low and another low/high on the exact same target. HY is also a little more sensitive to conductive signals but it’s cleaner threshold and less touch rub bump noise make it a cleaner environment to work from when listening for edge of detection. Good operators will go over deep areas using a variety of timings as each one has its sweet spot. In all my deep large nugget digs over the years by a big margin HY Normal has offered the best OUTRIGHT DEPTH if the conditions will allow. In mineralised soils where you have no option but to use Difficult, HY is better on targets up to say 12 to 15 grams with General coming in stronger from that size and up. This is on solid nugget gold not prickly or ragged shaped gold. However to benefit from General gold mode in Difficult the ground needs to be pretty clear of sticks and rocks and grass tussocks and the EMI needs to be minimal. Just my 2cents, there are a range of timings provided for a reason, but I will always TRY to remain in HY because the advantages are stacked MORE in its favour. JP

This is a common occurrence in deep soils when using Difficult timings, there can be a number of factors one being the Ground Balance condition has changed due to the removal of the surface layer…. To test this I have often scraped an area nearby away from the target but still representative of the localised soils and done a ground balance on the scraped soils (go into semi-auto pump till quiet then swing steadily over the scraped zone then go into fixed to lock the GB, then go back to your target zone), this method has helped somewhat but not always. Ground chemistry is a fickle thing and explains why when in dozing detect operations you can remove only a few inches and the ground will suddenly liven up with targets everywhere. Ground disturbance alters the ground chemistry, so you really do need to have faith in what you first heard and persist until things prove otherwise as you did. Also when scraping you need to clear a big enough area that allows you to swing fully through the range of motion without lifting the coil to clear obstacles such as grass tussocks, tilting the coil at any stage KILLS the iffy target signals. The other method is to approach the target from different angles, in this instance the flat nugget was most likely laying on edge or tilted as such it might present better in a specific set direction of sweep. @Gerry in Idaho not too sure about the Expert monicker, after all X is an unknown factor and a spurt is a drip under pressure. 😝

Good read and even nicer find. 🤩 But yeah an edge of detection dig like that deserves a bigger weight payday relative to the hard won and well deserved achievement. Good to read you guys have really tuned in your Zed’s. 😊 Even better to see the Minelab tax even after all these years going both ways the way it was always meant to be, you don’t need too many half ounce days to keep the tax man happy. 😆 As always @Gerry in Idaho love your work and love those pics of picks. 😊 PS, in all the testing I did on the GPZ there was more max depth available on the HY Normal over General on all target sizes, which is different to the Difficult timings, ground dependant of course. This was on nuggets down to 3 feet and up to 15 ounces in size and also on an enrichment I found that had over 30 ounces in it. So if your ground can handle it always run HY Normal wherever possible, there’s less EMI and Less touch and rub noise. JP

Thanks for all the tags and mentions. Triggered?🤔 maybe! I do get a little tired of the direction this forum is taking, all the little click baits and white anting. It’s a shame, but hey that’s the new social media world we live in right? All aimed at an instant reaction, no holds barred and no boundaries, made worse if you disagree or have ever got offside with a mod. I’ve only seen a few modified detectors come through over the years, one guy swore by his modded machine saying it was outperforming a 7000 in Vic on test beds ect, he was convinced he was going to clean up in Clermont on all his old patches. A week later he came back in and bought a new 4500 as his modded one was unusable. I had two good mates, who have since passed 😞, who both swore by the modded 5000’s they owned, but I never got to use them or try them, other than a brief look at another mates one in 2019 who has also since passed 😞 (yes lost 3 good mates in a very short space of times 😞), and his howled and screamed like a banshee (could have been operator error as he was not the best at reading instructions and I wasn’t prepared to sift through all the knob and switch positions trying to find the sweet spot). Fundamentally there are a few key things here mods are attempting to improve on with the performance of a mass produced product, my thinking is why don’t these modder’s just make a better mousetrap? 🤨 At least Algo are having a go. Signal to noise ratio. There’s no point to ramping up gains and tweaking clock frequencies if it can’t actually be used in the field on ground with no known targets. Test beds will always show skewed results because you KNOW the target is there, therefore you can subtly modify your swing speed, range of motion and accuracy of the coil sweet spot dead centre over the target. I see this constantly, brilliant results on a test bed but zero results in the actual field. All real testing I do is on known patches over many hundreds of hours of field work going over varying ground types to give a BIGGER picture idea of where the advantages lie. Test beds are for rudimentary checks only and represent less than 1% of my time spent. I have hundreds of known patches that I use all around the country dependant on where I am. Locally here I am extremely intimate with these areas with more than 25 years of frequent visitation. This methodology is extremely time consuming and requires massive commitment. But it’s the only way to truly get a bigger picture idea behind any advances. Results on many unknown missed targets in a variety of ground types tell the real story. 4500 and 5000 Stabilizer control. None of the mods make any sense if the Stabilizer can’t be pushed past default of 10, this control alone limits true target-signal depth due to the raising of the noise floor masking edge of detection. A GPZ can be run on Audio Smoothing OFF, High = 10, Low = 15 and Off = 20 and provides a very BIG advantage in and of itself, the main difference being the 7000 is a lot less prone to EMI whereas the digital GPX series from the 5000 back are VERY prone to EMI. Variation in the threshold at lowest noise floor levels kill depth, more often than not you’re completely unaware of it. If a mod addressed that then it would be worth looking at. Just my 2cents 💰

The BIG thing driving all of this is two fold, but one biggie is primary. High gold price creates interest in metal detecting for gold, BUT to drive that interest people NEED to FIND gold! How is that going to happen if no one is actually developing anything that improves gold finds on thrashed ground. ‘Even a blind chipmunk can occasionally find an acorn” It’s a common mantra on this forum that all the gold fields are played out, yet the release of the 6000 proves that there is still plenty of life left in played out fields! At record gold prices, the amounts, though less than the days of yore, are well worth the investment. So I strongly disagree with the above statement, if it wasn’t for “the best” then the whole side detecting industry would collapse. This forum would become a Ghost of Christmas Past, or as Dickens said "Would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give?" This is not a sycophants rant, it is the fear of a cold hard reality that I saw firsthand in 1993, VLF gold was basically played out and the goldfields were largely empty with only the bold having a go or the odd hobbyist on the weekend. Till we actually see a competitor develop something that isn’t a copycat design, but actually creates something that performs, then we should all be grateful there is an incentive out there for other companies to coat tail Minelab’s innovation, I know I sure am. No one needs to keep Minelab honest, their shareholders do a good job of that. Whinge and whine all you want, but without Minelab’s so called greed and high profit margins shareholders wouldn’t be signing checks to invest in R&D and then us old dinosaurs would be clanking our chains in the wee hours scarring children about the times of yore when you could buy a metal detector for 100 bucks and fill your pockets with gold that was just laying there for the talking. JP

That thing’s going to flip and roll like a drunken bird on overripe mangoes, unless the coil is lain flat, Rolly Polly down the hilly she goesy. But then they all do that, unless they make the control box wider which then fouls your leg/hip when swinging, but the height from the feet to the top of the arm rest is pretty big, to allow the battery to slide lengthways into a cavity by the looks of things. It looks the goods though, but is it Algo good, Axiom good or aiming really high and GPX 6000 good? I’d buy one just for $hits and grins. 😁 Interesting coil shape, more reminiscent of a DOD design than a traditional DD, weird shape for a monoloop coil though. If it’s a coin/relic variant then a DD would make sense. Gosh the overall detector design is remarkably familiar. 😯

After I finished laughing, honestly I couldn’t help myself, I wiped my eyes and passed it forward and gave others a good belly laugh too!! 😂 Laughter is the best medicine apparently ☺️