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I know it is really early in the bout. But possibly is the new kid on the block going to knock out the reining champion of many many years in the gold nugget VLF sport? I'm hearing so many good things about the GM 1000. And I'm really leaning on getting one soon. Hearing so many good reports from " Average Joe" dectectorists. I have had way more experience and success with Minelab detectors than any other brands. So I guess I speak Minelabbian better than anything else. My gut feeling thinks that we might be crowing a new Welterweight Champ. I guess time will tell?????

From back in May when i first found my little nugget patch. Some of the smaller pieces of gold in this spot would ring up to the iron side, but since almost every target in this spot is gold, it shows you that on small gold the probability indicator should be ignored. Some nice gold for only an hour or so spent detecting. Will have more videos to come, im slowly working through my backlog. Thanks for watching!

Some of you may know what it is like to swing a large PI detector. It can turn into a job and not be fun even though the weight of gold found is good. I have used a GB 2 since it first came out and when I break it out I call that therapy. Recently Gerry's Detectors helped me obtain a Goldmonster to add to my many detectors. Thanks Gerry. I did not know what to expect , I just needed something to have as a loaner. Was not really impressed by the rod as it is a 3 piece screw together type. The big coil looks funny and the ergonomics are sort of out of balance. Well that all went away when i turned it on. The photo shows the result of the first three outings. I am very impressed. I never thought i would put my GB2 in the corner. Fisher needs a wake up call. Sorry I am the most die hard GB2 fan out there but this detector with the 5 inch round coil is amazing. Turn on and go. Rechargeable batteries and great response on the smallest gold. Did not even use headphones. The Bug 2 is better in some ways (hot rocks) but is in need of a total update. Heavier cables , push button, possibly a 71HZ Gold Bug Pro type package. I hear the Equinox is as good for gold. I guess i have some testing to do. I could easily put the heavier GPZ away for awhile and just go back to small coil detecting. If I can figure out the Equinox I could find old coins and small gold with one machine on the same day. This must be Steve's approach. Tired of heavy detectors.

New Treasure Talk entry... http://www.minelab.com/anz/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/understanding-the-sensitivity-control-on-the-gold-monster-1000 What the Automatic Signal Processing is actually doing (advanced description) Another performance advantage of the two Auto settings (hidden from the user) is that both the sensitivity resolution and adjustment range actually go way beyond what can be displayed via the LCD segments: Where there are ten Manual settings to choose from, the GOLD MONSTER signal processing will automatically make the optimum choice from well over 10,000 incremental steps. Where Manual 10 is the maximum level that can be user selected, the auto level selected may range above 10 if the ambient and ground conditions allow, giving a greater sensitivity than manual will ever be able to achieve.

Hi all, just wanna show u this find ,was in a breccia pipe, its not gold but its beautiful too ,cuprite crystal with native copper thanks to the gold monster, regards ?

Just wondering on peoples thoughts on how the GM would go on the beach, I am looking at buying one to use for hunting nuggets and cleaning up patches, but I go to the coast several times a year so it would be nice to still have a swing while on holidays. I have seen some commentary about them being okay at finding gold chains etc and I know I will dig a lot of junk, just after thoughts. Thanks in advance.

Hay guys so I live in nz and I sold my gm1000 and nox 800 to clear few bills etc great machines found alot small gold with both .. kept my gpx4500 but thinking of getting a whites 24k double coil pack to try out here in nz as my vlf but I am alittle worried as they have been out for few months now but I cant find one video on them on you tube apart from dealers ones or people with dealers . I would of thought by now someone would of did some testing or direct comparisons to gm1000 etc. Also as theres now no whites dealers in nz does anyone know a good one in aus that ships to nz ? I'm hoping with right set up they will be as good as monster on small gold in low to med ground but less prone to coil noise at high sensitivity and advice opinions welcome. Minelab Gold Monster 1000 and White's Goldmaster 24K gold nugget detectors

So my new Whites 24k arrived this morning finally after some issues with New Zealand post "before I begin I must give a big shout out to the guys at sneedens who are brokers for customs etc they made everything very simple for me... Right back to the detecter.. I wasn't sure what to expect as there is very little information out there bar the odd person and dealers pushing it. As I've owned many detectors over the years minelab grew on me as my favorite mainly because they were simply superior to the rest. Anyway I wiped up a unboxing video I then moved on to do some playing just with air tests and tho they are just that air tests I was pretty dam gobsmacked to say the least as it was pouring down out side icouldn't venture out to do some ground tests but from the air tests it's got the monster for depth The rain finally gave up this arvo so I grabed some gold ranging from non registering to 1.68 gm and in between. And set out for a spot close to me that was one of the big gold rush areas , now I'd taken the gm1000 here before and it was quite chatty in the upper sensitivity regions as the gm1000 is generally. Now once there I had a play with the 24k just with settings etc and to my surprise the ground there registered 90 on the ground balance to hot as hell was no wonder the gm1000 struggeled here but I was running the 24k max sens 10 vsat lowest it goes and the threshold was rock stable I was using locked ground balance and I do have to say that both the ground grab and xgb was incredibly quick to balance. No the ground is full of black sand so it did kill the depth on targets but not as much as I thought and I could still get the 0.00 non registering bit even with a layer ground on top . But I have already found a quirk with this machine that's a positive if you put it in xgb but run it with a negative ground balance of about - 2 for 30 seconds or so then lock it change it to positive 2 and then manual ground grab the machine goes as quiet as a church mouse with just the threshold hum no hot rock or ground feed back only targets make any noise.. But it hit every target clean and at good depth that 6 inch round is impressive but I can't wait for the 4x6 early next month... Now I also found the threshold as almost to stable for the sensitivity as I said I started on max and was stable as with bit of ground noise that I was able to get rid of as mentioned above. Now when I turned the sensitivity down to 7 I gained depth.. Lol yes gained I think on 10 it was geting over loaded by the black sand abit even tho my threshold was rock solid I gave up playing with my gold targets and went for we hunt knowing people use it for sighting in rifles there and I managed to pick out lead fragment one after the other as I went along.. Also worth noting there is Zero and I mean zero coil noise you can bash it scrape it knock it on things and not a peep... its going to be a learning curve to learn its qurkes but so far I have to say it beats the monster in just about every aspect apart from the monster being able to be custom made on broom stick or bush branch lol..

I am just back from a little detector outing and while I was at it I reflected on how once again I seem to do things a bit differently than other people. I am usually shy of talking about my specific settings because I am the last person to claim I know what's best when it comes to other people and how they detect. Ground conditions vary as do people's personal styles and preferences. Therefore I will include my usual caveat here that I am not claiming what I am doing is "the best" way of doing things. On the other hand I do seem to be able to make detectors deliver for me and I am willing to share how I do things in case it may help somebody else. Hopefully that proves to be the case with this post. For me the key is knowing my detector and how it reacts on my ground. I then let the detector tell me what to do when it comes to balancing sensitivity and ground responses. The task at hand has a lot to do with it. The Minelab Gold Monster 1000 is from my perspective two different detectors in one package. There are two basic tasks I usually expect to perform with it: 1. I have an acre of ground I want to detect from end to end. This for me requires using the larger of the two coils included with the GM1000, a blunt tipped 10" DD elliptical. Due to the GM1000 being a very high gain detector in more ways than one, my basic goal here is stability. I want the machine to be well behaved so that I can cover ground relatively quickly without having to deal with spurious false signals that require analysis. I am going to sacrifice a little theoretical "hots" in order to efficiently cover large areas, areas that may or may not contain gold. 2. I have a 20 foot by 20 foot area that I already know has small gold in it. My goal here is not to cover ground but to clean out the gold. This will at minimum mean running the Gold Monster as hot as possible, and may very well include going to the smaller of the two coils, a 5" round DD. However, I can find gold down around the 1/10th grain (480 grains per Troy ounce) region with the 10" coil and it will hit the larger bits at greater depth in milder ground so I am generally going to stick with the 10" coil unless I really am trying to get the very last flyspecks. What follows is predicated on the moderately mineralized ground of northern Nevada, where alkali (salt) ground is as much or more a consideration as small hot rocks. Even small depressions like a hoof print will collect water during a rain, and when almost but not completely dried the small damp spot may create a positive signal if the Gold Monster is running at high sensitivity levels. Once again I will warn that the specific settings I mention will vary under different ground conditions. Under the first scenario where I am trying to cover large areas I have found both manual sensitivity and auto sensitivity to be useful. Deciding between the two is as simple as knowing how variable the ground is. If the ground is relatively homogenous with minimal variation then manual sensitivity can work very well. If the ground gets too variable requiring constant burdensome adjustments of the sensitivity control to keep up, then going to auto sensitivity is more efficient. What does that mean in actual practice? Let's go over that but first I need to discuss the power up procedure. Much has been made of the necessity to hold the coil in the air as opposed to on the ground when the detector is first powered up. I will admit I am perhaps less stringent as regards that procedure. If I have any nearby electrical power sources, like a power line, cell tower, another detectorist nearby, etc. then I will raise the coil off the ground and point it directly at the tower or other person. This gives the GM1000 the best chance of "seeing" the interference during the few seconds frequency scan so possible interference can be eliminated or at least reduced as much as possible. However, in the interest of being completely honest, I have not found the Gold Monster at 45 kHz to be particularly sensitive to electrical interference and while in the middle of nowhere Nevada I often just turn the machine on and go about my business will no ill effects noted. The raise coil and point at nearest electrical source is a very good habit to develop, but in my experience at least it is not as critical for me as it appears to be for others. I am always going to use the deep seeking all metal mode whenever possible. This is not just because this mode goes deeper, but also because the coil is more forgiving about reporting items that are not centered well under the coil. The discrimination mode has the net effect of reducing the overall size of the detection area under the coil. This means that when running in the iron discrimination mode more care should be used to overlap sweeps. When my goal is covering ground that little bit of extra ground coverage per sweep does add up and all metal mode helps reduce the chance a nugget will be missed on any given sweep. The Gold Monster is noteworthy in that Minelab finally seems to have realized that the speaker actually needs to be loud enough to hear! I am quite enthralled by the boosted audio and the way the smallest targets pop even with my admittedly poor hearing. In fact, the Gold Monster bangs out so loud without headphones that I will often run a notch down from the maximum volume setting - it's so loud that in quiet locations it can be too loud. The volume control is also a secondary sensitivity control in a way, and so I usually run it full out. I do this as much to help create a forced threshold sound as to enhance my ability to hear small targets. More on that later. One of the greatest features on the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 is the automatic ground tracking. In my ground at least it is very efficient at effortlessly keeping up not only with ground conditions but in taking the edge off many hot rocks that would be problematic for other detectors. The beauty of this is that it eliminates the need to keep up with and make small adjustments to the ground balance control as would be the case with a detector that lacks an efficient automatic ground balance. I think most companies are equivalent when it comes to many features, but I do think when it comes to automatic ground tracking technology that Minelab has been and continues to be the industry leader. I was a "manual tuning only" diehard for a long time, but my experiences with the Minelab SDC 2300 in particular taught me to let go of that old thought process. The automatic ground tracking shifts the burden to the sensitivity control as the prime operational control on the GM1000. Minelab has positioned this control close enough to the center of the control panel that it is easily manipulated up or down with a thumb press by either left or right handed individuals. To summarize, I will raise the coil and point it at the nearest electrical source and then I will power the detector up and wait until it completes the frequency scan. The Gold Monster defaults to the last settings and so my machine will already be in all metal mode, but if not I will switch to that. From there I will go to manual sensitivity setting 7 and do a short walk around sweeping the coil over the ground. For me this means the coil is sliding lightly over the ground or no more than a few millimeters over it. So far for ground I have been frequenting the magic settings are 6 - 7 - 8. With the Gold Monster at full volume what I am seeking is a very minimal amount of ground feedback. These are very soft sounds that are quite unlike the hard edged pop of a genuine target. These sounds are created by the sensitivity being so high that ground noise is just starting to overcome the ground tracking ability to silence the ground. The problem with a silent search machine while in manual ground balance mode is that without a threshold you can end up leaving some performance on the table. If a setting of eight generates a little ground feedback, and you decide to go with 7 to make the machine completely silent, there is nothing wrong with that per se. However, if the ground changes and gets milder you may have the ability to run at a higher level of sensitivity, and without a change in the audio to alert you to a change in the ground, you will just leave the setting where it is. In my case if a setting of 7 is completely silent, I will bump to a setting of 8, and this almost always gives me that little ground feedback I want. If 7 is too noisy, I will drop to a setting of 6 and this will probably do the trick for me. The range between each setting seems about perfect for a person to settle on a range of three settings, too little, too much, and just right. For my areas 6 - 7 - 8 are the magic numbers. For worse ground the range may shift lower, to 5 - 6 - 7. Try and picture this. At sensitivity 7 I am just scanning along, coil lightly on the ground, with soft ground feedback, waiting for that hard little signal that even the tiniest target will generate. Then all the sudden the machine goes dead quiet. I have entered less mineralized ground. One thumb tap to sensitivity 8, and I get my "false threshold" back. Or, at a setting of 7 the machine gets noisier. Maybe a little alkali patch or more mineralized ground. A quick tap down to 6 reduces the feedback to my desired minimal level. What I am doing is letting the ground tracking do its job, and then just bumping the sensitivity up or down a notch to ride the ragged edge of best performance for the ground. "Gee Steve, sensitivity 6 - 7 - 8, aren't you giving up lots of depth running at 6 or 7 or anything less than 10"? My air testing...." A pox on air tests! They have uses but have little bearing on how to get the best performance out of a detector in the field. I do like to run my detectors hot and that does often mean with some ground noise, but it has to be kept within manageable limits. For the purposes of covering a lot of ground pushing the GM1000 to the edge is good but any farther and everything sounds like a target and knock sensitivity shoots up dramatically, especially at the hyper sensitivity settings of 9 and 10. The reality from what I have seen so far is that the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 at settings of 6 - 7 - 8 will match or exceed most detectors in its class. Let's save manual sensitivity 9 or 10 for my next detecting scenario up next. Again, a reminder that 6 - 7 - 8 is working well for me in moderate ground. In more mineralized ground it may be 5 - 6 - 7 or even 4 - 5 - 6. If you simply listen to the machine it will tell you where you need to be. Too high, too low - just right. I have actually found gold with the sensitivity as low as 3 when in some nasty salt encrusted ground. People seem so adverse to lowering sensitivity I often wonder how many would just give up before going that low. It just can't find gold set that low, can it? Yes it can. You either tame the ground or go home and even though depth is reduced you can still find gold a low sensitivity settings if that is what it takes to get stable performance in the worst ground. So what about auto sensitivity? Simple really. If you are finding that you are having to bump the sensitivity up and down too often (you will know when that is for you) then it is time for Auto sensitivity. Auto sensitivity is different than manual in that you can trust it to keep the detector at the optimum level even if running silent. In general Auto is the silent running mode whereas Auto+ usually introduces a slight amount of ground feedback at full volume. As I mentioned earlier the volume control acts as a secondary sensitivity filter and running it lower can reduce or eliminate slight ground noise while still allowing targets to sound off loud and clear. Auto+ works best for me in most places but if need be I can drop to simple Auto for more difficult variable ground where Auto+ may get too noisy. OK, we have been hunting as described above and get a target. What next? If you are digging everything, a good practice, then just recover that target. If it is faint, either bumping the manual sensitivity up two points or dropping out of Auto into a high manual setting can aid greatly in pinpointing and recovering the target. What about trash? Too much and I don't want to dig them all? I am hunting in all metal mode and I rely on the meter to make a dig or no dig decision. In some ways it is a probability thing. If a few sweeps over the target from various directions produce a series of "hard left" ferrous meter responses, the target is likely ferrous. My goal is to try and coax a non-ferrous response with the meter kicking to the right. Just one non-ferrous response raises the odds you have a non-ferrous target. Even then I might pass in a trashy area, but two or more non-ferrous responses and you had better just dig it. Small nuggets in mineralized soil are fighting the ferrous content of the soil itself and in bad ground the ferrous ground response often wins. If you are looking for gold look for reasons to dig targets, not reasons to walk away. The amount of trash will help determine just how aggressive or lax you decide to be in these dig or no-dig decisions. Running is disc mode should be reserved for situations where there is no other option. It may be needed to eliminate a certain hot rock response. Or there may be multiple trash targets per swing - you can't analyze them all. The iron discrimination mode can be a real lifesaver in these instances. However, consider the borderline nugget that will read ferrous seven out of ten swings. That means you only have a 30% chance on a single pass over the target of having the machine give an audio non-ferrous report while in iron discrimination mode. The odds are even worse if you are not perfectly over the target, a bit too high, or swinging a little too fast. If the detector decides ferrous on that first pass, you get no sound and go right by, never knowing it was there. This is where detectors with a ferrous tone have the advantage in alerting you to every target so you can double or triple check. With a silent rejection system you get just one chance at the target and if the detector is wrong, the nugget is missed. Minelab Gold Monster 1000 Iron Discrimination Mode Versus All Metal Mode All metal is more forgiving in multiple ways, but mostly by alerting you to every target, allowing you to stop, get the coil lower if need be, slow the sweep, change the angle, etc. all with the goal of trying to coax a non-ferrous response from the target. I highly recommend that if you use discrimination you use it sparingly and conservatively, and only go to full blown iron disc mode it you must. We all have a different threshold for when that will be but rest assured hot rocks or thick trash will pretty much force the issue. That sure sounds complicated! In practice, hunting at sensitivity 6, I am going to get a signal. If it is faint, I will bump the sensitivity a couple notches now that I am on target. Too hot for general hunting but fine for spot checks. The target response will enhance, giving much surer results on the discrimination meter, and allowing for easier pinpointing and recovery. Target in pouch, sensitivity back down two notches and I am on my way again. For extreme ground JP has a bit more complicated method for getting back into the hunt as described here. For me personally hunting in moderate ground simply going back to my base sensitivity setting and swinging away is working fine. Again however, I am discussing just general detecting at this point, not getting the best and finest edge on the performance. Which leads me to.... ...that 20 foot by 20 foot spot I want to clean out. The 5" coil has an edge on the really tiny gold and in more mineralized ground in particular it "sees" less ground and is the coil of choice for cleanup duty. In moderate ground I run the Monster at manual sensitivity 10 and much like running my GPZ 7000 fully maxed out with Steve's Insanely Hot Settings I tame the machine strictly through coil control. This means moving at a crawl, and because at sensitivity 9 and especially 10 some knock sensitivity is introduced, I employ my magical ability to keep a coil 1 mm off the ground while never touching anything. In severe ground sensitivity 9 or 10 may not be attainable at all, and as always I defer to JP and his operating procedures for dealing with really bad ground. But for my milder ground I can crank the GM1000 all the way up and even with the 10" coil hit gold down to around 1/10th grain and with the 5" coil smaller yet. Again, extreme coil control is the answer here but the catch is that you are never going to cover much ground in a day doing this. If covering ground is the goal, stick with more stable settings. But if you want to chase flyspecks (they do add up) then be very patient while working the coil and the Minelab Gold Monster is pretty amazing in what it can do. I do hope this helps somebody somewhere. Again, all I am doing is telling you what I am doing and what is working for me. If you prefer to do something different by all means - I am not trying to say these settings are the "best settings" as in my opinion there simply is no such thing. The best settings for my wife would probably be Auto sensitivity while in disc mode. "Here honey, swing this closely over the ground, and if it goes beep, dig it up." Different ground and different experience levels mean different settings. Never be afraid to experiment. If you only use settings you find on a website and never experiment yourself you will never truly learn any detector and what works best for your circumstances. Good luck out there and above all, have fun! More Information On the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 Sensitivity Settings Photo below: Some gold I just found, 4.9 grams total. The top four nuggets were found with the GPZ 7000 (largest nugget 2.2 grams) and the bottom nine with the Gold Monster 1000 (smallest flake ?? gram) using the methods described above.

Finally go the video finished of comparing equinox 800 to the gold monster 1000 on in-situ targets in the field. This is my no mean the comprehensive review as im sure the settings on the equinox could be tweaked more produce even better results. But from what i saw on my ground they were vary evenly matched. The gold monster seemed to pop a little harder on the targets, but the equinox still hit all the targets the gm1000 hit. Since i detect mainly creeks the equinox has a leg up since its water proof and i dont have to worry about it getting wet or falling in the creek. Hope you guys enjoy the video and ill take more footage as i work this little patch.

Hello everyone I am french so excuse my bad english I am a goldpanning addict and I have never used a detector before... However I am interested in goldmonster 1000 but I have some questions, despite reading various topics on the forum, it's not totally clear for me. It seems that there is not a lot of GM 1000 users in France ! Almost nobody is looking for gold with a detector here, it's not Australia or California But i know some areas with 0.1 to 2 or 3 gr nuggets on the bedrock and i want to test it with a metal detector. Do you think goldmonster works properly to search for gold in a stream (river), to examine the bedrock underwater ? I know that the coil is waterproof but the detection capacity is it good underwater? And in the wet gravels on the banks of the river ? In attachment, show you my biggest nugget (2.7 gr) and some "big" pieces of gold i have found (i think GM 1000 is able to find this type of gold). Thanks for your advices ! Vince

Hi all, I've just bought a Minelab Gold Monster with Lithium batteries. My question is how do I know when the battery is charged? The mains charger has no indicator lights. Thanks, Bingo.

GM 1000------or------Equinox 800 (with small coil)?

Do you think at this price I should pick one up for a spare, or have one for someone that wants to tag along - Thanks!

I have been using the GM1000 for maybe 20 hours, covered some (often difficult and shifting) ground and found what I normally would find, mostly trash, most interesting so far an old key. So far so good. It is not impossible that there might be some gold to find, but highly unlikely. I am trying to dig every clear signal. I am mainly out to find meteorites, and I am still unsure how not to overlook a possible meteorite. Very, very often I would get a clear signal with iron characteristic. When I remove the ground cover, it often slowly fades away. Not sure what that is. Sometimes I do find small corroded iron crumbs (then the signal does not fade). But most often nothing. Also, very often the GM1000 would give a really strong signal, but it is not possible to localize, because it just fades away even before I notice if it was an iron signal or not. I assume due to the auto tracking, so this might indicate a hot rock. But what would I have to expect from a meteorite? If there is iron, also as quite tiny grains, the signal should not just fade, is this correct? So I do not have to worry about the signals from hot rocks? Thanks for help.

I’m looking for input about these three machines on what you like vs dislike on each of these detectors. Me, personally since I do not own or even seen any of these detectors will even give my own likes vs dislikes. GM1000 - I like how it is a very hot machine capable of finding small stuff and how I hear it is a turn on and go detector with only a ferrous/nonferrous indicator. I don’t know how it reacts to hot rocks or if there is away you can avoid them. The best part about these three is I hear it’s the simplest to use(thinking about my dad who is interested but doesn’t have the patience to learn machines if he ever wants to use one of mine) Equinox - again I like how it is hot on small gold and even more with the new 6” coil. I hear it’s water proof? I don’t know how complicated it can be to learn this machine or if it can read the ground for search a good spot to run a sluice. Whites 24k - pretty much if it is hot on small gold I like the idea. What I really like about this machine is it’s ability to track black sand for a possible prospect. I like the option to cancel out the iron on both the low reading numbers and the high reading numbers. I’m thinking this might be a little complicated for a newbie with all the functions but I really like the controls the machine has. Bottom line is I am trying to decide which new detector I am gonna buy next year and want to hear your likes and dislikes about each of these machines. Minelab Gold Monster 1000 Information page White's Goldmaster 24K Information page Minelab Equinox 800 Information page Minelab Gold Monster 1000 vs White's Goldmaster 24K vs Minelab Equinox

I had talked with Detector Pro on the issue of headphones for the Gold Monster 1000 and I said they would do well on sales if someone would come out with a good after market headphones. Well they thought about it and called me back informing me that they are answering the call to produce a high quality headphones for the Monster that will eliminate the external speaker sound from coming thru. These headphones are the same as the Gray Ghost headphones but were made specifically for the Gold Monster. They are the Gold Series and there will be a special headphones coming out for the Exuinox as well. The cord is a pigtail style with an 1/8" jack that shuts off the external speaker. The sound is sharp and crisp with no distortion. The pigtail cord is 6" longer than the Gray Ghost headphones and I assure you there will be no more kneeling on the cord as we all have had to deal with until we just use the Monster without headphones. I feel these headphones are very comfortable and block out external noises very well and they have a volume control on the side as well. I have the proto type as I have been asked to field test these wonderful headphones by DetectorPro.I will let everyone know when they will be available for purchase.

The GM 1000 and EQX 800 weigh about the same, and yet, one is markedly more comfortable to swing than the other, IMHO. It's mostly about shaft length - the longer "the lever", more support is needed. I had a piece of 25mm * 500mm carbon fiber shaft from a previous project, so I acquired a 1" * 7/8" telescoping collar lock from "rods by plugger" and got to work. I removed the original upper piece and swapped the components to the CF shaft. I had to spread the nylon clamps a bit, but that's about it - adjustable, telescoping, and comfortable. The lower shaft fits like a champ, and every thing so far looks good. Just thought I would share, thanks for reading.

Hi all, My name is Joseph and am a lifelong resident here in Fairbanks, Alaska. After about 8 years of searching for gold with a pan, homemade sluice and 2" suction dredge, I'd decided to take a leap (after reading a few spectacular in-depth reviews here) on purchasing Minelab's Gold Monster 1000 at the beginning of April. I have a older Bounty Hunter tr/bfr detector and a older Fisher 1212x I'd found at a pawn shop although I learned they are both ok for finding decent size metals like keys/coins and hot rocks on the surface and the Bounty Hunter has helped me find black sands a few times, but not so good on the small sub-gram gold I normally find. The snow is still on the ground here, maybe 1ft in my yard and still around 7 feet in the area I like to spend the summertime prospecting. This past week I'd taken a short drive to one of the local fishing lakes to see if I could find some ground to get a little practice in and luck was in my favor. Not being to familiar with detecting non-ferrous metals, I thought it would be a good idea to chase after some of the tin foil and lead sinkers that had been scattered all over the beach from years of people that like to hang out there. With the large coil on, I'd held the machine off the ground to power on, let it complete the air test and started out in "All Metal Mode" at "auto plus one" sensitivity and was about 30 seconds before I'd heard the first loud beep with the meter slamming to the right, it took a few moments to find out it was the first small split shot lead sinker! So on to the next few targets I'd noticed plenty of beeps with the meter going the other direction (ferrous) I'd dug them anyway to make sure and turned out being single fish hooks. What got really annoying was how overly sensitive the GM1000 is on tiny pieces of foil and I mean tiny! It screamed like it was a large target until I turned the sensitivity to manual to the 6th bar which calmed things down and helped me focus on some actual large targets. After about an hour went by I had 14 lead sinkers, 5 hooks and a few pennies, I just had to check out the 5" coil. Round 2: I'd returned to full auto plus one sensitivity and found what cherry picking really was by simply lifting the coil up just a little to see if I could make any difference in the sound getting lighter response from the smaller targets and seemed to do the trick of avoiding some (not all) of the tiny foil pieces and continued to score some good size lead, a few dimes, nickels and then my first silver which looked to be a part of a bracelet or?? Didn't matter so much as it made my day! I was happy to then try out the "gold mode" for a while as I felt really comfortable with the full auto/all metal settings. I did not like the beep..beep sound it made while ignoring the ferrous targets after hearing a more wha-zip sound I had gotten used to and doubt I'll ever use it in that environment again. (maybe in the hills?) Although the meter seemed to be spot on still. So back to it, I got to dig a few more hooks, sinkers, 2 fly's, more coins, a broken cheap ring, some tiny shotgun pellets, a few bullets, a pellet gun pellet and then the magic happened, a beep like I hadn't heard yet... My first gold with the GM1000, first with a metal detector and first gold of the year was a 1" tall pendant (brass plate) with gold flakes and is my first Initial! A true blessing as the silver was a great find for me, it still blows my mind and if I never find another flake with this machine, I couldn't be happier with how my first experience went! Thank you to all who have posted about this detector and other forms of prospecting knowledge, I hope I can do the same as I get more familiar with the gm1000 and will do my best to help contribute to any info I may provide in the future! Joseph

I need a new lower rod for my Gold Monster, any suggestions where to get one would be appreciated.............Thanks!

Was just wondering if GM1000 has VCO audio?

I have broken my head phones that came with my Minlab monster 1000. I have tried searching for another pair that will work without rewiring everything but I don't understand exactly what it is I need. Can anyone recommend a good pair of head phones for the Monster 1000?