GPX4500 versus Goldsnoop Pro

We met a chap the other day and he was detecting for coins and anything else he could find. We at first played dumb and asked a few questions about his detector. He paid $300 delivered to his door in tassy and said had found nearly $60 with it. He had also found 2 rings and various other bits of jewelry. It was interesting as he said he bought it to find gold but as yet had found nothing. He told us his dad had a 4500 and had found gold in Victoria and on west coast of tassy.
We ended up telling him we had a 4500 with us at the time and he wanted to know what we used it for, as it was his wish to find some gold with his. (This chap was born with a disability and seemed a very genuine gentleman) To cut a story short we showed this guy the bits we had found a few days earlier. Boy was he excited. "Where did we find them". he asked. He turned on his machine and I lay the container on the ground with a half gram nugget in it and he passed his machine over the container and "PEEP". His machine could pick up .5+gram at 4" above target easily. This just about knocked us over. How can a $300 machine pick up a gold target at about same distance as a $4600 machine???? Did we spend all this money for nothing!!!!
And the beauty of the machine was that you did not have to listen hard for a signal - it just beeped when it got a signal. I know this was air distance and the machine might not work so well in highly mineralised ground but hell, not bad. He said he could set it up so you had an idea what the target metal could be.
We are thinking of getting one as a second machine to try and discriminate a target once we find targets in very junky areas. Yes I know dig every target. But we have an area where there is so so much junk and there is gold amongst it.
We will catch up with this gent again next year and will check out the differences when we go detecting again in a spot we have had some sucess at.
???????

My Grandson and I and a couple of other mates were detecting at Chewton Vic last year. My Grandson had a Goldsnoop and I had a 3000. My grandson pick up what he thought was a signal but asked me to check it with the 3000, and sure enough he had a signal and 2mins later he had a 0.5 gm nugget from 2" down. This was his first nugget he had ever found. It blow us all away, how good that detector really was.
Wombat

the quality of the expensive machines comes when you are finding gold in the ground ... an air test doesn't prove anything.

Many detectors are compared against each other over test patches when the location of a target is known,say for example a GP3000 against a GPX4500.What we are really paying for is the ability to find the target in amongst the various ground noises and outside interference.Another aspect is finding large deep gold as we know P.I detectors excell.
I guess though at the end of the day we still have to put the coil over the gold and if someone does their research and puts in the effort even a modest detector will do the job.
Steve

I agree with previous comments, You still have to do the yards. Was just so interesting to see how the detectors compared at air test distance.
Everybody seems to say that PI detectors excell on large gold --- can somebody explain this? Surely minelab would have sorted this out by now!!

Learnt ages ago that an air test mean nothing in the real world. Had a Sovereign detector and down at the beach I buried a one dollar coin to see how deep I could go and at 30cms I could just pick it up but when I came up to Bendigo and did the same thing in the highly minalized ground I reckon I lost half the depth.

Gday

Its a bit like comparing chalk and cheese, while the snoop detector will of course detect nuggets in some situations there will be many more situations where it will not, and while it might be an ok detector for messing about in trashy areas with there is no way that it will perform as well as a Gpx4500.

Air tests really only serve to tell you that the detector is switched on and working nothing more, nuggets dont hide in thin air and there are many factors involved in whether you get a responsive signal from a buried target or you dont, always depending on what concoction of soil and minerals lay between the coil and the nugget,this is where the Gpx4500 will of course come into its own and when its circuitry is able to tame the ground mineralisation enough in order for you to be able to hear a target response, the circuitry of the snoop is nowhere near as sophisicated, and if it were it would be in a similar price range for start.

For a bit of fun and the chance of getting the odd shallow nugget here and there the snoop will do that for you, but if you are serious about getting gold dont think that it will do what the gpx4500 will be able to do all the time, if you are going to wander the bush looking for gold you need the best gear you can get to maximise your chances of success.

cheers

stayyerAU

it does'nt matter if you have a $6,000 GPX 5000 or a $30 kids detector from K-mart you have to walk over the gold to find it. people buy expensive detectors because they handle the mineralisation better so your not getting false signals all the time

My first detector was a tandy electronics $20 surplus bin job,borrowed from my son.We went out to an old school and just heard a penny at 1 inch and so it all began.

It absolutely amazes me how Minelab diehard loyalists refuse to acknowledge that their $6000 PIs have limitations that a $300 VLF can capitalise on. There is no point in convincing yourselves that its just luck or doing the hard yards! VLFs can and do find gold which GPSs leave behind. The catch is VLFs take some getting used to, much more so than a PI, and for best effect should be limited to specific ground conditions. Those that already use VLFs to complement their GPS know this well-kept secret. Good luck.

Not any VLF can do the job of cleaning up smaller gold nuggets in a patch. Consider a comparison between a cheap $500 renta-bomb car Vs a $1.6M Ferrari; both will take you across the street to fetch the milk and a McDonald's latte but only one of those will give you any chance of winning the RAC Tourist Trophy. You get what you pay for.

We opened up a well known $300 detector and inside it was the motherboard and controls of an even cheaper $65 detector. Now the largest gold nugget recovered by metal detector in North America is still (I think) the nugget known as "The Boot Of Cortez") which is said to have been found (depending in which story you heard) by a newbie with an $85 detector from Radio Shack in the USA who found it in the side of the road in 1989 after the first 20 minutes of turning it on and weighed 389.4 ozt. The other, more likely version of the story, says he found it with an $85 detector from Radio Shack after detecting for hundreds of hours at Caborca, near the Gran Desierto de Altar in the Mexican state of Sonora... near the sea of Cortez.


Found with an $85 detector from Radio Shack in the US. 389.4 ounces troy.

Either way the fact remains that a very inexpensive detector found a LARGE valuable gold nugget. It is important to emphasize that the nugget was LARGE and it was right up close to the surface in soil that was not particularly mineralized. Metal detectors find metal. So of course, taking one to a goldfield too look for nuggets, you will find nuggets close to the surface or sitting right on the surface with almost any of them. But if you want to ignore the layers of oxidizing iron ore that infest the most gold nugget producing areas of any goldfield here in Australia, you need a machine that is fairly immune to the effects of mineralization that will produce good depths and minimal noise. Pulse Induction detectors do this job better than VLF detectors. That's their main claim to fame. They go MUCH deeper and they can ignore much more in the way of unwanted or undesirable noises from the ground.

Another question to ask yourself is: What do professional prospectors (those who make the majority of their income from gold prospecting) use? Answer: a Minelab PI machine. What do the majority of serious hobbyist prospectors use? Answer: Same again... a Minelab PI machine. What does the seller of the Nugget Snoop use? Answer: I believe it's a Minelab PI machine... and we should know this because he written about this recently on the internet and in Gold Gem & Treasure magazine. What does the Australian seller of Whites Detectors use? Answer: Again, I hear it's a Minelab PI machine.. and I've been told this by people who know him personally. But since that's heresay, lets move on the the most obvious: What do the vast majority of the full time prospectors use in WA and Victoria's gold nugget fields overwhelmingly use? I believe the answer again is going to be a Minelab PI detector. What was the most popular (and the most gold producing) detector on the ground in the Sudan during the gold rush there over the last couple of years? Same again: a Minelab PI detector.

So is it blind "diehard loyalism" or is it faith in a proven technology? Most prospectors using metal detectors have started out with a less expensive VLF machine and eventually migrated to a more expensive PI detector. There's a very good reason for this: the believe they have a much better chance with the PI detectors when it comes to gold prospecting.

Now you don't need to have a top of the line metal detector to find a gold nugget on the ground any more than you need to spend $20K on a set of gold clubs if you only want to play the odd round of Putt-Putt at the mini-golf play park. But if you want to play a serious round of golf once a month and still have a chance of producing good results (even if you are not playing professionally), you need a decent set of clubs and you need to learn how to use them. The same applies to detecting for gold: You need the best equipment you can get your hands on if you want to maximize your chances of finding more gold as often as possible at greater depths or under the worst possible soil conditions.

I know a gentleman who is using a VLF in Darwin at the moment (though he was sounding drowned out over the Sat phone when I spoke to him a couple of days ago) and he's finding gold with a Minelab VLF machine (an X-Terra 705) and he's found a fair bit where he is this week. But his biggest success was a Holey Dollar that he found on a goldfield at a depth of 20cm with the same machine - a coin he auctioned off for a 6 figure sum locally. The first cash offer (which he turned down) was $70K cash from the coin dealer at the end of my street. Would he have found his coin with an ordinary $65-300 coin/relic machine? Probably not. I'm familiar with the soil where he was and it was extremely iron-laden.

Finally, think about what people used to use to find gold before the Minelab PI detectors were produced: They used VLF machines and some were undoubtedly better than others. Those Garrett Groundhog A-2Bs were very popular for some time until something better came along. They didn't have the depth that PI detectors have ...which is the very reason why there was so much gold still lying about when the Minelab SD 2000 model PI detectors came along. And when those SD 2000s came along, it was a whole new gold rush because they were far more successful than VLFs in finding gold than the VLFs were that had come beforehand.

Yes, some people still carry a VLF machine with their GPX 4500/5000 but, even now, a good, sensitive coil is going to cream an older VLF machine that was not designed to properly Ground Balance on a goldfield. The people who use a VLF to compliment their GPX will carry something like a Minelab Eureka Gold or a Minelab X-Terra 70/705 because those VLFs were designed for this very application. They will not carry an El-cheapo made-in-China detector for the same purpose. So even between VLF machines, we have apples and oranges. Some are useful on the goldfields and others are not. But any gold nugget around 2 grams or more, sitting on the surface as a "sunbaker" is going to trigger a response from most detectors, regardless of who makes them or where they were made. The problem is that it is now getting harder to find a gold nugget just sitting there in the sun. If you want to find serious amounts of gold, you have to use a serious detector designed for gold nugget hunting. Budget and brand reputation will then be the only consideration.

Remember also that VLF detectors are simply incapable of the depths achieved by modern PI detectors.

Your long-winded post, as usual, is mostly spam. Firstly, let me make it clear that I did not any stage knock GPSs. These are still the main core detectors for anyone serious about finding gold. I do not need convincing of this fact - I have been detecting for over 30 years and find more gold than most. My point was that GPSs do have limitations which at this point in time only a VLF can take advantage of. And yes, not any VLF, but a gold dedicated VLF. Certainly not a X-Terra 705 or a Eureka!

HI nero, I refer to your post re. the well known detector which sells for $300, but has the innards of a $65. unit.
disappointing for a newbie, and this should be made common knowledge,in my opinion, this is a blatant rip off.you can get a chinese GC for about $80- $120.with more features, on flea bay. it would be better to put that $300 towards a recognised brand name, or a better used unit. a BH tracker 4 for about $150. into aust. no not a gold machine---either ! jeeeezzz, some people will do anything to make a buck. disappointing, but typical.

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:...My point was that GPSs do have limitations which at this point in time only a VLF can take advantage of...

You haven't exactly been forthcoming with any useful information. I agree that suitable VLFs have their place on the goldfields and that you can most certainly use them to find gold. BUT... Why exactly is it that only a "certain" VLF can take advantage of these limitations? Exactly which VLF do you suggest is the one suitable most suitable for the job?

Marco, try Fisher Goldbug or the Whites GM series, effective discrimination, the one thing the PIs havent perfected or the Tesoro gold detectors, the Lobo and the Diablo, great for detecting along fence lines ect and less affected by EM. The PIs are the main stay of the detectors but the VLFs are still a useful tool. You swing a $6k detector but still carry a pinpoint probe to locate your target, an item that will only detect a few inches. Mallee00 and the mutt

Well, the Goldbugs are okay but the 71khz version is limited to scratchings on the surface with the more recent one that we talked about recently having a better option with a more suitable frequency... though the Tesoros can't handle the heavier mineralization at all. And what's with the lack of a volume control on the Tesoro range? I've seen them struggle desperately in areas where other minerals are abundant in the ground. The Lobo was made for prospecting (in the Northern hemisphere) but the problems they have here in Australia has led to some angry users moving to other brands.

You may not realize but we carry an 8" Coiltek pinpoint probe that goes a lot deeper than the Garrett Pro-Pointer on the front of my harness. We've been using them a little over a year now and have other probes for different applications... such as the vibraprobe for underwater use in the creeks & rivers. Different equipment for different jobs. I'll certainly agree that the Whites make a decent VLF although people generally overlook them here in Australia. I also agree that the VLF has its place and is a very useful tool - and I've seen them recover good gold, though almost entirely near the surface. None of this makes points in my previous post moot though. Something not brought up earlier though is that many people out there simply don't want to dig particularly deep for targets - but they want to be able to chase gold near the surface. Using a variety of coils, settings and even detectors (PI & VLF) is probably still about the only way to reliably clean out a gold patch.

Have you ever used a Tesoro, or is it more of your hearsay, they balance as well as the manual Whites, Fishers ect, as for the volume control, they cant fit it into the Umax boxes but the speaker is set a a level that is comfortable and you use headphones with a volume control, the price you pay for a detector that weights less than a kilo all up, but then what other VLF has a dedicated hotrock reject. Mallee00 and the mutt

I found the Tesoros to be a real problem to operate on here and the only exception would be the Tesoro Lobo and possibly the Cortez. On the beaches they're fine. In fact, I think they have a great, sharp response on beaches or parks on super-small targets. If you think they balance as well as the Whites, I'd disagree - at least on the godlfields. The Cortes has a manual ground balance dial but both of those detectors struggled on highly mineralized ground. The reason for this is that they were designed in North America. The quality is great, but on a hot goldfield they struggle to stay quiet. And yes, I've used them. I liked them as detectors but not for our type of goldfields. You could chalk this up to my own opinion but there's also a few others I've met that "wanted to wrap their [Tesoros] around a tree" after trying to use them in NSW near the Turon. Are you sure those machines are meant to be under a kilo? The Tesoro Lobo weighs 1.58kg with the Tesoro Cortes coming in at 1.35kg. I did a weight chart for them on another website once but would agree that they're still fairly light.

I never mentioned the Cortes, its a coin machine, The Lobo ST is the only detector in Tesoros current range that is a dedicated gold machine and while it incorporates HOT technology it is not a Umax design and is heavier than the Umaxes as it runs 8 AAs The other detector i mentioned was the Diablo Umax, at 17.8 khz weights 2.2 lbs and has manual G/B and hotrock reject but no discrimination. These are no longer produced and are highly sought after. Mallee00 and the mutt

nero_design wrote:
You haven't exactly been forthcoming with any useful information. I agree that suitable VLFs have their place on the goldfields and that you can most certainly use them to find gold. BUT... Why exactly is it that only a "certain" VLF can take advantage of these limitations? Exactly which VLF do you suggest is the one suitable most suitable for the job?

On numerous occasions I have posted information on how to exploit the limitations of a GPX using a VLF technology and each time I was shouted down by Minelab purists and others who have their own hidden agendas. It's getting harder to know who is a prospector and who isn't. Most who have prospected with me are all converts to the idea of complementing their PIs with VLF technology. My wife uses mostly VLF and in the right ground conditions she can make my GPX 4500 look like an overpriced dud with the amount of gold she can pull, all left behind by PIs.

All the reefs and leaders I have found were with VLFs, by carefully 'loaming' very fine specimen gold back to a source. Something you cannot do with any PI!

And what if EMI is so bad that you can no longer operate your GPX. Some 'experts' suggest switching over to Cancel, but in my opinion this is the very worst thing you can do. A detector in Cancel has been so dumbed down that its no longer effective. A backup VLF would be a much smarter option, particularly if ground conditions allow.

There is no specific answer as to which VLF is best. Obviously some are better than others. In regards to the X-Terra you recommended, its important to note that it is not a gold-dedicated detector but a general purpose one. The detector does not have any redeeming features that can be exploited in the goldfields, other than having good discrimination for use in trashy locations. Effectively you will only be looking for gold that has been missed as opposed to 'passed over'. The Eureka in my opinion is an under-achiever for use in the goldfields.

Nebuchadnezzar.

I have to say that I am in complete agreement with your above comments. And this is why I have always carried a backup higher frequency VLF slung across my shoulders to complement my main gold machine.

Well I ave owned a range of VLF detectors, Groundhog (great machine) ML 15000, ML 17000, ML Eureka and a X-Terra 70. With PI's I have owned a ML 2200D and now a ML 4500. I believe any of the GPX range with a small modern coil like the ML 8" Commander will blow away virtually any VLF on overall gold recovered - the more mineralised the ground the better the PI recovery versus the VLF will be. Whilst very small specie (ie small amount of gold) may be missed with a GPX. The overall recovery of gold over a period of time the GPX will win hands down. Of the VLF gold machines the Eureka I considered a better, more versatile machine on gold but the X-Terra beats it hands down for discrimination on coins and relics.

Just my opinion. These days I only use the GPX on the Goldfields and the X-Terra everywhere else.

John

Fellers, its good to see your comments. We have been over the west for a few months and have been on way home last couple weeks. While we were over there it amazed us that numerous couples had the newer gpx detectors but they also had the older VFL detectors that they were also using.
Everybody has there choice machines and we swear by out 4500 but are still seriously looking at also still getting another machine to use in conjunction with it. There is trashy areas that you can pick up multiple targets on each swing (not detectable with 4500 unless you dug entire area up) and would be so nice if we had another machine that we could dedicate to gold only - the 4500 is bloody useless at descriminating the trash we are talking about out with still being able to pickout the yellow targets.
The sooner minelab can produce a machine that could have both VFL and PI technology operate side by side would be classed as a major breakthrough as would be a long time before we will see gold only detectors.
Just my views,
Travelergold

There is no doubt that the ground canceling PIs probe deep into highly mineralised ground but they don't go any deeper than a good VLF in quiet to mild ground minerals,and there is no question that the higher frequency VLFs are superior on tiny nuggs in this ground or any ground where they can be ground balanced accurately.
Go to Alaska and you will find that ML PIs are few and far between simply because in that ground they are no better than the VLFs being used there plus the simple fact that they are very expensive. The vlfs handle the ground very well, find the placer gold and are cheap to run, go longer between recharges and are light weight.
So to be able to say that the GB PIs will find more gold than a VLF IB detector, clarification is needed as to what type of ground mineral conditions exist when a comparasen is being made.
I have used many different VLF IB detectors and I know exactly what depths can be obtained with these machine in many varying ground conditions.
My old Spectrum XLT and 6000DI Pro SL leave my Sov XS and a very capable PI machine floundering in its wake in certain ground mineral conditions even when the Sov and PI are fitted with much larger coils

travelergold wrote:Fellers, its good to see your comments. We have been over the west for a few months and have been on way home last couple weeks. While we were over there it amazed us that numerous couples had the newer gpx detectors but they also had the older VFL detectors that they were also using.
Everybody has there choice machines and we swear by out 4500 but are still seriously looking at also still getting another machine to use in conjunction with it. There is trashy areas that you can pick up multiple targets on each swing (not detectable with 4500 unless you dug entire area up) and would be so nice if we had another machine that we could dedicate to gold only - the 4500 is bloody useless at descriminating the trash we are talking about out with still being able to pickout the yellow targets.
The sooner minelab can produce a machine that could have both VFL and PI technology operate side by side would be classed as a major breakthrough as would be a long time before we will see gold only detectors.
Just my views,
Travelergold

Travelgold check link below.

https://2img.net/r/ihimg/photo/my-images/831/lem2c.jpg/

The concept has already been thought of. Patents i think already exist.



Hope this helps..

Yes I have seen another combined PI/VLF but cannot recall the manufacturer; I think it was either Nokta, OKM, or another Turkish machine. Or maybe Accurate Locators SSP- 3000 or 2100

If you knew the concept it may surprise you.

These guys are real pros.

Tom D is awesome.

I own a cz3d 1021 serial and its a brilliant coin hunter for less than $650.

Anyway follow the link below for more info.

The day may come where the yanks might out do the aussies

http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,35425

I used a Minelab 4500 today for the very first time.

I own an At Gold.

All I can say is wow the 4500 is really smooth. What a machine...

Yes I think in the very unlikely event that I wanted to replace my Infinium with a gold only machine then I would probably choose the 4500.
It is a proven very reliable workhorse and what you cannot find with this machine gold wise is probably not worth finding. maybe

Adrian ss wrote:Yes I think in the very unlikely event that I wanted to replace my Infinium with a gold only machine then I would probably choose the 4500.
It is a proven very reliable workhorse and what you cannot find with this machine gold wise is probably not worth finding. maybe

True but if you want to find Gold in my opinion you need to live in the Triangle and get the latest machine and chase it.

Spent the day at Maryborough with the 4500 and 11" Mono. I went to 3 spots holes everywhere found sqaure nails, bullets and lead.

There are smarter ways in finding gold without going to the Gold fields wasting the $30 in fuel adding the KMS to your car and looking for it.
Its where the CZ21 comes into play and a couple of rich woman who like the yellow