Upgrade To The GPZ7000 Or Not?

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If you cant swing a 7000 then you almost certainly wont be able to dig the hole to retrieve that horse shoe 1 metre deep.

Perhaps look into butterfly catching.

If my sources are correct, and we all know the answer to that! Butterfly catching only requires a light weight net and apparently its addictive.

The rare blue spotted zig zag butterfly is worth a $1500 an ounce!

RS
 
G'day

Don't get me wrong, if the mighty zed was finding multi ounce pieces that I was missing then I would have had one in a heartbeat, but in reality its a bit of a brick and if its only finding small pieces then there is little advantage to having one, the sdc will find smaller and more numerous pieces than the zed and you will pay off an sdc a lot quicker than a zed, from what I have seen first hand many users struggle with the weight of it with the small 14" coil and fair crap themselves out in a couple of hours when they tie on the 19" coil.

Detecting for gold requires concentration and being able to get into the right mindset, if you want to get consistent gold you have to be able to keep your mind focused on listening for any subtle changes in the ground, often I get nuggets that don't make an audible signal and cant really explain how I know that they are there, I put this down to what I call sub signals, they are signal responses that are below what we can normally hear but still for some reason we can still sense a response from the detector, from what I have read this is a sense that we all have but as time goes on we lose this ability as we simply don't use it anymore, as we have evolved more into city/town dwellers and not living out where other animals could have been hunting us, the ability to sense danger or low noises was a survival tool.

At the end of the day no matter what detector you are using you still have to become familiar with it as the detector does not make the gold, you still have to get the coil over the target and understand what you are hearing, to keep your concentration span you have to be comfortable with what you are using, if you are in pain or constantly fussing about with your harness and load then you will miss targets and will find it very difficult to focus and get into the zone so to speak.

cheers

stayyerAU
 
Great write up StayyerAU and far more sensible than mine!

I agree, pain will soon overtake the concentration required to find that subtle threshold change. Regular rest breaks help.

I ve ditched the harness as well. Where I go I was always unhitching and rehitching due to numerous targets/rubbish to be dug.

I am a coil scrubber, learnt with SDC so some of the coil weight is mostly on the ground.

I had a GPX 4500 and could not figure it out and had no faith in it.

Cheers and good luck with your decision Foal8686.

Cheers RS
 
Thanks for all the responses guys. its a lot of expense for the 7000 so I might just stick with the combo I have for the minute. Im Still getting gold on a regular basis with the machines I have. I just thought if buying a 7000 could give a little depth advantage, or handle very hot ground better than the 4500 and sdc , then it could possibly lead to more gold. Definitely worth asking the question.
 
I've noticed the asking prices of 2nd hand GPX 5000's still pretty high, does this mean detectors hold their value or is it wishful thinking on most seller part?
 
I can buy a brand new 45 for $3300 online, and there are people who have machines older than 2 years still asking for $3000, now; i know with most things that are bought new, as soon as it leaves the showroom the value decreases by around 10%, now why is'nt this the case with detectors?
 
ironrock said:
I can buy a brand new 45 for $3300 online, and there are people who have machines older than 2 years still asking for $3000, now; i know with most things that are bought new, as soon as it leaves the showroom the value decreases by around 10%, now why is'nt this the case with detectors?

In this particular case, I think some people believe that the old GPX4500's (Aussie-built, I think?), were better than the current Malaysian-built ones, which also have some minor circuit tweaks based on GPX5000 changes.
 
Agreed grubstake.
I have an old GPX4500 (~8+ years), and have thoroughly compared it against a newer one (well - a few years back now) - same coils, settings, ground etc.
Mine beat the newer one hands down on all the tests that I could think of.
Maybe I had a good one and the new one that I tested was a bit off, but with my limited experience, the older versions are just as good - maybe better.
Also - never had a warranty claim, just had to replace a few curly cables.
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
 
BigWave said:
Agreed grubstake.
I have an old GPX4500 (~8+ years), and have thoroughly compared it against a newer one (well - a few years back now) - same coils, settings, ground etc.
Mine beat the newer one hands down on all the tests that I could think of.
Maybe I had a good one and the new one that I tested was a bit off, but with my limited experience, the older versions are just as good - maybe better.
Also - never had a warranty claim, just had to replace a few curly cables.
Sorry if this is a little off topic.

Agree !!
 
Sold my first 4500 to a bloke who wouldn't take "NO I don't want to sell it" for an answer. I gave in when his offer reached $7500 :D A couple of weeks later I bought a new one for what ever retail price was back then.

Some people made a killing when that African gold rush hit.
 
madtuna said:
Sold my first 4500 to a bloke who wouldn't take "NO I don't want to sell it" for an answer. I gave in when his offer reached $7500 :D A couple of weeks later I bought a new one for what ever retail price was back then.

Some people made a killing when that African gold rush hit.

G'day Madtuna

Yeah I remember that time well as I was offered $9000 for my 4500, I could have sold it and bought another but was more worried that I would get a dud or one not quite as good as mine, I am still using it to this day and have found many times that amount in gold since then with it anyway, also they were buying up minelab 17x12 mono coils for up to $3-4,000 each, advertised and sold my then mates one for him on fleabay , what a hassle dealing with the African buyer who after bidding it up himself then accused me of Phishing (sellers bidding on it themselves) the then tightass very well off so called mate didn't even want to pay the seller fees :poop:

That was when the first dodgy 45's started doing the rounds, as well coming out of China and Turkey, for what they were doing and for the size of the nuggets they were finding they could have used a "Dick Smith Special" and still done alright :goldnugget: :goldnugget:, they were also looking for people to go to Sudan to train people to use their detectors, I reckoned it was way too dangerous and you would have likely dissapeared before you ever got paid for the job :skull: so lost interest in the offer pretty quickly.

cheers

stayyerAU
 
I would echo Lords findings on page 1 of this thread.
I also went from 4500 to zed with huge difference in results. I have since found that prickly gold is very difficult compared with the zed which sees it easily.
 
I have hired 4500's for previous trips out bush and they were good. I wanted to buy a 5000 on the big family trip but unfortunately they were all out of stock and I couldn't wait so settled with the 7000.
The last trip I managed to find a 0.3 and a 1.8 with it so I'm pretty happy. I found them in a really flogged area that had been chained so much there were lines everywhere. Only downside of the 7000 is the weight. They are a bit heavier then the other detectors and if you get the 19inch for it then make sure u have a strong back lol.
I went out and got a hip stick to help take the ache out of my shoulders after hours of swinging and now I only get a bit of hip ache at the end of the day which goes away after I stop swinging.
 
For those who have used the 4500/5000 and a 7000 --- I understand the 7000 is better at picking up tiny gold than the gpx's, but is there a size cut off where you would say the gpx is on par? eg. 2g and above?

The comment when people are just saying the 7000 finds way more gold - hard to justify over double the price if it's only advantage is tiny gold?...
 
I have the GPX4500 and spent a lot of time in the company of others swinging the GPZ7000. The 7000 certainly has a significant advantage on small gold but when it comes to the bigger stuff I don't think it comes close. However I've never swung the 7000 but after each season for the last few years I've brought home a lot more 4g and above gold than any of my friends swinging the 7000. I could have bought the 7000 out of my finds at any point but I couldn't justify the extra expense and weight when I was concerned that it might actually reduce my total weight found.
 
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