Actual performance depends on prevailing conditions.

I live and detect in the central goldfields of Victoria and I have been told by a few detector operators that have many years detecting experience under their belts and have found hundreds, if not thousands of ounces of gold, that the hardest ground to detect in the world is the goldfields of Victoria, due to the huge variation of mineralisation in the ground, not only every step you take forward but every inch you are trying to detect down, there is huge variations in the mineralisation and detectors really struggle coping with that.
There is evidence constantly that the 7000 is a excellent detector and good gold can can found all over the place with it, but not in Victoria.   Just this last week JP has shown us that nice gold can still be found in the hammered ground around Clermont.
I personally know about twice as many people that have owned a 7000 and got rid of it, than currently own one.   One guy I know that`s in the industry in Victoria told me that he knew of (at that time) 35 people that had owned a 7000 and got rid of it.  Last time I spoke to him he had his 7000 for sale.   I have spoken to salesmen in detector shops that no longer own a 7000.  Clearley something is not working right with the 7000 in Victoria.
 Unfortunately, the more I use my 7000 the more I am convinced there is no way, no how, it performs much better than a 5000. To be honest, I have found gold that I think the 5000 wouldn`t have found, but those pieces are few and far between.   I sometimes detect with people that still use 5000`s and I do no better (or worse) than they do. The 7000 promised so much and (so far) has delivered so little.
 But I`ll keep trying.
I think Minelab could have just as well written "Actual performance depends on whether or not you are detecting in Victoria".
dave

phoenix I have heard the same scenario put forward many times but never linked it with Victoria but then again the people I've heard it from all work the Triangle ???
   

Captn

phoenix wrote:I live and detect in the central goldfields of Victoria and I have been told by a few detector operators that have many years detecting experience under their belts and have found hundreds, if not thousands of ounces of gold, that the hardest ground to detect in the world is the goldfields of Victoria, due to the huge variation of mineralisation in the ground, not only every step you take forward but every inch you are trying to detect down, there is huge variations in the mineralisation and detectors really struggle coping with that.
There is evidence constantly that the 7000 is a excellent detector and good gold can can found all over the place with it, but not in Victoria.   Just this last week JP has shown us that nice gold can still be found in the hammered ground around Clermont.
I personally know about twice as many people that have owned a 7000 and got rid of it, than currently own one.   One guy I know that`s in the industry in Victoria told me that he knew of (at that time) 35 people that had owned a 7000 and got rid of it.  Last time I spoke to him he had his 7000 for sale.   I have spoken to salesmen in detector shops that no longer own a 7000.  Clearley something is not working right with the 7000 in Victoria.
 Unfortunately, the more I use my 7000 the more I am convinced there is no way, no how, it performs much better than a 5000. To be honest, I have found gold that I think the 5000 wouldn`t have found, but those pieces are few and far between.   I sometimes detect with people that still use 5000`s and I do no better (or worse) than they do. The 7000 promised so much and (so far) has delivered so little.
 But I`ll keep trying.
I think Minelab could have just as well written "Actual performance depends on whether or not you are detecting in Victoria".
dave

Hi Dave, aka (phoenix).
Mate you hit the nail on the head there, this is the same and consistent news that I was getting right from the start. A large majority of those blokes were and still are out there, regularly swinging a detector in a professional or semi pro situation.

Most are gun operators, and it didn’t take them long to work out, things were not as they were supposed to be. Nearly all sold them quickly after this was found out, yet a few of the blokes held on to their new machines.

Some persisted using them for a few months, but after only pulling small to tiny gold continually over this time, they eventually succumbed as well.  I don’t know of any of the local guns using one on the gold fields here now, and I hear even one of the original M/lab boys has stopped swinging his.

The detector of choice with them now, is either the 5000 or 4500’s, all having one of the new type coil fitted, these are cleaning up anew.
Looking on this myself, I think both here in Victoria’s patchy mineralised gold areas, and in some of the salt prone ground on the WA fields, times are fairly ordinary going for those persisting in using them.

Yet you hear of operators doing so well in other places, therefore one has to think maybe it is just horses for courses, and in the right situation some do extremely well.

I personally have seen them do some amazing things, like getting big fine gold specimens at great depths, and I have also seen them knock back nuggets bigger than your fist at 2’Foot deep, without even a sound, go figure?

Cheers, ozgold.

Hi Phoenix,
After adding up our gold totals for 2015 last night, I was interested in your conclusions about detecting in Victoria. I agree it is hard going!
In the past we have always updated both our detectors to the latest model. We both detect the same number of hours, and in the same locations. Our abilities would be similar, and our average finds over a year would be fairly close.
This time we have only purchased one GPZ (for obvious reasons). One of us is working with either a 5000 with a new evolution coil, or a 2300, depending on the ground. The other is using only the GPZ. For 2015 the GPZ (purchased in February) has found more than double the weight than the operator using the other combination.
The totals were not great, but better than the previous 2 years using 2 GPX 5000's.

searching wrote: For 2015 the GPZ (purchased in February) has found more than double the weight than the operator using the other combination.
.

Well there you go    
Good on you searching, you`ve got to be happy with that
cheers dave

Phoenix ~      seems many  agree with your assessment , maybe some GPZ's are better then others  
Be good to hear if any comparisons have been done ?

jack

Jack outwest wrote:Phoenix ~      seems many  agree with your assessment , maybe some GPZ's are better then others  
Be good to hear if any comparisons have been done ?

jack

Some comparisons would be good indeed , maybe a job for mythbusters to find if the "up to" 40% depth claims are plausible cause it seems no ones interested in putting it through its paces for all to see .

Hi Jack Outwest et al,
Our prospecting group of three all run 7000's, all three were purchased very early after release from different suppliers. From the outset it was clear that one of the 7000's was faulty;subsequent cross checking indicated the coil was the faulty component.
Once the faulty coil was replaced and now after a full season has elapsed, for us anyway, we can find no statistically significant difference between the three machines after many and varied comparisons.
Cheers, AUoptimist.

I think they really need to be bench tested in an interference free environment to find out for sure

AUoptimist wrote:Hi Jack Outwest et al,
Our prospecting group of three all run 7000's, all three were purchased very early after release from different suppliers. From the outset it was clear that one of the 7000's was faulty;subsequent cross checking indicated the coil was the faulty component.
Once the faulty coil was replaced and now after a full season has elapsed, for us anyway, we can find no statistically significant difference between the three machines after many and varied comparisons.
Cheers, AUoptimist.

Sorry for the late reply , how can a $10,700 machine leave the factory with a faulty coil    
Got to feel for the dealers who sell them & then cop the flak .

When the next model is released I'd want a test report on that individual detector , would need to work perfect before I parted with that amount of coin !

jack .

I did a fair amount of development work on the pre-production GPZ units in Victoria and found reasonable gold with them especially when you consider I only have limited knowledge of patches down that way. Some places were a disappointment but then again they've not really produced anything significant for me since the year 2000 when I was using the SD 2200D.

I did OK in other areas with the biggest being just shy of an ounce which I and others had definitely missed with the GPX 5000 and a variety of coil sizes because I took a group of Minelab people in there for training just after the 5000 came out. Please also keep in mind the units I was testing were a far cry from what is actually the production version GPZ so I would love to revisit everywhere I detected all over again.

But like I've said before the gold has to be there for the GPZ to find it, maybe its because the Victorian gold is so solid in nature so has already been cleaned out by the myriad of detector operators who have come before? All I know is the GPZ does punch in deeper than all previous Minelab PI's including the areas I visited in Victoria but just because you think the gold should be there does not mean it actually is.

JP

Can a dead horse spring back to life after a good flogging? Then why keep going back to shallow,bare bummed,flogged to death ground,expecting to find what,potato size gold with the GPZ 7000 ?
Jp is spot on in what he says,but few are the ones paying attention.
When Bruce Candy said the 7000 will once again open up the gold fields,I'm sure he wasn't referring to ground that's been opened/surfaced and gone over a thousand times in the last 40 years,yet,it still surprises me to see,flogged to death areas,yielding the odd bits of gold to the GPZ 7000,where previous VLF/PI's have failed to.
Now I'm not here waffling on,just to justify my purchase of the GPZ,for I know what I'v got in my hands & I'd have to be a goose,if I were to believe it were or is an inferior detector to any hand held VLF/PI's before it. (limited in some respects,like all detectors before it maybe,but not inferior)
I also know for a fact,that if the 7000 or any of Minelabs new purchases,or purchases within the warranty period,were found to be defunct/faulty,in any way,shape or form,Minelab has in the past and to this day,gone out of their way to rectify the problem,with the minimum amount of hassle to the customer.
As for perfection 100% of the time,unfortunately,is an impossible task to find or achieve,through any business (one to many variables keep getting in the way ) Yes,even new items/goods/services purchased over the counter,can perform well one day & fail to function/perform the next.That's why it pays,for all or any business/company to have a good after sales service/reputation.  

Cheers Kon.

I reckon that all those not happy with the GPZ's performance should sell them now and cut thier losses.

If you don't want to sell, then try to understand it better, for a start and you may need to change you detecting style.

Once you start to come to grips with what it can do your confidence will rise and then one day you'll get a target at depth that you will know straight away that your previous detector wouldn't have got near to picking it up.

When that happens you'll just smile to yourself and say what was l thinking when l thought it wasn't up to scratch.

The new coils without doubt are a step forward in the right direction for the GPX but I often wonder how it is that technology suddenly came to light just after the Zed came out.

While the GPX was king of the castle were the coil makers just happy to sell their existing style of coils and not release the new technology until they needed to compete on the market again. (Maybe if the new coils were releaded before the Zed then those unhappy with the zed might not have rushed out to get one straight away in the hope of cleaning up before others got thier hands on one)

Sometimes l wonder if it is ourselves that had the high hopes of the detector being more than what the manufacture stated it was and therefore didn't take all the variables into consideration, variables that are now becoming an issue to some.

New technology doesn't happen over night it evolves over time and continues to evolve until finally no more improvements can be made to that technology but when that happens the new technology to follow will be well advanced.

I have no doubt the Zed will evolve further as will new coil technology for the coils for the GPX or SD so for awhile we will be spoilt for choices and if one doesn't suit  then there will be something else that does.

Rant over enjoy 2016 for what the year brings  and remember there is always someone less fortunate than ourselves