Search the Community

I’d really like to see a genuinely effective discrimination feature integrated into high‑end ML gold detectors—whether ZVT, PI, or whatever hybrid technology emerges next. But it inevitably raises the question of how far discrimination can truly be applied in high‑performance detecting at the very edge of capability, particularly at depth. On that point, I remain skeptical. Because I mainly prospect in areas away from mining/population, Echo waves ability to differentiate between the very few ground noises of the GM2K and positive deep signals is a boom for me. However because I started out gold prospecting in mined areas I understand where you are coming from GC. Speculating once we have a larger coil behind the GM2K and have spent time swinging it may be so that Pis and ZVT have run their race with ML taking us back to VLFs with reliable discrimination. Pure speculation I emphasize. Early days I look forward to next gold season like a kid in a candy store.

Just wondering - so far I've seen lots of commentary and side-by-side testing of the GM2000 against GM1000 and Manticore, but nothing much about the 24k. I have both the GM1000 and the 24k - in many respects they are quite different detectors, but also share several worthwhile capabilities. The 24k is my preferred machine for its smoothness of operation, sensitivity/stability, and ground capabilities. Whilst reading all that is being written about the 2000, I find myself thinking..... "so, what, I've pretty much got that.....and it cost half as much" From the point of view of a new starter, is there some outstanding, must-have feature in the 2000 that warrants spending A$3k vs A$1.5k?

I made it up to a high altitude site 2.5 hours drive from my home to do some testing. Worst dirt in my area. This location has mostly really small gold from 0.15 gram to microscopic. It also has tons of magnetite and mantle type hot rocks that are metamorphosed granite. So, finding any gold with a detector is a miracle. I tested the Algoforce 1500 plus with an older Nugget Finder Advantage 10X5" coil, Deus 2 and HF2 coil using Goldfield in Pitch 2 and Pitch 1, and the new Goldmonster 2000 with the 5" coil in A2, Difficult soil with Echo Wave audio ON. The dirt at the test sight has been mined and is unsorted small pebble to house sized boulder metamorphosed granite with no structure. Disturbing the top few inches of the ground is no big deal since it has been totally disturbed already. Targets are 0.04 gram gold nugget at 1" depth, 0.1 gram gold nugget at 2" depth, and a 0.15 gram gold nugget at 3" depth. This is not a comparison video. I don't say much and I don't want to influence anyone unless they ask my opinion. Sorry for my disjointed speech. I have a speech impediment and stuttered really bad until I got some help early in life. Before the test, I hunted with the Goldmonster 2000 for about 2 hours. After the first 30 minutes of getting used to it and digging many hot rocks and a few iron/magnetite targets to get the feel for them, due to limited time, I got much more selective and just dug anything with a target ID below 10. Most of the hot rock target IDs and the larger magnetite and nails had target IDs above 10 with iron audio responses and iron probability graph responses. I hit my first small non ferrous target and it had the typical high-low-high-low audio response and an 02 target ID. It was a small shotgun pellet. I recovered several more lead targets and one small 0.04 gram gold mini nugget. I didn't have much time for this hunt with 5 hours of driving round trip but I have to say, the time spent with the Goldmonster 2000 was the most enjoyable that I have ever had running a VLF at this site. The Goldmonster 2000 audio is just the way I like it. It is almost like Whites Mixed Mode audio with the addition of that really high pitched extra non ferrous tone and with a very pulse induction type flavor to the audio instead of just the typical VCO gold prospecting specific VLF detector type audio that can get old fast. The threshold tone was super nice and only got a little chatty when aircraft flew over the site. The test area was about 30 yards from some big power lines. No way I could run an Equinox, SDC 2300 or a GPX using a mono coil that close to those power lines without lots of EMI issues. Also, the smaller magnetite bits and the numerous hot rocks were simply not an issue. I could hear them often but their audio and displayed responses were easy to interpret. The GM2K's automatic ground tracking worked great. I am VERY impressed with the GM2K. Thanks to everyone from OZ, especially JP and USA based Steve H. and Andrew for all of their fair and honest information about this new detector. I haven't been this happy with a detector since the original Equinox release.

I finally had the opportunity to take the GM2K out for a test trip in the Sierra Nevada mountains, choosing a location that I know from experience is characterized by hot ground and the presence of hot rocks, conditions that have consistently proven to be very difficult for most detectors to handle effectively. This particular area has, for the most part, been essentially unworkable with either the Manticore or the 6000, as both of those machines tend to become unstable and erratic when confronted with the mineralization and ground noise that dominate here. When I powered on the GM2K, the very first thing that struck me was how remarkably stable the machine ran right from the start. I began my testing in Normal A2, and even in that mode the detector was surprisingly well behaved, producing a threshold that was manageable and consistent. When I switched over to Difficult, however, the threshold became practically completely stable, to the point where I was genuinely baffled, because this type of performance is so uncharacteristic for a VLF detector operating in ground of this nature. What surprised me even more was that despite this unusual level of stability, the GM2K retained excellent sensitivity to small test nuggets, delivering clear and distinct audio responses at depths of up to two to three inches depending on the size and shape of the nugget. The probability meter performed fairly accurately down to about two inches, though beyond that depth its readings became more uncertain, which is not unexpected. Nevertheless, just a few scrapes of soil over the target made all the difference, and as the coil was brought closer to the target the accuracy of the probability meter improved significantly, behaving in the same way that other VLF detectors typically do that have this feature. I chose to run the machine with the internal speaker, and the absence of advanced headset capability did not bother me in the slightest, since I generally operate all of my VLF detectors using the speaker rather than headphones. The Echo Wave feature proved to be a particularly useful tool during my testing. I deliberately kept it turned off at first, wanting to establish a baseline impression of the detector’s audio response without it, and only later did I switch it on in order to compare a target signal with and without Echo Wave engaged. The difference was immediately noticeable, as the superimposed tone—whether high or low—became much more audible in direct comparison, providing a final clue that helped confirm the target. This practice of toggling Echo Wave on and off to compare signals is something I can highly recommend, as it adds another layer of confidence in interpreting responses. Throughout the majority of the trip I remained in A2, using the sensitivity reading as a way to monitor ground conditions. I observed that in Normal mode the sensitivity was significantly reduced, often dropping down to four and sometimes even three, whereas in Difficult mode the sensitivity consistently remained around eight. The target responses in Difficult were much more pronounced than in Normal, which in this particular ground is a strong testament to the fact that Difficult can, counterintuitively, be overall more sensitive at times. I have to say that I truly love this machine. I am amazed at how stable it runs, and the ground handling is thus far the best I have ever seen in any VLF detector, surpassing even the 6000 when it comes to shallow hunting with hotrocks around. By comparison, the Manticore is completely useless in this type of ground in gold mode unless sensitivity is reduced to about fifteen or below, and even then it remains far more erratic and unstable. The GM2K also has the advantage of not being bump-sensitive, which is a persistent problem with the Manticore even when using the lower fiberglass rod. In summary, the GM2K is a fantastic machine for ground handling and discrimination, and it represents a true game changer for patch hunting. It delivers all the benefits of a highly sensitive VLF detector while at the same time offering ground-handling capabilities that approach those of a PI detector like the SDC. Having used the Manticore extensively, I can say with confidence that the GM2K is by far the superior machine for shallow gold hunting, and it will open up new opportunities that no other VLF detector I have used—including the GB2, GM1, Manticore, and XP Deus—has been able to achieve. In my opinion, this is an amazing advancement in the VLF detector arena, and it is something I have been waiting for a very long time. The photos below show the hot ground of the test area as well as a couple of nuggets I was able to recover during this trip, further underscoring the capabilities of this remarkable detector. GC

This test was done in hot ground and it's pretty clear the Manticore has an advantage over the Gold Monster 2000 in this scenario. Couple of observations-GM2 is much easier on the ears than the Manticore and that might be best choice for some people. GM2 is also way easier to setup where as the Manticore you have to make a lot of initial adjustments on a new site to get it to run decent on various ground types. The Manticore also is running a slightly larger coil and if the GM2 had a 6x10 on it may have hit those deeper nuggets just fine. I've heard a few early users say they could cherry pick targets with the GM2 and I think you're making a big mistake if you think that's going to be the case. Just in the few hours I've run the GM2, I can see it's just as prone to calling good targets junk, as any other VLF out there. So it's still a dig it all machine unless it's a surface target IMO. Overall I think the GM2 is a pretty solid machine, especially for new users or people who just want a mild mannered good performing gold nugget VLF detector.

I was hoping this new GM2K is at least as good as my previous older Gold Bug 2's. From what Aureous and others have said so far on the forums it seems the Gold Monster 2000 is better in most respects than the older gold bug 2 would that be correct to say? I really like the timings aspect, low hz audio for hot rocks, etc. Sounds like we may be able to shorten time between targets considerable over the old Gold Bug 2?? I already own the new Gold Monster 2000 but with winter and bad weather doubt I will get to use it much before spring.

Hi Nikko. I have got dilemma in this time. I am from Czech republic And we have got very low mineralization And very small alluvial Gold. Buy GB2 or Minelab Gold Monster 2000? Thank Martin (I have got Makro Gold Racer, Nokta Legend, Nokta Gold Finder 2000, Tesoro Lobo Super Traq, Falcon MD20 And GoldSpear)

@phrunt if you get time could you compare the GM2000 to the Algoforce?

How does the E1500 compare to the GM2000?

I know especially on social media there has been a lot of confusion around the PI side of the GM 2000, people would argue it has PI receive on it to the death and they are completely wrong, it's a VLF and nothing more.. The manual has cleared it up Multi‑Au™ Multi‑Au™ is Minelab’s simultaneous multi‑frequency (Multi‑IQ™) technology, purpose‑built for gold detection. It builds on the Multi‑IQ technology used in coin and treasure detectors, combining Multi‑Frequency VLF operation with signal‑processing techniques inspired by Pulse Induction (PI) technology. The result is exceptional ground balance across all soil types and improved discrimination that helps users distinguish gold from iron and hot rocks So there you have it, it's Multi-IQ configured to be better for gold prospecting, using different frequencies to the Manticore. For me it's not really any better in hot rocks, so it must be the Aussie ones it handles better 🙂 This bit of their speil is funny, 0.01 is often undetectable to other gold detectors, certainly not other VLF gold detectors. Gold Monster 2000 employs multiple frequencies between 12 and 75 kHz, (compared to a single frequency 45 kHz in the Gold Monster 1000) ensuring sensitivity to the widest range of nugget sizes, down to the very smallest (including below 0.01 g), often undetectable to other gold detectors. You can download the manual here. The manual constantly compares it to single frequency VLF's, it avoids mentioning the other highly capable multi-IQ machines and for good reason. This is the sad bit for me with my mild soils, I should have waited until the manual was out before buying. Users comparing the performance of the Gold Monster 2000 with other single frequency VLF detectors will see comparable or slightly better performance in extremely benign or very low mineralisation soils, and significantly increased performance in mineralised soils.

$3K AUD for this flyshit collector, and no Bluetooth / wireless audio! And it still falls over on uneven ground. What a joke Minelab! NOT GOOD ENOUGH in this day and age! 🙄 Rick

So we have two new Minelab Trademarks listed on IP Australia today. 2550953 - Echo Wave 2550937 - Multi-AU Echo Wave - maybe amplification of faint signals? Gold machine or a new relic VLF? Multi-Au - so multi gold - certainly in favour of multiplying my gold finds! This one must be for a gold detector but the $1m dollar question is it the mythical GPZ8000 ? The logo is interesting - maybe a visual dig/no dig indicator for gold target? Note - no new trademark registrations for an actual metal detector ie GPZ8000 - just some new system names like Geo Sense I am sure others will have better guesses than mine as to what they could be.

Does anyone have any opinion on which detector is better the Minelab gold monster or the garrett 24k ?

As chance would have it I have recently received two new in box detectors through unrelated trades. A Garrett 24k goldmaster and a Minelab Gold Monster 1000. I would normally just take them both out and use them to see what I like best as my VLF machine but since they are both new in the box I don't want to hurt their potential value. I'm stuck considering keeping one of them or perhaps trading in both to get a Nox 900. Not sure if they could snag me one together though. Points to consider that are important to me are 1: I primarily prospect for gold but do like to coin and relic hunt when I come across old 49er cabins. Would ultimately like a Manticore but a Nox would be good if I could trade these in and come out even without having to spend more. 2. If I can't find a sale or trade that allows me to get a NOX 900 without spending more I would want to just keep one of these detectors and sell the other. 3. I don't mind extra setting like the 24k has so if it's better on gold and trash than the monster than I'm ok with that. In other words I want performance over ease of use. I have experience with the NOX and Monster but never the 24k. I know this forum has some knowledgable folks so I appreciate any experience you wish to share. I suppose the variable is what I could get for these unused detectors because I imagine the NOX is what I really want as it can fulfill my protecting needs and relic/coin desires. Thanks Chuck

1/1/23 Important note from Steve H: Chris made this video before the Axiom was finalized using a prototype detector. The sensitivity was significantly boosted in the shipping version of the detector. As far as hot rocks Chris also did not make use of the hot rock rejection window on the Axiom as shipped in the final version. Garrett Axiom and the SDC-2300 side by side, very interesting.

As old as I am, I am nearly new to gold field prospecting. I am helping an even older friend re-establish some claims he had 40 years ago in the Northern High Sierras of California. The claim in question has copper, and iron, sulfides next to each other - with free milling micron gold. We have only opened up a short length of the ore body for examination at this time. But, I want to detect along the strike, and hope to find out if there are any gold stringer veins, small pockets of larger than micron gold, or any aspect of significance near the surface. Nothing stands out visually at this time. There is a fair to large amount of iron sulfides in the ore body. The area has had little in the way of hydraulic action from run off. But what the heck, a little exploration never hurt anybody. So - my question is: Minelab is coming out with the Manticore in 2-3 months and it has a Gold Field feature. I wonder if this will work as well, or better, than the Gold Monster 1000 in our location? If any one has knowledge of the comparison, of knows of, or hears of, a review of the Manticore Gold Field mode vs the Gold Monster 1000 I would really appreciate hearing from you. There's also an area of ancient river bed, on the side of a hill, that I would like to explore with a detector. I will be purchasing one, or the other, depending on which will be more capable in our location. Thank you.

There is a creek nearby to me that is gold bearing, in fact it's the first place I found nuggets with a detector finding over 2 grams with 6 nuggets on my first venture up the creek. the creek is on a mountainside and it's a public fossicking area which means anyone can go and detect or sluice in it, its set aside by the government for public use. This means it's been done by many people but people miss gold, and new gold gets washed down it during flooding events. The problem I've always had with the creek is the bottom surface of it especially the bedrock is difficult for detectors, they have trouble ground balancing on it, the GM1000 reacts quite badly to it and the many hot rocks in the creek so you spend your day looking at it's screen and gold probability meter trying to work out if one of the thousands of signal you've got are likely to be a bit of gold. The Equinox wasn't much better in all metal it was going off all the time with -8 and -9 and random jumps up to 12 and 13 on the VDI's and you couldn't ground balance it away. The other problem was the GM struggled with it's slow ground tracking and going in and out of the shallow water detecting the creek kept throwing it out and when the coil transitioned from the air to the water the GM screamed, this made it very difficult to detect very shallow water with a rocky bottom as the coil kept having to go in and out of the water. The Nox was a bit better for this and did react going in and out of the water but not near as badly as the GM1000. It is a shame I don't have video of the GM and Nox behaviour in this creek but I'll get some next time I'm nearby and add it to this thread so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. The Garrett 24k really surprised me, it was able to ground balance out the bedrock easily, it didn't hardly respond at all to any of the hot rocks in the creek once it was balanced, there was only a couple of types of hot rocks that would set it off, I was utterly surprised how well it worked. It made a small transition noise when it went from air to water similar to the other detectors, but nowhere near as severe as the Gold Monster and it wasn't at all distracting and handled the shallow water transitions perfectly fine, it wasn't a problem at all. I love the 24k's ability to lock the ground balance, this is something the Gold Monster is missing and it's something that's just so vital in a situation like at this creek. It's something the Monster would really benefit from having. This was the same creek a couple of years ago I found a very old Chinese coin I suspected a Gold Miner lost, the coin is far older than the habitation of NZ though so it was likely something he/she wore around their neck on a string and it broke. This is the Chinese coin, unfortunately it was broken, I suspect this is why it was lost. It was found under a small waterfall. Now, back to the 24k, I was so happy with it's performance but unfortunately I didn't find any gold on the day, the creek is very wild and it was too difficult to get far up it due to trees falling down over the creek and when the slope increases it's difficult to bypass the creek by going up the sides as they get very steep, so I was limited to detecting the very lower area of the creek which is the bit that's detected the most due to easier access. I'm going to have to work out a way to get higher up the creek without following the creek up but it's very dense steep forest either side of it. This is the lower end of the creek where I was able to detect before it gets steep. And the video if it working well, I was so pleased as the 24k is going to open up opportunities, this is probably why Nugget Hunter NZ who found the massive nugget in a creek a few years ago on the West Coast of NZ raved out the Whites 24k, as I'd imagine the creeks he was detecting had similar bedrock and hot rocks to this creek. Having absolutely no bump sensitivity with the 24k coils is a massive bonus detecting a creek like this, both the Equinox and the Gold Monster have bump sensitivity, the 24k I'm running with the sensitivity maxed out and nothing, no bump sensitivity at all, fantastic.

I had so many incredible responses to my first post that it made perfect sense togo back to the well and run this by you all. With my DFX in it's later years another detector is will be in my future. I've been researching a number of sources including YouTube hoping to narrow down my choices. Considering finances.... to date I have settled on 2 detectors. The Gold Monster 1000 and the Equinox 800. Both are in the same price range....both get good reviews and I see them producing nice finds. The operation of both seem relatively learnable and so far I am finding no negative reviews. I do question some of the YouTube posters for one reason......it seems the reputable posters have allegiance and financial deals with manufacturers. Again it's my goal to keep the cost down for now while I learn as much as possible about the art of proficient detecting using my Gold Bug 2. Once I'm comfortable with where I am I will consider a higher end detector. I can manufacture a few more AR's and sell those to fund my next purchase. That's where users of these units come in to play. Will someone detail your real world reviews of these detectors? I trust this forum won't steer me wrong. Thanks in advance!

Picked up my GM1000 from Gerry on Friday, then after doing chores up at the cabin got it out yesterday and today. Used the larger coil for scouting out a new spot and after a couple hours of no decent targets yesterday, went over the same area with my GB2. Still nothing, so at least I didn't miss anything in that area, but I wasn't real comfortable with the Monster yet. So today, after yacking with VA Nurse Paul last night and Scott T today...both singing its praises, I put the small coil on it and went to my "old reliable" bench to see if I could squeak out another baby nugget. Moved rocks and dug up some sagebrush....initially hunting with trusty GB2 to get a target, then compare it with the Monster. Wow, it could hear the Fly-poo AU I find up there, and the disc was pretty reliable! I found 3 pieces using the GB2 first, then once I was more comfortable with how the Monster responds, it sniffed out 6 more! I noticed on some "iffy" signals that the Goldbug heard, the Monster picked them up a bit better. I was using manual 10 sensitivity and All Metal/deep, and as others have mentioned, it does false if you hit a rock etc. Not using headphones and having no threshold hum was actually nice for a change too. Pretty cool machine....tomorrow I'm going to hit the hard rock gravels and see how it does. :-)

The only ML offering I can honestly say was junk is the GM1000. Owned one for a month and that was a month too long. I was way better off keeping my GB2. So glad I upgraded to the 24K. Cant wait to try the 6000 though!

I recently had the very fortunate opportunity to use the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 for 30 days. During that time, I was able to discover the nuances of the machine that, like any metal detector, can only be fully realized by logging lots of hours behind the control box and investigating lots of targets. In Steve's excellent review, he has covered most of what the GM 1000 is capable of doing, as well as the features and functions of the machine, so I will not rehash those here. Instead, I will relate my experiences with the detector and its unadvertised abilities that have come to light during my sojourn with it in hand. I first powered up the Monster at Rye Patch, Nevada, and after a very brief automatic frequency scan, the unit emitted two short beeps, signaling that it was ready to start swinging with no pumping of the coil or ground balancing necessary...nice! The first thing I did was to bury a small 3 or 4 grain test nugget a couple of inches into the damp alkali soil, so as to fiddle with the manual and automatic sensitivity settings in order to find the most distinct target response. Right off the bat I noticed there was no audible threshold...a little unnerving, but I decided to just roll with it and trust that the engineers at Minelab know what they are doing. In all-metal search mode at low sensitivity settings there was no response from the conductive damp alkali ground, and very little to no response from the tiny test nugget. Increasing the sensitivity to 6 or 7 made the nugget start popping much better, but some slight feedback from the ground was also noticeable. At a manual sensitivity setting of 10, the conductive alkali response was overwhelming, but as soon as I increased it to 11 - which is the first automatic sensitivity setting - the screaming ground response completely disappeared and in it's place was a crisp, clear target response from the test nugget...very impressive. Advancing the automatic sensitivity to 12 (auto+), the signal response from the test nugget was even louder and more intense, but there was also some ground response as well. I decided why listen to ground noise when the test nugget is plenty audible at a setting of 11, and went with that. With any new detector, I dig every target, even if reads 100% ferrous, just to familiarize myself with how the machine responds to various different targets. The few hot rocks that signaled on the Monster, both positive and negative, completely pegged the gold chance indicator all the way left into the ferrous zone. Soon I was finding extremely small bits of foil, lead and iron. Then I started to notice something quite amazing to me; the iron targets - even the tiniest ones - were making a subtle "boing" type of a response like a negative hot rock, whereas the nonferrous targets were more zippy and lacked that subtle boing quality. After a while, I found that I no longer needed to look at the gold chance indicator to determine whether a target was ferrous or not, just by relying on the sounds; I was really starting to like this detector. Then it happened: a fairly strong response that was pegging the gold chance indicator all the way right, into the non-ferrous zone. After digging a couple of inches, out popped a beautiful little crystalline nugget weighing a mere 2.4 grains - the first Monster nugget! With the northern Nevada weather being uncooperative and still quite wintery, I headed for the sunny warm deserts of Arizona. First stop...the Yucca Dense Collection Area north of Lake Havasu City, formerly known as the Franconia meteorite strewn field. VLF machines make the best meteorite hunters, and the Gold Monster 1000 did not disappoint. I took it to an area that is carpeted with basalt hot rocks that make it extremely difficult to operate a VLF while retaining any shred of sanity. The Monster was incredibly noisy in auto sensitivity, but adjusting it manually to a setting of 4 mellowed it right out and within 5 minutes the detector nailed its first space rock! and then another a while later... Although finding meteorites is fun, the GM 1000 is a gold nugget detector after all, so it was on to the famed gold fields of Quartzsite, Arizona to see what the Monster could do in beat up old patches that have litterally been detected by hundreds, if not thousands of detector operators. Well, suffice it to say it didn't take long to find the first sub-grain speck of gold. And another... The ground in Quartzsite is much milder than the alkali rich soils of Rye Patch, but has lots more hot rocks including magnetite, which is super hot and very magnetic. As I was detecting an old nugget patch littered with these super strong magnetite hot rocks, I decided to see how the Monster responded to them; waving the coil over one resulted in a very sharp and intense zip-zip. Slowing my sweep speed to see if the signal would broaden, I slowly raised the coil an inch or two above the magnetite to see if the signal would drastically decrease in strength (an old VLF hot rock identification trick). Slowly lowering the coil back down above the rock, I was suddenly incredulous at what I was now hearing...absolutely nothing! The Gold Monster had completely tracked out a magnetite hot rock! I placed my test nugget right up against the magnetite and was stunned to hear the nugget respond loud and clear, with absolutely no interference from the hot rock. Even this guy couldn't hear that hot rock: I also found more meteorites in Quartzsite with the Gold Monster...the full story here: In my limited time swinging the new Minelab Gold Monster 1000, I can definitely say that it is unique and can do things that I haven't seen from any other single frequency VLF gold nugget detector, all in a light weight simple to operate and competitively priced package...kudos to Minelab!

I was just wondering if there was any plans of aftermarket coils being produced for the Minelab GM1000? I can think of a couple reasons why they would be welcomed. The coils seem to be impact sensitive, and the coils do not have good edge sensitivity. Am also wondering if a concentric coil can be built to work on the gm1000? I tend to prefer concentric coils over dd's for vlf nugget detecting.

Posted by Metal Detecting For Arizona Gold July 4, 2020 In this video I go out to the Double J claim to gather up some mineralize soil for the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 depth test. I use 7 different Gold Nuggets and conduct the test using Auto 1 and Auto 2.