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I will buy used GPX 4500 or 5000. Please send me PM.

Would like some help/advice again please folks regarding these 'Doc Screamer Power Packs',as i understand it they are mainly used to reduce the overall weight by doing away with the large factory battery pack,i will be running it on my GPX 4500 but not for nugget hunting but deep pasture and ploughed sites here in the UK....so my question is my learned friends are they worth the pretty steep investment in this battery package or do folks use other 'reliable' options ?? I wont be using a external speaker because i will be using full cup headphones all the time as the temperatures dont get as hot as say in Aussie land during the peak summer months,even during the hottest days here i will then usually use the XP Deus wired backphones which in my opinion produce amazing audio quality at such a cheap bargain price. Many thanks

More cool information about the Algoforce, it ground balances very salty soil fine, even in Ultra Fine gold mode using a super sensitive 10" fully spiral wound coil. This took me by surprise as the last time I was at this spot was testing the GPX 4500 with the Nugget Finder 14x9" EVO and had quite a bit of difficulty with ground balance, The Algoforce barely even needed balanced, it wasn't even bad from switch on with only a small portion showing on the mineralization bar, this was resolved with a ground balance. I was in ultra fine gold mode, on the GPX 4500 I had to drop the timings down in sensitivity, I can't remember which worked well. It maintained good pellet sensitivity once balanced, not as good as in mild soils, but still pretty good. You'll notice the sun reflecting in this photo above on the screen, so when I have the same photo with the sun behind me even further like below, you'll see just how good the screen is in direct sun, it loves it, it's brilliant in full sun, so different to the GPZ that's damn near impossible to see, it's good though, as the Algo has so much information on the screen, really good information. I must have found 15 or more 22 shells today, for the first 8 I was checking if they were 22 shells after getting their 22 target ID, then I started playing a game of odds, any big booming that with an ID of 22 was likely a 22 shell so I didn't waste my time. In may not look it in the photos but this soil is so weird, it's almost white and full of salt. I hadn't calibrated my coil in its slot as I was using it for another coil so I calibrate it in the video, you can see this being done for those interested in seeing a coil calibrate. I had a bit of trouble pressing the two buttons at once with one hand to start the calibration while holding my phone to film 🙂 Note my Ground balance numbers, 50 00, default is 50 50. It would be nice from the manufacturer to update the manual to indicate what these numbers mean in some way. 50 00 is a bit of a surprise number combination, must be the salt. Didn't spend long here at all, had too much to do, but it was worth a try to see how the detector worked in salt and it worked brilliantly. I think it's going to be a great beach detector; I wonder how it would go with a mono coil in the salt flats in Australia. Another little bit of information that may be of interest, it is looking like you can use the mineralization bars on the screen as a form of Iron probability meter, when going over an iron junk target, they rise right up like it needs ground balanced, pass over the target they drop back down. I tested this quite a bit today, every bit of iron I knew was iron before recovering it by using this method. I need to experiment with this more and see, and do some iron air tests. I have a lot to learn yet but the Target ID and other features of this detector give it much more of a VLF like feature set, and could really be taken advantage of.

Yea the new price for the GPX 6000 at $6499 is almost laughable, at least to me. I had a hard time justifying what I paid for it almost 2 years ago. But it does find the gold. Once the Algoforce hits the US market priced at under $1800, it will most likely require some companies to lower their price or lose market share. I'm not a full time gold prospector, in fact I only gold hunt for probably 20 or less days a year. Luckily I'm well enough off I can afford to spend 6k on a metal detector just for the fun factor. But I'd rather spend the money and be able to go out and find some gold every time I go rather than settle for second best and get frustrated. I know a lot of people that hunt gold nuggets way more days a year than I do and would never spend even $2500 on a new GPX 4500 to compliment their VLF. The VLF finds them plenty of small stuff. From the sound of it, the Algoforce won't find as small of gold as a good VLF but will to allow us to find small gold a VLF won't find at greater depths in mineralized ground. So I foresee a good portion of those VLF users jumping up to an Algoforce who wouldn't buy a SDC2300 or Axiom.

Hi Gerry, I think it goes back to what most can afford. Everyone would love to own a GPX 6000 or even a GPZ 7000, but most know there are other priorities for most that come before a super, high end detector. I get calls all the time about how someone would love to own a GPZ, but the wife would leave them. Historically, the GPX 4500 and 5000 were the best sellers, more so after they were both discounted down to $2499 and $3995.00. I still today get inquiries on them, but both long discontinued here in the US. Keep in mind also, the GPX can really probably find about 85% off all the gold that is out there today. There will always be nuggets that are too small, crystalline, too deep ,,,,, and the list goes on and on .... If most would just focus on what they can find, rather than what they might be missing! I could "what if" all the time. The big advantage I see with the AlgoForce 1500 is the price and all the aftermarket coils you can use with it. I think if Minelab continued to carry and support the GPX 4500 @ $2499, we wouldn't probably be having these discussions today. Just my thoughts,

I'm in quite mild soils especially at this spot, I could have used it all day without even using the ground balance. although the QED when I used it here required balance or it responded to the ground. The GPX 4500 didn't need balanced. Seeing it's very easy to do I ground balanced occasionally. The good bit is the information is right there on the screen for you to see, it's very easy to know how your balance is tracking so you can do a balance when necessary. When I did a balance the two sets of ground balance numbers only changed slightly, for example from 50 50 to 48 51, when I balanced on a hot rock the numbers were more dramatic going down into the 30's. It'll be interesting to see how those on very bad variable ground go, I've no doubt it will balance out the ground, how often they need to adjust it is more the question. Seeing the detector is tracking the ground all of the time and giving you the information, I wonder if patents stopped them making it track and adjust.

Someone may need to come up with a clip with a rubber on it too to close the gap and prevent them being ripped off 🙂 I haven't used them as I bought them for my GPX 4500 and then never really used it much again and forgot about them but now the need for them arises, If I find they're no good I'll work something out. My drunkenness went away after having a long cold shower and about 2 litres of water, I think I was dehydrated or had sun stroke and somehow the rose thorn blood squirting out triggered me to feel unwell. I don't usually care much about blood, I've split my melon really badly at one point and had to get many stiches in the back of my head, and it was a gusher and looked really bad to people with so much blood coming out and I wasn't all that bothered, certainly didn't feel sick. I think the 6000 and 10x5" is a great combo, and will likely outperform the Algoforce in most situations, so you don't need to worry about getting one unless you wanted to do some beach/coin/jewellery type stuff where I can see the Algoforce being much better than a 6000. The drive home is about an hour, and 15 minutes from that gold spot I guess, 30 minutes of that is driving around a winding road along the side of Lake Wakatipu which was the part I felt sick, I had the air con cranked and I'd stopped at the shops and bought a 1.5 litre drink prior to driving home which helped too, but even with the air con going full I was sweating like mad. It's all very weird, something I've never experienced before.

Well, as someone in low mineral ground often looking for tiny gold, I can lay down a few points that matter. Without a doubt a higher frequency VLF like the Garrett 24k, Gold Bug 2, Equinox, Manticore, Legend, the list goes on and on will hit smaller gold, much smaller gold, and get more depth on these very tiny bits too, however once the bits creep up in size to the .1 of a gram bit and more (we will use it as a generic example cut off not a definite guaranteed cut off) then even with little minerals the PI takes over for depth, then as the gold gets bigger again say fox example 1 gram, the VLF with something like an 11" coil starts to gain some ground again but the PI's and ZVT will always be deeper. I used to use a VLF all the time for prospecting, even though I had a GPX 4500 sitting there, why? It found more tiny bits often, I had more chance of getting gold. I was convinced to put more effort into my PI and I found when I did, I lost the tiny bits entirely so found less in number of pieces and went home with nothing a lot more but the slightly bigger bits started to appear a bit deeper down so my gold weight increased. Then the GPZ and small coils came along to my stable, it was a lot more sensitive to the small stuff than the 4500 and felt more like a combination of the VLF and PI, I was getting a lot more gold and never felt the need for the VLF anymore, the bits the VLF got the GPZ didn't were very small, the 0.02 of a gram and smaller, I then purchased a 6000, found it very similar to the GPZ on small gold performance mainly as I am fortunate to have small coils for my GPZ but I always felt the GPZ was going much deeper. It's really hard to prove this sort of thing, it's not like I'm going to walk around with both detectors, it's more when using one you notice depth on targets more than using the other and some basic air testing in a way verifies it for me at least, if it's not seeing it sitting on the ground with the coil swinging above it it's sure not seeing it in the ground is my theory. The Algoforce now comes along, again it appears to hit similar size bits as the 6000 and 7000, I think it has a little less depth on them, but still hitting them well. The VLF's I put all of these detectors in competition with on small gold are the 19kHz range, not the higher frequency machines. Detectors like the Gold Bug Pro, think of the smallest bits it will hit, that's more in line with the best of the best in the PI and ZVT tiny target performance. That's not talking about depth, it's talking about the smallest gold they will hit, depth varies but often the PI's and GPZ will exceed the VLF depth too, so many variables. I think the cut off point for PI and GPZ on tiny gold is about 0.03 of a gram, anything below that you need a VLF. Minelab did this chart for the 6000's release, indicating it was better on a 0.05g nugget than the GM 1000, and they ranked the GPZ so low, but that's their fault for not releasing coils for it. I scoffed at this as no way in the world is the 6000 more sensitive to 0.05 than a GM, but in the right hot soil, maybe it is, certainly not my soil.

My Algoforce arrived a couple of hours ago, I had a quick refresher flick through the Quick start guide that came in the box and had a play around, to my surprise I could use it inside my house on default sensitivity and it was quite stable, I was able to test some coins on it for target ID and mess around learning the menu navigation. It's a puzzle at first as you need to remember the irons purposes, most icons are a giveaway as to what they do and the screen even tells you which ones to press on certain screens. So far first impressions on usability is for a detector with settings like this, it's very easy to use. I was able to configure my 10" X-coil on it in no time without the need for the instructions. It quickly calibrates to coils, a couple of seconds if that and you can store their size in there so you can easily go back to them, it comes pre-configured with a few common coils. It comes with this cool bag to lug it around in, I shouldn't say lug it around as it weighs nothing, it's super light and makes the 6000 feel heavy. The 6000 in the picture is shrunken down a bit for storage but was put there for a bit of a size reference. This is the contents of the package. All very professionally made, the look and feel is a long way different to the more homemade feel of the QED, a similar priced PI machine. And it all assembled with the 10" X-coil on it and configured. It's really easy to assemble, It takes a bit of getting used to the coil connector, it's different that's for sure, I'm sure if someone didn't like it they could put a GPX 5000 one into the shaft as I'm pretty sure you can buy the part but it worked fine and once, I knew what I was doing it did the trick, it doesn't use coil rubbers, a different design entirely but it does work and is probably perfectly fine, I'm just not used to it and with X-coils have very solid ears they don't flex out to fit it between them, at first I didn't think it fit the X-coils but I worked out if you slide them in from the back they fit, trying to get them in from the top of the ears is impossible. Maybe X-coils need to adjust their coils for an extra millimetre or two of width on the ears to make it an easier fit. I'll discuss this with them as they are resuming production of their GPX coils due to this detector hitting the market. Now, I filmed some video, it is very raw, my usual style of no editing and what you see is what you get, in the video you're seeing what I saw the first time doing it, I'd not even tested the nuggets I went over prior to filming. I'd just checked a couple to ensure it even worked 🙂 I'd used the detector for about 10 minutes at home in total before filming the video so be gentle, I'm just learning it. I will say for a fact it's more sensitive to small gold than the GPX 5000, some of these nuggets I used in the video the 5000 can't hit on at all. It's also more sensitive than the QED by a significant margin. I tested on a $1 coin, and had the target ID then I went into my yard where a couple of $1 coins are buried, and it was able to ID them very well, with a stable ID, I was quite surprised by this and I have to go back out with a VLF and double check it all and get some video. This is all very early days, but I'm certainly happy with it, it handles EMI so well for a PI , better than anything I've used before, and I think even for someone that just has a GPX 4500/5000 it would be a big compliment to it being more sensitive and picking up the gold the 5000 misses due to it being porous or just generally weak on, and for anyone not wanting to pay the crazy Minelab pricing for a 6000 or 7000 it's a bargain. On lead shotgun pellets it's similar to the 6000, neither will hit the #9 pellet but as the sizes increase both are the same with the pellets they will detect. I've not checked depths or anything yet just ability to hit them comes in at the same size pellet. I have so much to experiment on it yet, but happy with it for sure. The videos currently still processing by Youtube to HD but the SD version looks available now. I haven't even watched the video myself, this is raw as it gets.

Hi Guys, Not to toot any horns, whether it really matters or not, but we purchased all the GPX 5000's Minelab Americas & American Detector Distributors had early last year. We sold them all within months of the purchase at $3995.00 US. Prior to that, we purchased all the GPX 4500's that were selling at $2499 and we blew them out like Hotcakes. I personally wish they were both available, the GPX 4500 at $2500 would still fly off the shelves in my opinion here in the US. I agree, at some point the parts are not available forcing them to discontinue detectors. Rob

I couldn't agree with Steve and Karelian more. This whole has to be the best or shouldn't exist attitude is somewhat bizarre, we'd all be driving Lamborghini's or something if we followed that chain of thought through life, yet what do most people drive? very cheap cars by comparison. It's the same with metal detectors, a majority of people aren't running the highest price models there is and a big hole was in the market where this detector slots right in are people that didn't even buy one as they were too expensive. I've been hoping for something like this for a long time, I took on the QED and tried my best to have it fill that role but it really wasn't up to the standard of a professionally built metal detector, more of a DIY home built using parts from an electronics store, something that looks like it was slapped together from one of the electronics kits from the 70's and 80's and while it's performance was OK, especially on smaller shallow gold or on larger coins and possible gold that were quite deep depending on how you had the bias set on the detector it was missing too much to make it a viable choice for most. The price was right, the product wasn't. Since then, I was hoping Garrett, Fisher or Nokta would be doing it, I've been trying to encourage Nokta to take it on knowing there is a big gap in the market, Nokta appear like they're well on their way but they don't yet have PI experience other than a pinpointer but they have a proven track record of excelling when they focus on a product. Fisher is still tinkering away, well not so much Fisher as Alexandre although he may not even end up with Fisher and who knows if and when his AQ Gold will ever hit the market. Out of nowhere comes Algoforce with basically the product I've been hoping for, it ticks the boxes. And the focus of detectors now is smaller gold with that being the reason the 6000 is so popular now, people are finding lots of little stuff and going home with something in their bottles, the 6000, the Axiom, they're not extremely deep machines, but are hot on small gold, if you want depth on big deep gold there are plenty of options, right back to the SD's or grab a GPX 4500/5000 and big coil. For someone on a small budget they have the option now of owning something like a used GPX and an Algoforce and still have plenty of change in their pocket from a 6000 or 7000 purchase, between the two detectors they have most bases covered. Something I will appreciate is the fixed ground balance, being in milder soils the 6000 and its tracking is a frustration. I've complained about the lack of a way to "fix" the balance from the start so this to me is a bonus, the manual ground grab is fantastic for me, and something the QED has tried yet failed to have for years. This machine is lightyears ahead of a QED and will likely be the final nail in the coffin for the QED, it's all the QED should have been, and professionally built to go with it and priced perfectly, with its GPX coil support I can't see any reason for anyone to buy a QED anymore. I have now spoken to Ruifeng, what a great guy, very clued on and I can see their detector being a great success, He's as enthusiastic about their detector being as good as it can be as I am about it existing, all the gray nomads driving around in their Caravan's that want to have a go at looking for gold but can't justify or afford the price of a Minelab machine, they now have a great option, people like me that hunt a lot of small gold and would like fixed ground balance and have a good selection of GPX coils already, perfect! Let's not forget, this detector is a high-performance PI for the price of a good VLF and will bring to life a lot of peoples old GPX coils sitting in their cupboards as it exceeds the GPX 5000 on small gold. X-coils are open to producing GPX coils again now with this detector on the market, I can't wait to try my 10" spiral on it, I'll have a Algoforce as soon as I can. It appears to have good Detection modes to find a variety of size nuggets. Ultra-Fine Gold: This is the go-to choice for detecting gold nuggets of all sizes and is suitable for most situations. When used in combination with the Nugget Finder 8"x6" Sadie coil or similar-sized coils, it excels, even in highly mineralised soils. This combination is strongly recommended for locating small gold nuggets in various ground conditions. Fine Gold: Fine Gold mode reduces sensitivity to mineralised soil and may not detect very small gold nuggets. When paired with the Nugget Finder 12"x8" Mono coil or similar-sized coils, this mode performs exceptionally well, even in highly mineralised soils. It's a top choice for finding small to medium gold nuggets in different ground conditions. Normal Gold: This mode decreases sensitivity to highly mineralised soil and may not detect small gold nuggets. When used with the Nugget Finder 14"x9" Mono coil or similar-sized coils, it delivers outstanding performance, even in highly mineralised soils. It is highly recommended for locating medium to large gold nuggets in various ground conditions. Large Gold: Reserve Large Gold mode for use in extremely mineralised soil with high levels of wet salt. When used with coils larger than the Nugget Finder 14"x9" Mono coil, this mode excels, even in highly mineralised soils. This combination is highly recommended for locating large gold nuggets in different ground conditions. Although the four detection modes are specially designed for detecting gold nuggets, they can also be used for finding jewellery, coins, and other treasures on the beach. With a small coil like the Nugget Finder 8"x6" Sadie, use Ultra-Fine or Fine Gold mode for fine treasures. For a large coil like the 14"x9" Evolution Mono, employ Normal or Large Gold mode for deep beach discoveries. No ground balance is needed. As a PI detector, the AlgoForce E1500 naturally rejects seawater signals; the detection mode dictates the level of rejection, ranging from Ultra-Fine Gold to Large Gold, becoming more aggressive.

Thanks phrunt I would like to see that video, I also remember reading that you thought the GPX 4500 was in the same class as the 5000. Do you still think that ? g_j I do understand where you are coming from, mentioning bigger nuggets, are you suggesting that the older models are more likely to find a deeper large nugget than the 6000, something I suspect may be true but have no experience to back it up. My problem is simple my sniping partners have moved to detecting using 6000's they have had success and are crowing about the virtues of the 6000 telling me that a 5000 won't cut it. This is where my problem comes in, budget, I can't justify the cost of a 6000 even second hand, but given the success of the 6000 the price of a second hand 5000 has come down to a point that I'm willing to pay especially when you consider the amount of coils and accessories that can come with a used unit. In Tasmania the nuggets mostly are small but they are finding a good proportion of 1 gram + Assay results of gold that I've sold previously show that we have high purity usually around 95% most nuggets are quartz free but do sometimes have a small amount of ironstone. I was of the opinion that I would go as old as a GP 3500 but given the price of used 5000's I'm not sure about that any more, the advice is usually to get the latest model you can afford. But if a good 3500 came up at a suitable price, would it be a good choice. Thanks

I bought somebody's GPX 4500. It came with 4 coils. Then I realized that I don't have a clue what are the strengths and weakness of the different coil configurations. What are some general principals to guide folks in matching coils to the situations that they encounter? I don't recall having seen any guidance on this. Thanks

Really cool finds, I'm not surprised by your small gold take increasing, from memory last season you used the 24k and GPX 4500 modded? Did you run the 24k this year or has it taken a hike? You did very well, sorry to hear about the single and homeless thing, you seem the resourceful type that can bounce back and do better than before.

I am fully aware that this is a very old post but just treated myself to a GPX4500 that has come along after only being used once,i have purchased this at well under 1/2 price and only been used just the once.The guy is selling it as he cannot master it and its been sitting gathering dust. I have about 6-7 GPX coils from 6'' Mono upto 18'' Mono that i use on my TDI Pro with great success,so when this GPX 4500 came along i could not miss it,wont ever be used for nugget hunting as it's main use will be deep hoards hear in the UK,could not justify the GPX5000 which has fine gold timings for nugget hunting so went for the slightly lesser spec 4500. Initially will be using the factory battery setup and then look at the various after market camcorder battery options as they are so much lighter and cheaper than the genuine factory battery. Just hope that i have made a wise choice on this one,i pretty certain that i have as basically its only been used for a couple of hours so in totally mint condition.

If it does better then the 15" mono evolution on small to medium size nuggets at depth I can see paying more for an x coil for the older gpx 4500 and 5000.

Thanks Nenad, on the GPZ I've tried various things including going into Severe to try get rid of them, coils appear to make minimal difference with these particular hot rocks, all coils I've tried respond on them very similar as you've pointed out. I actually found General/Difficult to be the best on the 7000 with them but still not great, and the problem is they're often buried so you're digging these faint targets thinking you might be about to recover gold and it's just a little hot rock 🙂 The GPX 5000 especially in Enhance, Sensitive smooth and Fine Gold worked quite well in dealing with them, especially when using a DD coil but then my other problem is the gold is often very small, tame the detector too much and miss the gold, so that's why I gave the Equinox a good run and it paid off that day with quite a few nuggets. I've rarely been back to the spot since other than to test coils/detectors as it's just nasty ground due to the hot rocks. As most of our gold is solid type chunky bits although very small, I'm not overly concerned about the GPX 5000 missing too much of it due to its detection holes, so it's worth giving a Concentric a try. I also intend to use the GPX as a black sand beach detector so the 15" CC would be great for that, better than the Coiltek 11" AI coil I have been using for the task I think as I'll run it in Concentric (DD) mode to cut down the EMI. I've kept a little collection of the worst types of hot rock that I struggle with the most, many of these the GPX 6000 can't get rid of at all using even difficult and the DD coil. The only painful hotrock my little collection there is missing is the green schist type rock which is always a pain on every detector however it's usually large so easy to deal with, although can sound like a nice faint target when buried even if it is big. Here are some of my most troublesome types of hot rock, the GPZ and GPX struggle with these to varying degrees but neither can eliminate them from what I've seen so far. This one sparkles with silver looking flecks in it when you move it around in the sun. I'm no rock expert so have no idea what any of them are. A little video of how they behave on a very strong hard drive magnet, one the biggest one more feels like it pushes away from the magnet than being attracted to it. The dark colour ones are very magnetic and hard to even get off the magnet, the brown ones are very frustrating as they give a soft gold like signal when buried and often fool me, with the 6000 they're really deceiving. The GPX 4500 and 5000 are much better with all of them, eliminating a lot of them or at least needing the coil to be very close to them to be a problem, hence why I'm thinking this Concentric maybe the ticket if it gives me good sensitivity, good EMI handling for this high EMI spot where a mono can be annoying on the older GPX and cuts down on the hot rocks GPX 5000 style. I'll soon know 🙂 Either way, it's going to make a killer beach coil.

You mention the GPX 4500/5000. I assume they will also work on a 4000 or even a GP 3500 - any Minelab PI that has DD ability? Or are they just not as useful as they are on the more recent GPX models?

X-Coils have been working away in the background and took me by surprise with this one, I've always wanted a Concentric coil for my GPX 5000 but not a giant sized one, and I think they've nailed it with the perfect size coil for my needs, a 15" Concentric for the legacy GPX. I have a spot that I like to detect that's quite close to home but the hot rocks drive me mad with the GPZ there, I've found a few bits of gold there, biggest is 1.2 grams and that was with the Equinox 800 and 11" coil, the reason I was using it was I got sick of digging hot rocks with the GPZ, I haven't even bothered to take the 6000 there as I already know it's worse on these particular hot rocks than the GPZ. I've had the GPX 4500 there once but had a fair bit of problems with EMI as it's near a busy road and every car going past sent my 4500 nuts, their alternator or something, you could hear them coming. It's quite a steep gully with a road going through the bottom of it. This nugget would have been no more than 20 feet from the road So, I'm very much looking forward to using this 15" Concentric coil on my 5000 and going back to this spot. In mono mode on the GPX it's a full-fledged spiral mono coil, flick it to DD mode and it's a Concentric coil which handles bad ground and my hot rocks very well, along with being very good for EMI. A real 2 in 1 coil. This coil will be on its way to me very soon, I can't wait to use it. My 5000 hardly weighs more than my 6000 now with its carbon fibre shaft and lithium battery setup.

I believe you're up north of the South Island? Not sure what your grounds like up that way but if it's anything like here you wouldn't need to lug around a hot rock on a string, you just need to run a VLF over it to see all the hot rocks your GPX 6000 is completely blind to, yes it still picks up plenty but misses a very large percentage of them. If Geosense, well auto ground tracking is doing its thing its regularly balancing out hot rocks anyway. A sample video of ground here that is pretty consistent with many locations around where I detect with the VLF showing just how plentiful hot rocks are, fortunately with the GPZ and to a slightly lesser extent the GPX 6000 they're mostly eliminated, in some places, the trusty old GPX 4500/5000 is the best option as even the GPZ still drives me mad.

There isn't much that is not made in China, and even though they've been manufacturing in Malaysia you can bet your left eyeball a majority of the components are from China and being assembled in Malaysia and all the shafts, housings, screens, batteries will be all from China. If they want to increase profits perhaps in these low-end machines with little fear of anyone borrowing the technology as its basically public domain for the Voyager it made a lot of sense to go with China manufacturing so they could get the detector out to market quickly. The detector cloners will have little interest in the technology used it in, they're already making superior detectors themselves. Regardless of if this detector was made in USA, Australia, Malalysia or where ever it would be a simple machine to clone as they can already make a VLF of equal specifications themselves with little trouble. China can make extremely high-end products, and it can also make a lot of cheap and nasty stuff and that tends to be the stuff they sell a lot of, why? Because people want to buy it, they love cheap stuff. Many big companies are now moving manufacturing out of China and into India, it's becoming the new China with cheaper Manufacuring again as the Chinese are now getting higher wages with a growing middle class. Even my old GPX 4500 that was made in Australia was assembled in Australia from parts from China, that's just how it is, Australia doesn't make electronic components. To think the Chinese manufacturers can't keep company secrets is just wrong too, China make virtually all Telsas, and all of their parts, they're also the biggest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the world with their BYD company making the most electric cars of any manufacturer yet BYD isn't using Telsta's technology they stole by the country manufacturing Telsla's, they made their own. Almost all Apple products are made in China, many of the large manufacturers use China successfully without their secrets being revealed. This move isn't at all a surprise, it's going to be more of a surprise if they move manufacturing of the higher end detectors to China too but maybe they should, if you ask me the quality that they have produced in recent years is terrible, and it must be affecting their bottom line with all of the faulty detectors and coils they've been selling, from drowned Noxes to faulty 6000's and their coils, I can only imagine the losses they've taken due to quality problems, as times gone by they've probably had to do at least one warranty job of some form for every GPX 6000 sold in the first year and a half or so and that hurts profits and reputation. They've also had a lot of stock issues, with the current manufacturing facility unable to keep up with demand, product has been very hard to get, low stock of new detectors during their peak selling time when a new product, coils that take forever to get to market and even then, are in limited supply. The Voyager might just be a test run for a new manufacturing partner and from the outside looking in, they need a new partner as the current one isn't working.

Well, this one I can help with as a recent owner of the Saga Swing Arm and Swingy thingy, I love the Saga swing arm, I've used the Minelab swing arm a few times but ended up not bothering with it, but the Saga has a district advantage and that is that it pivots any direction, this is very beneficial if you're swinging in variable terrain. I detect basically 90-degree walls of dug out ground from the old timers and have found nuggets embedded in these walls. I detect very steep ground and I'm moving my detector all over the place and often lifting it up to detect even above my head, and this is the key to the Saga over the original. The Queegle bungee is much better than the Minelab one, easier to clip/unclip for sure. The Swingy Thingy is good if your pants tend to expose your crack 🙂 It holds them up, it's more comfortable than the Minelab Pro Swing harness, not near as big, bulky or hot to wear, however it doesn't transfer the weight to your hips like the Pro-Swing does if that is something that matters to you. The weights transferred to your shoulder which is fine for me even with the GPZ and its heavy coils, and with a light detector like the Axiom that would be fine too for you I would think. The one I really like the most is the Saga Swing arm, it does what a Swing arm should do, I've never been a harness wearer or any of these "weight off accessories" type of person, I found the Hipstick to be a bit weird and felt like a cyborg using it and just thought it was always in the way especially but would consider that type of contraption if I was swinging very large coils in flat open ground although I think I'd work on the design myself and not stick with the original as there are some changes it could benefit from, I'm sure Doc could do a much better version if he didn't mind stepping on peoples toes as he gets custom made parts rather than off the shelf stuff and just assembling it, but it's a product that does the trick and combined with the Swingy Thingy, Saga Swing arm and a Hiipstick your detector would be completely effortless. See this video on the hipstick if you're not aware of it. Very easy to make your own if it's impossible to get where you are and a bit of googling will help with that. It really does take the weight away as your hips doesn't notice it compared to your shoulders. It's worth buying if you can find it for sale locally somewhere and want a weightless detector. I've used my GPX 4500, 5000, 6000 and 7000 all without using bungees and contraptions the entire time I've owned them other than wearing the harness sometimes without the bungee so I could use my speakers and SP01 as I just didn't like wearing stuff on me but I can get used to the Swingy Thingy as it's not big bulky and has the pants advantage which has been a bit of an ongoing problem for me 🙂

Reese, Just proves that certain detectors/coils can work in different goldfields better than others. I have always stated the GPX 4500 and 5000 have the most versatility overall with their 8 timings and various settings/combo's. However, the GPX 4500/5000 are only good to the guys that really like the experience and try different settings, rather that just a "Turn On and Go" PI, like the GPX 6000. I like the GPX 6000, but I would never run it against a GPX 5000 or GPZ 7000 in high mineralization or anywhere there is a lot of depth. This is just my personal opinion, but I have used them all long enough to prove to myself what I'm stating. The GPX 6000 is deadly on small gold and specimens, shallow ground or bedrock hunting, but not a real great unit on going for depth. I think you are proving this yourself out there at Gold Basin, where most of the gold is buried deep in the washes, or maybe shallower on the hillsides and flats. Also, I'm sure Gold Basin has had no much attention, especially after the Gold Basin Meteorite discovery, so the ground has been pounded in areas out there, so I'm sure a lot of the easy gold is picked away. Great to see you finding gold, regardless of detector. Keep up the great work! Rob

Now that the Axiom has been out awhile are there any relic hunters that can provide some feedback on how the Axiom compares to the GPX 4500/5000 on discrimination? I've scoured the internet and have found a couple of competing opinions but very little other than that. I've owned the GPX 4500 and now 5000 and for 2 years I didn't own a vlf machine and I was very successful at finding Civil War relics in pounded sites in my area. Once you get your ear "tuned" I dug very little iron. Also on the Axiom is the iron check a button you hold down or a mode you can leave it in for those high iron areas?