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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?

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.

I have a GM1000 which I have found some gold with. I have been fairly happy with it until today. I was out testing some buried targets with my GPX 4500. The GPX is still new to me and I am trying to figure out the settings. Anyway I decided to run the GM over the targets. A 2 gram nugget at about 8" and a 1 gram nugget at about 8". The GM could see the 2 gram fairly easily but it was a strong iron signal. It couldn't see the 1 gram. I can run the detector on auto plus with only minimal falsing in this ground. I dug the nuggets up and checked them. In air good non iron signals all the way through the detection range. Then I put a chunk of dirt about 2" thick on them. Now I was getting solid iron signals. No noticable loss of depth but all iron. Just for f uh n I pulled out my gold bug pro. About the same depth as the GM but when it gave an I'd it was a gold ID never an iron ID fe bars were indicating 2 max. The GM gave an ID further out than the GB but it was an iron signal. The GB didn't give an ID until much closer but when it did it said gold. With the gold monster I wouldn't have dug those targets with the Gold Bug I would have. I know I should dig all targets in gold areas but part of the reason to have a VLF gold detector is to weed out at least some of the junk. Any thoughts? I have a question about the gpx in a seperate thread. Thanks

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

I contacted them about the EMI filter during the height of my GPX 4500 annoyed with EMI days, and the filter is extremely popular in northern Australia due to the radio antennas up that way and that's what the filter does, filters radio waves out, even says so on their website, and the Navy Communication station in northern Western Australia is a big cause of that interference, biggest radio communication station in the Southern Hemisphere so this is where the EMI filter really benefits people. He said for my needs of trying to deal with Power lines EMI it wouldn't overly help much but if any radio waves are in the area and adding to my EMI woes it will help a lot with that and was honest enough to say I probably wouldn't benefit enough to justify buying it. I have done the lithium battery route to mine and like it. I guess on later models like the 6000 and 7000 a similar type of radio wave filter is incorporated into the circuit as few have trouble like they did with the earlier GPX series. These filters have been designed for the current range of Minelab SD, GP and GPX series metal detectors. These filters have been designed and manufactured by Link Technologies in Victoria, Australia. This filter is using the latest state of the art components to remove radio interference and improve the detection of gold. This filter greatly reduces or in most cases eliminates the warble from all radio wave sources of interference. These interference filters are designed to be used with mono type coils. That's really cool, I guess with cell phone towers emitting radio waves it helped with that, and nearby radio stations etc. If I still used my older GPX enough I'd buy one but I'm happy enough with the EMI shield cover and for the worst of EMI the Coiltek AI 11" coil can run right under powerlines and remain stable and be very close to equal performance to the 11" DD Commander. In saying that my GPX has become a coin/beach detector more than a gold detector, I've not even taken my 5000 on a gold hunt, I should do so.

I'm not at all surprised with that last video posted where the 18" coil is going deeper than the GPZ with 17x`13" coil on a chunk or iron like that, put a bigger coil on the GPZ and see what happens, even the readily available but nobody wants 19" coil which is similar size. To me rather than modding a 5000 it makes more sense to get bigger coils for the 7000 if you already have one and are chasing big deep targets, the mods are very expensive. The mod I'd want for the 5000 is fixing its massive target holes, that will find more gold. What I don't get, and they've been doing it for a decade is why these handful of independent guys can do mods on detectors to make them better than Minelab could, and if that's the case why isn't Minelab trying to hire them or even doing similar performance improvements to their own detectors. Why is there no GPX 5000 v2 with similar mods included. I'm all for modding stuff, I think it's awesome, but it's a puzzle to me why Minelab doesn't follow the modders which is usually the case. I've had next to no experience with these modded detectors, JW has a modded GPX 4500, never uses it, but has it. He's used it once in my presence and he had a Sadie on it at the time, I had my stock 4500 with the NF 14x9" EVO on it when I first got that coil, I found mine was more sensitive than his on small targets in some very basic tests we did at the time waving over a few pellets. How much of that was the coil I don't know, probably most of it. Neither stood out as being quieter or anything. I don't know enough about the mods done to it to judge it but it was one of the big two that did the mods.

Warm greetings to all members Can you help me what is the cause of the buzzing sound or the buzzing OR wheezing? The continuous overtime is similar to the smuggling of electricity in Minelab Detector This resulted in distortion Or the lack of clarity of the signal threshold Target signals are not strong Tried another battery and the headphone connections are fine and the noise is still going on I would like to thank everyone in this wonderful forum, which has become a source of valuable information and we do not dispense with your advice and experiences

Well it looks like at least part of this is coming to pass. At least one reputable MD equipment dealer is announcing the imminent discontinuation of the GPX 5000 (and taking the opportunity to put out a buy 'em while you can pitch). This will be the end of the line for not only for the 5000 but that venerable GPX platform series of prospecting/relic detectors that started with the GPX 4000 in 2006 (which built upon the predecessor GP series). The GPX 6000 is a "GPX" platform PI in name only as far as I'm concerned as none of its accessory components or coils are interchangeable with the legacy GPX 4000/4500/4800/5000 units due to it's updated electronics and form factor. Not surprised they want to mothball the legacy GPX platform at this point. I'm sure it's a drag on manufacturing, repair, and logistics to keep that technologically long-in-the-tooth product line alive (the 4000 was released in 2006, 4500 in 2008, and the 4800/5000 was released in 2010, with the 4800 being discontinued in 2012). The GPX 4500 was discontinued in 2021 so it kind of makes sense the 5000 will reach the end of the line this year.

It can work perfectly under power lines with an Anti-Interference coil, the depth you receive seems to be on par with the DD from what I can tell but smoother running Both Coiltek and Detech make them. This was with my GPX 4500, it works even better with my 5000.

The detectors that weed out the last remaining dwindling gold in the ground also face the problem of less customers, the better detectors get in an odd way the less customers are available to sell them to. That's what's happened with Africa.... the easy good gold is gone or going fast, the GPX 4500 and 5000 were extremely popular there, I even own an ex-African GPX 5000, I can only dream of the gold that 5000's found, more so than I'll ever find in my lifetime. The 7000 from what I've been informed wasn't as popular but still a somewhat common detector to see, I would guess due to price or due to the value they see for the price over the 4500 for example, if most of the gold they care about can be found with a 4500 for a much cheaper price why buy a 7000. The 6000 comes out to specifically target that market and falls flat on its face in Africa, it didn't take off like hoped as investor reports have often stated sales are not as good as hoped for the 6000 and now the investor reports are saying we need to move off the African market and focus on expanding into other markets. This can't be due to conflict and so on in parts of Africa, it's a big place with many countries that are heavy gold producers and not all are problematic yet the African sales died. The African market has its problems outside of prospecting that has caused some sales issues but the main reason I think is these people need to make a living off the gold they find, they don't get paid properly for the gold they do find so they need to find even more to make it worthwhile, the bigger easier bits are gone and they don't want to scratch around like chickens plucking out a 0.03 of a gram piece so once the easier gold the 5000 can find is gone so is the gold rush. The Africans didn't get paid per gram the prices we can get if we sell gold, they got a pittance for it, they often had commission to the local rogues that controlled the area too, they sold their gold illegally to middle men that sneaked it out of the country. If they tried to sell it the legal way it's not worth being a small-scale miner, so they went black market but still the price per ounce was small so they had to find a lot of gold to make it worthwhile. Here is a older story on it that's worth reading Gold worth billions is smuggled out of Africa - new analysis (reuters.com) The depth on the bigger deeper gold I believe the 4500 still beats the 6000, it helps with its large range of coils but it can support large coils so depth on big gold is still the 4500 and I'm sure the Africans worked that out quick smart. The funny thing about the 6000 is they intended it to be the good seller in Africa, it turns out its the better seller to other places where the people are trying to scratch out the remaining gold the other detectors missed by its ability to find very small and odd gold that was missed by previous models for various reasons and you see that with people selling the 7000 which is the top of the range to I guess you could say downgrade to the 6000 to find these smaller bits of gold that are left. For us in countries outside of Africa it's been a good success story, more so than Africa but we are a smaller group of people so the revenue wasn't as hoped.

I was testing my 4500 today on a 2 gram nugget at 7"-8" and a 1 gram at 6"-7". I was able to hear the 2 gram with the gpx with all my coils 6x10 coiltec 14"x9" advantage and 11" dd commander. None of them could hear the 1 gram. Possibly a faint signal with the 6x10 coil. Does this sound about right? The soil is not too mineralized I was able to run the dd at 13 with no ground noise and the monos at 11 or 12. Also I have been detecting a new area lately and have found 9 nuggets from .6g to 2g. Picture below. The smallest was hiding under a bullet so doesn't count as a gpx find. Using the gpx. All of them were within 4"-5" from the coil in bedrock areas. I know there must be some under the areas of shallow gravel but I can't seem to find any there. I'm getting ground noise and false signals only. Thanks

Hey all! I just wanted to let everyone know that I now offer complete, carbon-fiber shafts (which can also be counterweighted if you desire) for the Gold Monster 1000. I'll attach a picture of a completed one, assembled with the unit, below. Additionally, I also have begun offering lower rods for the GPX 4500/4800/5000, and now the 6000 (and of course lower rods for the CTX 3030, and complete shafts for the Equinox). Finally, I also offer custom shafts for the Excalibur series, also with a couple of pictures, below. Thanks all!

I can't bring myself to thin my herd, I got rid of the QED but that was out of principal more so than I wanted to get rid of a detector, I also got rid of my GPX 4500 but mainly because a guy I know wanted to detect black sand beaches here and he bought a Tarsacci with their infamous NZ black sand coil they say was made for NZ's black sand beaches and it sucked basically and wasn't suitable and I knew my GPX handled it with the 11" DD so I moved it onto him seeing I have a 5000 anyway and was unlikely to use it again. So instead, I just have gear I use, and gear I collect 😉 And my herd is as follows in order of amount of use Equinox 800 (tops the list as I use for gold and coins) GPZ 7000 CTX 3030 GPX 6000 Garrett 24k Manticore Ace 300i My other detectors are just decorations. And my pinpointers that get used in order of use hours are Garrett AT Sphinx 03 (too new to clock up enough hours) XP-Mi4 Others are just decorations.

The Impulse project was severely messed up by releasing a waterproof beach detector prior to the gold detector, it was done the wrong way around, such a small market by comparison. I have no idea how long it takes to make a detector from scratch so I've still got my hopes up Nokta are working away on it in the background and will surprise us. I would say there isn't really room in the market for another PI gold machine, but that's completely wrong. There is plenty of room, it just has to be at the right price, a reasonable price that makes it an affordable detector for many to use. If they make it dual purpose with some features that coin and jewellery, relic and even beach hunters would like and also keep the price low they'll hit a home run. I shouldn't really be advocating for a cheap PI as that means there would likely be more people looking for gold in areas I look, price is what keeps the hobby limited in numbers, not many hobbyists are willing to pay the price and rightly so, unless you're in a very good gold location no matter how many hours you put in it's unlikely you will recover costs so you're doing it for the love, the challenge and that takes the numbers of people willing to do that right down. If Nokta can do it, and do it at the right price they can expect to open up a whole new market of weekend or even holiday/vacation warriors with detectors, I thought Garrett was going to do that but they went for well-trodden high-priced route and have also quite severely limited their sales doing so. I would argue ideally it needs to be a lot better than a TDI, The QED is better than a TDI I hear and it's not quite where this Nokta needs to be to be very enticing, closer to a 4500 or 5000 would be better, anything better than that is pure gravy. If a QED level is all they can do which you would think they can with it being a one-man job from a garage in rural Australia armed with his 3D printer and some electronics skills then it needs to be priced right more towards VLF pricing for what it is then it would still be a good success I think, but to really cause a stir the GPX 4500 should be the goal post. There is little reason a PI should cost a lot more than a VLF, the only real thing costing more is the extra battery power it would require although QED's run off two 18650's

I'm checking both out. Need some input by others.

The GPX 4500/5000 from my experience have quite large detection holes, or targets they're weak on even though the size of the nuggets should be well within their reach, I have a number of nuggets sizes that the GPX 4500 and 5000 should love yet they struggle to hit on them, and in some cases miss them entirely. I'm not sure about the Axiom but this is the biggest problem I find with the GPX 4500/5000, switching timings can help in some cases but not all and you're not exactly going to run over areas in all different timings to ensure you got it all, well you could but it's easier just to use another detector without this issue. Later detectors like the GPZ and GPX 6000 hit these same "difficult" nuggets fine, so technology has evolved.

I've been reading about DD and mono coils for the GPX. I'm confused

A couple of years ago X-coils discontinued older legacy model GPX coils, however demand has been large in their part of the world by relic hunters and big deep gold hunters for a large coil, so they come up with the goods with a 32" Spiral wound GPX 4500/5000 coil. It's an absolute monster of a coil, I can't imagine this being sold into the international market due to shipping a coil this size, hopefully the people in Europe can find some good deep relics and gold with this thing. It's good seeing some life brought into older models with all the excitement and talk these days of the newer models.

I recently bought a GPX 4500. It came with 3 coils, 14" oval nugget finder advantage, 10x5 coiltek and stock 11" DD round. I want to be able to run the 14" mono but cant get the detector to quiet down. Lots of EMI noise. At least I think that's what it is. Even when I am out in the boonies. No cell signal and now power lines anywhere it is still noise. The 10x5 coil works better but still has occasional warbles even when holding still. The DD seems to be quietest. Normal Settings: Factory for the most part. Enhance, fixed, general, mono. Is there a process that I should follow to quiet the detector? I am a bit worried that the 14" coil might be bad because it is so noisy. I am doing auto tune and ground balance. I have already found some nice gold with the detector using the 5x10 coil but feel that I am missing some of the signals because I cant quiet the detector. Thanks

32" spiral...mono coil? And you mentioned in the post GPX 4500/5000 and in the heading GP and GPX...it still work on the GP series? Weight will be interesting 👍

It can be tough to get nuggets at Rye Patch any time of year, but when you and I were there, the soggy ground and weather made it even more of a challenge for sure. I'm sorry your group didn't get any gold. I detected over 3 days last summer in June and also got skunked using my ML 6000 in dry ground. I helped two older greenhorn guys with vlf machines who were there set up their machines and scan some signals I found. One had a gpx 4500 he didn't know how to use, so I had him switch that machine and to his 11in mono and set all the proper settings for him. I saw both later in the afternoon, and they had quite a few dug targets, but no gold. We all had a great time camping out and sharing the fun of prospecting and that's what its all about.

I also bought the 14x9" as I loved that size on my GPX 4500, I can't say I'm all that impressed by it so I wish I saved my money for the 12x7 in that case. The 12x7 seems an excellent coil, for my needs the 14x9" is a bit of a disappointment really and I'd rather just use the less stable 11" for the better performance.

I’m on Social Security with a little retirement fund and I work 2 part-time jobs. The last thing I needed was to pay over $4000 US for the GPX 6000. The lighter weight and the high sensitivity to a wide range of nugget sizes is what tempted me to do it. I was disappointed in the GPX 6000 at first but now I guess I am happy with it. Have I found $4000 US worth of gold with it already…..nope. Like many, I tried the less expensive Whites PIs and even had a go with the QED. They just aren’t the answer for me. A GPX 4500 in a lightweight housing with lightweight battery sounds fantastic. I would be just as happy with a PI that costs half as much as the GPX 6000 that would hit 0.1 gram nuggets a few inches deep along with deeper bigger sized gold, that weighs less than 4 lbs, uses current GPX 5000 and prior models Mono and DD coils and would double as a good relic and saltwater beach detector.