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I think I found the problem with the GPX 6000 not working well with the 5000 and 7000 coils. The 6000 14” DD receiver coil measures 300uH, 4.0 ohms. The other 5000 DD and 7000 DOD receiver coils measure more than 400uH and much higher resistances. This indicates that the GPX 6000 DD coil has fewer receiver coil wire turns than the other DD coils. The GPX 6000 GeoSense function/operation probably needs close to 300uH for both mono and DD modes.

I've only taken it prospecting for two half days, I was going to say a day and a half but forgot the first day I left early too as I had some sort of medical issue after a rose thorn got me. 🙂 I did find gold; I would have found the same gold with my 6000 or 7000 though of course. My next intentions are to try it out for beach detecting, I've been dabbling around my local area with it for coins and it's quite impressive with its target ID. I should get around to doing a post on that I guess, just didn't think people would have much interest in a PI as a coin detector.

That seems a reasonable assessment to me, and why I've been pointing out all along 6000 and 7000 owners don't need one unless there is an attribute of it that they particularly like, like 7000 owners wanting a lighter machine to use for some particular reason or they want a PI they can use for stuff other than gold with its excellent Target ID's. I genuinely think GPX 4500/5000 owners would benefit from it, it's doing noticeably better on small gold than those models, along with its ability to find the gold they often miss, the prickly stuff and not just that, I tested a bunch of regular small nuggets commonly found here, and the Algo was doing better than the GPX 5000 by quite a bit, some the 5000 didn't even hit the Algo did. For them it's of even more benefit as they can share coils between detectors, and their Bluetooth transmitter and headphones. While I've never used an Axiom, I've not really known its comparison. The SDC is an iffy one to me, mainly due to my milder soil environment and it was a pretty poor performer here with the original GPX series being far better when fitted with a spiral or smaller bundle coil except for it being poor on the prickly type gold, so that one makes me wonder, as the Algo for me here in my soils is doing better on the smaller gold than the GPX, I have no doubts a GPX will be deeper on big targets though. What I see with the Algo is a whole lot of bang for the buck, half the price of an Axiom, way less than the 6000 and of course the 7000. The perfect detector for people not wanting to spend a lot of money and still get a very good performance machine, but not by any means the best and is filling a large hole in the market for that reason. Its other notable benefit is its very good EMI handling, it can run well in places others cannot. Now the big question hanging over it is benefits outside of prospecting with its Target Id's, how beneficial is that going to be in parkland and beach settings, for me so far, it's looking good.

I find the speculation that the E1500 will somehow outperform detectors costing much more money to be, well, how to put this nicely… questionable at best. If this detector was GPX 6000 class it would be stupid to sell it for one quarter the price of a GPX 6000. I don’t think Alex is stupid. Here is the current price structure in Australia as of today after Garrett just introduced the lower priced stripped down Axiom package: 1. GPZ 7000 $10,499 2. GPX 6000 $8,999 with two coils 3. Garrett Axiom $4,999 with one coil 4. SDC 2300 $4,399 5. E1500 with Sadie & Battery $2649 6. Minelab Manticore $2499 7. Gold Monster $1299 I have pretty solid information in hand indicating that you are going to get what you pay for. The E1500 is a very affordable option at close the price of a top end VLF and will outperform said VLFs on gold in mineralized ground. Time will tell but I think the E1500 will fall short of SDC 2300 and Axiom level performance, essentially being a bridge between VLF detectors and those models. The 6000 and 7000 will continue to rule the roost but at twice the price of the SDC/Axiom level you are not getting twice the depth. Pulling a number out of my ass I’d assign a very debatable expectation of about a 15% increase in overall performance at each major step up in price. People can of course argue that number all day long but I think it is very important to give newbies some sense of reality. Twice the money does not get twice the performance. Gains are more like 10% - 15% - 20%…. pick your number, but it’s not double, triple, quadruple. If I was still selling detectors I’d explain to this new customer that they can go find a gold nugget with a Gold Monster or a Manticore. I’d explain that for not much more than a Manticore they could get an AlgoForce E1500 and be able to deal with mineralized ground and hot rocks that will give the VLF models real trouble. I’d tell them that for substantially more money they could get some very solid bang for the buck in the Axiom/SDC range, a step up from E1500 but still not top tier. Finally, I’d tell them that if money is no object and they simply want the best performance they can get, to look at the 6000 or 7000. I’d comment that out of the box with provided coils the 6000 would have the edge for smaller gold, and the 7000 the edge on larger gold. Adding aftermarket coils (and more money) to the 7000 can close the gap between it and the 6000 on small gold, but nothing you do to the 6000 will have it hitting the big stuff as deep as the 7000. That would be my short and sweet sales presentation and I offer it up as the most simplified big picture no B.S. look at the scene as you are likely to find. My somewhat educated opinions only, feel free to toss in trash bin if you don’t agree. In the States this would be the situation if the E1500 could be had here, updated 5/1/24 with new Axiom option: 1. GPZ 7000 $8,999 2. GPX 6000 $6,499 with two coils 3. SDC 2300 $3,599 4. Garrett Axiom $2,999 with one coil 5. E1500 with Sadie & Battery under $1999 6. Minelab Manticore $1699 7. Gold Monster $799

Pioneer, 1st off, thanks for taking the time to chime in and give us your initial thoughts on the E-1500. Just like you were excited, I have many hopeful clients and friends here in the US who's interested as well. At the price point it's being offered, I see many people jumping at the chance to get one. With that being said "many people getting one", there will immediately be folks who don't like it for a number of reasons. As a multi line dealer for 30 yrs, I see each new detector come out and get a % of people who are not happy or as pleased as their dreams hoped. Many times, I know for a fact, it's operator error or lack of understanding the new detector tool. Other times it's the expectation let down as a different detector you know, found some gold it missed. I'm not here to judge you as that would be silly, since I don't know you, your skill level or success rate. I only know you mentioned using the very simple GM-1000 & SDC-2300, you like them and have success at finding gold. That's totally great with me and probably most others as well. When I read between the lines, I myself see someone who wants turn on and go detector as both (GM-1000 & SDC) are pretty much that. Guess what, that's the masses and I enjoy selling such detectors for those people. Also, from what I've read on your post, it seems you're trying to use metal detectors as your source of income and that's perfectly fine. I, and many others envy you for having the capabilities and desire to make a go at it, us USA folks only dream. As for the specimen it missed and the Monster found, that's 100% logical to me, it's a PI. Just curious how well the other PI detectors responded to the specimen? I have pounds of gold my VLF easily see and many PI's miss. The new Axiom and 6000 are way better than a 7000 or 5000 for those kinds of gold, but I don't have an E-1500 in my hands yet to compare. I imagine pretty close in performance though. Sometimes a new detector for a veteran user just does not click and or feel right. I know for a fact in my years of swinging many different brands and models, a few that I tried were very disappointing and I let them go. I tell folks when on the hunt, it's best to swing the detector you have the most faith in. As for hot ground that continually needs Ground Balanced, luckily here in the USA, most of our sites are not so. But even when I do hunt those areas, I don't worry about the screen telling me, it's my ear that does so. A simple pump up and down over the ground and I have a clue if GB is needed or not. On a rare occasion and it's even happened to me. I have high expectations and the detector model and I just don't click. We don't jive, no boogie, so I sell it. At least I tried and made my own decision, which is way better than wondering. I enjoy your input and will share it with others, just to prove a point that a new detector is not always going to be Golden for everyone. The good thing is, you tried it, it was not your cup of joe and you were refunded your money. Now you can get back to swinging the detectors you know best and finding the gold they are tuned to find. Please share some of your success stories here on DP on occasion as us Yankees envy seeing the prospect finds from abroad. Again, Thanks for sharing and no hard feelings for not liking it. I run into that on occasion when going out to dinner with the wife. She really talked up a new eatery and after I walked out, I needed to take some tums. Interestingly, I see this company taking input (good and bad) and doing things with it. In the end, we all get more options and better price points to try. If we don't like it, we can go back to what we was swinging before.

I have a feeling they'd do it more like the Legend, with software updates suitable for this model being done to it, anything major like doing blanking discrimination with DD coil support, waterproofing for the beach hounds all becoming features for the future E2500. They've already said to me they intend to do another model in the future, so this is only the beginning, and off to a very good start if you ask me. All the retirees that wanted to take up looking for gold cruising Australia in their caravans can now buy a husband and wife pair of detectors without really destroying their retirement fund, and go have some fun finding some gold knowing they've got a pretty decent detector to do so. My biggest concern as it starts to take off is GPX coil availability, however Coiltek have said they're ready to roll so it will be Sadies and EVO's in short supply more than anything as NF can't keep up with anything. The second-hand market is always an option though. The pro's armed with both the 7000 and 6000 and a bunch of other gear may not find one that beneficial, unless some attribute of it is useful to them like a 7000 being heavy and needing a lighter swinger for covering miles, assuming it can handle the variable grounds well enough, I hope someone does that testing soon, or at least tells us all how it went, as I'm sure by now someones using one there.

The 10" is 950 grams with skid plate, significantly lighter than the standard coil, although smaller of course. It's the little 8" I love, 835 grams with skid plate and 6000 like sensitivity and it still punches remarkably deep. Combine that with the CTX 3030 battery and it's a light detector. The good bit about the 10" is its much like running a normal size coil, with the standard GPX 6000 coil being 11" the 10" isn't all that much different, and I'd place my bets on the 7000 with the 10" being deeper than the 6000 with 11" on many targets.

You are one of the optimists Jason. Just because you have been saying something for a decade does not make it true. I’m more in the Simon camp when it comes to a new detector actually having enough of a leap in performance to make an actual real world difference in the gold being found. The GPZ 7000 was a true advancement over what came before and made dead patches come alive again. The 6000 picked up the crumbs. This next go I think we will see improvement more in the ergonomic side than anything else. I place my bet that there will not be genuine performance that outperforms substantially on what we can currently get with the 6000 and 7000 combined, or even just a 7000 with a proper set of aftermarket coils. Metal detectors have a basic limitation in how far they can detect gold items. From http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/200TrCcts/MetalDetectors/MetalDetectors-1.html “the sensitivity is roughly proportional to the cube of the object diameter (as expressed as a function of the search coil diameter). Sensitivity is also inversely proportional to the sixth power of the distance between the coil and the object. All this means is that if the object size is halved the sensitivity is reduced to one-eighth. Also, if the depth is doubled the sensitivity is reduced to one sixty-fourth. It’s easy to see why all metal detectors which are designed to pick up small objects use small coils, (150 to 300 mm diameter) and really only skim the soil surface. If the search coil is doubled in diameter for greater penetration the sensitivity to small objects falls to one-eighth. You rapidly encounter the law of diminishing returns.” Famed metal detector engineer Dave Johnson reiterates this in a different way at https://web.archive.org/web/20230719232930/http://fisherlab.com/hobby/davejohnson/davejohnsonjohngardinerinterview.htm “Getting extra depth out of a VLF, multifrequency, or PI machine is very difficult, because these machines follow an inverse 6th power law relationship between signal voltage and depth. If everything else is maintained equal, doubling the depth requires 64 times as much signal. If this is done by increasing transmitter power, doubling depth requires 4,096 times as much battery drain. That’s the basic reason why depth increases come so slowly in this industry.” That is where I think we are now and why the GPZ 8000 has been slow in coming. Much to Minelabs credit they don’t release a machine unless the engineers can point to data showing some real performance improvement differences - you know, those 30% things. But there is actual real world data in hand to back up those claims when they make them. I think in this case the most they might eke out will be a marginal gain they can point to in detection depth on multi ounce nuggets. That’s enough to sell lots of detectors but in the end I think it will be greatly debated whether this new machine is any better in big gold at depth than a modded GP/GPX or 7000 with a big X-Coil. And for anyone but those few still finding the big ones deep on a regular basis nothing that will change anything. Most U.S. patches in particular simply don't have those monster nuggets at depth that people dream of. The 7000 and 6000 have already bled them close to dry. We have hit the wall not only in electronic terms but even more importantly in geological terms. Peter Charlesworth picked a very good time to retire. Go out at the top of your game. I have a ton of respect for Peter and his retirement is a message of sorts for those who follow the business of business. Long story short, next generation my prediction is a small gain at best, so small it won’t make any real difference over returns being seen with machines that we already have at our disposal. I actually hope I am wrong, and I hope I am eating crow and apologizing to you, and acknowledging you were right and I was wrong. Nothing would make me happier!

More news...I have purchased another GPZ 7000 and couldn't be happier with the performance. Like night and day! ....but so is the weight. Back onto multiple targets with the 7000 instead of target free ground noise from the Axiom. I have some new x-coils on the way and might Frankenstein the 7000 internals into a custom design to combat the weight with smaller battery pack. Who knows??? To Garrett's credit, their unwavering customer service in the face of disgruntled customers (AKA - "me") they are sending a replacement (not new because they have their hands tied in Australia as to what they can deem faulty???) detector which I eagerly await testing to see if it is an idiosyncrasy of the detector or the detectorist....?

Yeah we are tripping over semantics. When I and the other guys sit around the campfire and talk PI detectors and the detection "hole" what we are all referring to is the gold that is lost in the "holes" in different timing scheme. From our perspective every GPX 5000 timing has a hole of some sort, in that gold you miss in one timing can be detected in a different timing. The gold "falls in the hole." So when people are talking here on this forum that is what we mean by the term "hole" - a layman's definition as opposed to an engineers mathematical definition. I am sure I do not know the exact reasons why this happens but it is easy to show in the field with a GPX 5000 and it's multitude of timings. The problem historically is most 5000 users really did not know the timings scheme well enough to do more than half guess at what they should be running, and often a favorite setting got used everywhere. The only way to do it right was to hunt a patch multiple times with multiple settings. For me personally it feels like an over filtering issue. In bad ground with hot rocks I can apply progressively higher levels of ground compensation. As I ramp up the ground cancellation the machine gets quieter, but at the same time my gold responses drop off. My tuning methodology usually involves riding the edge as close as possible and dealing with some noise and some hot rocks. If I kill the ground completely, kill the hot rocks completely, I will inevitably do a full reset and start over. The Axiom in particular with its hot rock window I can force higher levels of ground and hot rock rejection, but then all the sudden I know I have gone to far, and do a reset. I just know for a lot of years of doing this that the more aggressive the ground cancellation, the more gold that gets missed. Gold grades imperceptibly with depth and mineralization into the ground signal until they are one and the same. The GPZ 7000 was a direct answer to that in attempting to get a machine that would find as much gold as possible in a single pass with as few settings as possible. Garrett referred to this issue on the 5000 and earlier GPX models in their ATX advertising...

I didn't sell it but decided to return it to Algoforce for a refund. The Sadie is the recommended coil Algoforce its even in the manual. I also tried a Nugget finder 18", a Coiltek 9" Elite as well as my Minelab 15" semi elliptical. I did side by side target comparisons with 7000, 6000, 5000, 2300, equinox 900 and gold monster. It on air tests it it was only beaten by the 7000 and the monster and Equinox 900 which with their small coils could our smallest piece of 0.006g. On targets in the ground it saw every target the 6000 and 2300 found again it couldn't see one target in a larger piece of quarts that a monster found. For me the biggest issue is the ground balance, hunting mulloch heaps were the ground from each layer discarded can be completely different I would keep getting me the appearance of clear targets but end up being just ground noise. There isn't a dedicated ground balance button or trigger, in fact the ground balance is the second function of the right arrow button to toggle through the function menu. A long press on thus button activates ground balance you can release the button at any time but I likes to wait for the two confirmation beeps from the machine. This could take a very long time easily over twenty seconds sometimes. As I want a machine I can work fast to cover more ground, l don't like having to look at the screen to check how far the ground balance is out, then waste time re ground balancing every few meters. On consistent ground I am sure it will do well. Just for me, on the same ground one after each other with the E1500 always going first I found substantial more gold with both the 2300 and gold monster. We all want a new machine to find us more gold than our old ones, so this the ultimate reason why I am returning it.

Difficult and High Yield can run at the same time. If changing from High Yield into General (or vice versa), I check my ferrite balance. Now I'm usually in Semi Auto GB, so I can ground balance by just pumping the coil, but the ferrite balance needs to be done with the Quick Trak button. So if I'm not getting a response from the ferrite, I just pump the coil and go. If I am getting a response, then press Quick Trak and sweep over the ferrite until it's no longer responding. The machine saves a different ferrite balance for each Ground Type/Gold Mode combination, so you only have to do it once.

I don't think you're supposed to peel that sticker as that might be a long term concern regarding adhesion. , You're supposed to actually pop the speaker. Make sure the silicone grease you used was food grade and not petroleum based. This was posted awhile back on how to do the Manitocore/900/7000 battery changeout: Regarding the potential vulnerabilities, warranty should cover it if its a design or manufacturing issue but I am unaware of any drowning issues with the 900 like those reported for the 600/800. HTH

Hi Red Bluff, I’m just north of you in the Siskiyou’s. There are a lot of factors involved, like is the weight of the machine and cost an issue? If not then next question is do you primarily detect in the creek or rivers and backpack in, if so then an SDC 2300 is a good option. Do you detect quite often and can get really familiar with your detector on dry land and want a very versatile detector, then the 5000, Algoforce, or Axiom is a great option. GPX 5000 does struggles on porous specs though and is a detector that’s requires a lot of learning time to get the most out of it Do you detect rarely and want a turn on and go detector like the Goldmonster then probably a GPX 6000, especially if you primarily find specimen gold or smaller shallow gold. Do you want a detector that can go deep on larger nuggets and also find specimen gold, then a GPZ 7000. I offer free training if you want to come up for a day and I’ll show you how simple the 5000 can be.

Unless you're going to areas that haven't seen much detector activity, they've likely seen the older GPX series go over them many times, and that's the problem, it's going to be hard to find much gold if any. The GPX 5000 is a brilliant detector, but it's not going to find something that it's already found before and that's where newer detectors and even coils have helped people, finding gold that was missed with earlier models. I'm not saying you won't find gold with a 5000, you likely will, especially if you put the effort in and perhaps find some ground that was missed for whatever reason, it's a big country, surely a coil hasn't covered every drop of gold bearing ground. Your odds are just higher with a detector that hasn't had so much use in the area. Around here the ground I've detected was heavily hit with the earlier GP and GPX series, I came along late to the party and tried with the 4500, while I did find the occasional bit that was missed for whatever reason it was a struggle, changing to the GPZ and 6000 changed that and I was finding way more gold than ever before. I preferred using my Gold Monster and Equinox over my 4500 for this reason, they were finding me more gold than the earlier GPX detectors. I don't know how the Axiom would go for you but if it finds gold the 5000 misses which I believe it does, then it may be a better choice, and Gerry from Gerrys detectors has one for sale at the moment for a great price. He also has the 5000, 6000 and 7000 for sale in that lot, with the 6000 and 7000 worth looking into if they meet your budget.

changing from difficult to high yield would need a GB again, do you use ferrite ring and quick track together to go through again or just pump the coil? Thanks.

Calm down ladies, if this was a Minelab battery it would be using USB-ML not USB-C with a funky connector that is different to anything you've seen before🙂 They would put a chip in the battery so it can only power the Equinox, Manticore and other Minelab USB powered detectors, Its plastic would resemble the Strawberry Ice Cream container you opened to tuck into your desert tonight and last but not least the USB-ML connector would twist wildly when you tried to plug your USB-ML cable into it. This thing is cheap compared to a Minelab battery for the 5000, 6000 or 7000. 😁

I had a chance in 2010 to buy the best detector, a 5000 and start doing something I'd never done before. I started going out into the desert looking for gold. To say I didn't know much about it would be an understatement. I did think I could get the best detector and I would find things easily. That is not what happened. The detector was fine but I didn't know where to use it and what to listen for. About a year later I found my first nugget in a tailing pile. That somewhat satisfied the where part but I still had a problem with the what to listen for stuff. I couldn't hear gold and I couldn't hear little meteorites. I wasn't adjusted right. At this point the ability to think and perform a bit outside of the box became worthwhile. I got lucky with finding a nice nugget in a non-nugget location. I kept that in mind and when I upgraded my coil I went back to that same area and I got 'lucky' again with another larger nugget. Upgrading to the 7000 was not the same type of increase in nugget size. I've mostly gone back to where gold has been found before and sizeable nuggets just are not there. Enjoy your walk-abouts. Carry a detector and you will find some missed gold but go one canyon over and you might still find a big nugget.

Yep watched them, I'd like to see the 22" concentric X-coil on the 7000 compared to the modded 5000 with some similar sized coils. Also a modded SD2200 compared with a modded gpx5000 with the same large coil on a larger, deeper target. At the moment my fully modified SD2200 has the edge over my standard gpx5000 with the larger coils and a deep test target. Would the modded 5000 equal the modded SD2200 or better it? If it's better by how much?

For various reasons I'm going over metal detecting stuff and gun stuff at the same time. And it occurred to me that an analogy could be made. 95 percent of people that hunt can't shoot as accurately as their gun can. Buying a sub minute accurate rifle for hunting is generally a waste of money unless you practice and are dialed in to your rifle at at all ranges. Spending the money on a $1500+ dollar rifle is not going to make you any better if you don't improve your own game. How many of you out there are hoping to to find the big nugget because you spent $7000 + dollars for new technology that you don't learn to use? I'm not trying to bash anyone, but rather encourage learning the machine you have to to get optimum results. And there is certainly a cost/ benefit equation. I don't detect enough to justify a gpz but have used a used 4500 enough to to get my money out of it if only for the satisfaction of the hunt. My wife and I have spent countless hours using an Equinox 800 and have been fully rewarded for our efforts if only for the time spent learning the machine. The ultimate goal is to come away with a profit ( monetary or historical ) and that is why it is worth while to pursue. I want to find gold..but I know that I have to research, practice and spend the time with the coil to the ground and pay attention to what I'm doing, hearing, and the results I get. I know this isn't technical and a deep dive into electronics but i would like to hear back from some you that make a living or spend a lot of time dedicated to this game.

I'm debating whether to sell my gpx5000 or get mick to mod it. I've got a modded SD2200 and would love to see a comparison between a modified SD2200 and a modified gpx5000 with the same large coil on a larger deeper target. If the results were similar I'd probably sell the 5000 and get the large concentric X-coil for my 7000. Then again I'd like to see a comparison between the modded 5000 with similar size coil and and a 7000 with the X- coil. Sitting on the fence at the moment. 🤔

One of my customers just shared last weeks finds. 4 days in AZ swinging the GPZ-7000 and recovers 42 pieces. 39+ grams of beautiful chunky nuggets. Largest was a 1/4 oz'er. Depths of the varying nuggets was from 10" to 24" deep. Just goes to show there is still gold out there. If you're new to the game and want to speed up your game, contact me as we have a 3 Day Field Training session coming up in April at famous Rye Patch, NV.

Well without getting much into this it's both. My TDI vs MXT was comparing a low power PI to a good VLF. Even with high power PI it is a generally known fact that PI compares poorly to VLF in air tests because it is the ground that accentuates the difference between the two. But target size is also very important, and as the targets get larger a PI will pull ahead of a VLF even in the mildest soils. There is also the wild card of the GPZ 7000 to consider. Some might be considering it a PI, and if so it does beat VLF across the board easily even in mild soil on all but the tiniest targets. But it's not actually a PI per se but a whole different beast, Zero Voltage technology. This is one area where air tests are applicable as being the same as the mildest of mildest soils. Test a GPX 6000 on a dime size target against a Manticore and see what you get. Other than that seems like a tempest in a tea pot. PI people usually like PI and VLF people like VLF and whatever floats your boat I say. In general, for most people my old saying does work pretty well "Use a VLF when you can and a PI when you have to." Thanks for the plug Chase.

I hope they call the next generation E1500 the E1600, that way I can get the detectors for $1,500 & $1,600 🙃and still be able to use the interchangeable coils and battery systems. When backpacking in the outback all I would need to do is bring one detector with two pods, then switch out the pod when going for smaller gold and vice-versa for deeper gold detection. This Algoforce has so much potential to expand. Currently most top end Pulse Induction detectors such as GPX 6000, GPZ 7000, SDC 2300, Axiom, Garrett ATX, have no interchangeability with coils or shaft systems., so if Algoforce can bring back the good ole days of SD/GP/GPX interchangeable components, then zippy do da. All the way. 😄

Yep, this is just the start and what a start it is. Thinking further, 6000 owners will appreciate the E1500's hot rock handling, it's EMI handling, they don't need to throw on some crazy 14" DD coil and maybe they'll find a use for the Target ID's for prospecting, if not for general use they are great. 7000 owners will be appreciating its light weight, super light weight I should say, ability to run a zillion coils of all shapes and sizes that the GPZ severely lacks so they will benefit greatly in areas where they couldn't even get their coil to the soil. There are likely plenty more reasons too, I'm just learning it now, I haven't even experimented with big coils and bigger target depths, and switching into the normal or large gold modes.