Have around thirty hours hunt time with this machine so decided I could post a somewhat fair assessment of it.
The vast majority of my hunts are on salt water beaches so the priority for me when making the upgrade was stability in wet salt sand and knee deep water. The GT was no disappointment in this regard. Gone was the annoying falsing in wet sand and the ridiculously low sensitivity settings that accompanied this in attempts to rectify the situation when using my entry level detector.
I take with a grain of salt depth claims with any particular machine but the GT has been no disappointment here either. Coin size objects at ten inches are no problem for the GT and I have dug them at twelve easy.
The tone ID while IMO is only reliable to around 8 inches is probably my favorite aspect of this detector. Deeper targets can sound good bad or indifferent until the ground is broken or even just stomped on or surface debris cleared away so double checking deep targets is pretty important before you go digging to china after a faint tone.
With the entry level detector I got a lot of "learn your machine and what the tones are telling you". To be honest I just have to give it the old eye roll when I hear this especially when compared to the GT. My entry level machine was a three tone all or nothing response. If it takes you any time at all to figure out those so called "neuances" my guess is your career consist of asking the question paper or plastic 150 times a day. The information the tone ID provides with the GT could actually be described as unlimited. To me this means experience and practice with this machine actually leads to improved finds and less trash. Now there is something to "learn".
The only down side I have found when it comes to this detector is when I am on the way back to the car and pass through the play grounds and picnic areas. In other word trashy sites. The nulling threshold and bombardment of tones is confusing at best and perhaps this is the area for a silent search LCD type detector. However with the GTs silent search option and disc adjustments it can be turned into a decent coin shooter for these areas absent any LCD info.
My bottom line is it is unlikely to beat this machine for my purpose of beach/wet sand shallow water hunting. I suspect it would make a good relic hunter also in areas where targets are reasonably spread out especially with the iron mask feature.
But then again that's just me I could be wrong and your mileage may vary. HH
The vast majority of my hunts are on salt water beaches so the priority for me when making the upgrade was stability in wet salt sand and knee deep water. The GT was no disappointment in this regard. Gone was the annoying falsing in wet sand and the ridiculously low sensitivity settings that accompanied this in attempts to rectify the situation when using my entry level detector.
I take with a grain of salt depth claims with any particular machine but the GT has been no disappointment here either. Coin size objects at ten inches are no problem for the GT and I have dug them at twelve easy.
The tone ID while IMO is only reliable to around 8 inches is probably my favorite aspect of this detector. Deeper targets can sound good bad or indifferent until the ground is broken or even just stomped on or surface debris cleared away so double checking deep targets is pretty important before you go digging to china after a faint tone.
With the entry level detector I got a lot of "learn your machine and what the tones are telling you". To be honest I just have to give it the old eye roll when I hear this especially when compared to the GT. My entry level machine was a three tone all or nothing response. If it takes you any time at all to figure out those so called "neuances" my guess is your career consist of asking the question paper or plastic 150 times a day. The information the tone ID provides with the GT could actually be described as unlimited. To me this means experience and practice with this machine actually leads to improved finds and less trash. Now there is something to "learn".
The only down side I have found when it comes to this detector is when I am on the way back to the car and pass through the play grounds and picnic areas. In other word trashy sites. The nulling threshold and bombardment of tones is confusing at best and perhaps this is the area for a silent search LCD type detector. However with the GTs silent search option and disc adjustments it can be turned into a decent coin shooter for these areas absent any LCD info.
My bottom line is it is unlikely to beat this machine for my purpose of beach/wet sand shallow water hunting. I suspect it would make a good relic hunter also in areas where targets are reasonably spread out especially with the iron mask feature.
But then again that's just me I could be wrong and your mileage may vary. HH
Until I removed it many dealers had links to it. But, the fact is, Minelab makes a superior machine.
