08-30-2013, 04:57 PM
Took the Gold on its maiden voyage today. The spot is from the mid 1800's where I've pulled a lot of stuff from. Targets are quite sparse, and there's terrible patches of iron. But, first things first...
Assembly: As others have stated, the Gold (as well as the Pro) is a bit cumbersome to put together. The rubber washers that go into the bolt area on the coil are small and take a bit of finessing to get into place. Also, same problem with the headphone connector & coil connector - small and tricky. Nothing super difficult, but, a bit of a pain.
Build: The build quality of the unit is pretty good. Of course, not even close to that of a Whites or Minelab, but then, what is?! Unit is light as a feather. Decent ergonomics. The clip on the bottom of the arm rest to hold the headphone cord is pretty much useless, as the cord doesn't stay in place.
In the Field: Getting the unit set-up was simple. Ground balanced, went into disc 1, then turned on the Iron Audio feature and set it at 25. That's it, off to the races! I bought the machine simply as a unit that can say "Dig Me!" in heavy patches of iron, where I can't even put the coil over on my Minelab, so, wasn't needing a depth demon machine, but rather, a capable unmasker. Which is good, as depth seemed rather tame on the Gold. Of course, I WAS in disc mode. This is in MY dirt, yours might be different. Our ground is fairly mineralized here in NJ. I did dig a few larger holes, but, the targets turned out to be big pieces of iron, which any machine would've surely picked up. On coin-sized objects, biggest dig was maybe 5"...most of the time the target ended up being in the plug.
The machine is EXCELLENT in iron!!! Lightning fast. I would say pretty darned close to T2/F75 quickness. I had the Iron Audio feature permanently on thruout my hunt, so I could hear those mid & high tones pop through the iron. Being a higher frequency unit geared towards gold hunting, no surprise that the unit hits HARD on nickels! I found 7 today! Unfortunately (for a coin hunter, like me), it also seems to hit hard on foil & pull tabs...a lot of which registered high on the VDI scale. Speaking of which, the VDI info, IMO, isn't the most accurate. And we weren't talking deep targets either, a few inches. My Safari's VDI is DEADLY accurate compared to the Gold.
As Keith Southern pointed out on Nasa's site, the Gold is good at recognizing shallow iron, however, deeper iron is going to be a problem, which is EXACTLY what I encountered today. Like a Fisher, the unit had a tendency to call deeper iron a good target. Again, shallow iron, no problem. Deep stuff - problem. Of course, it WAS my first outting with the machine, so, still have a LOT to learn. Once I play with it more & tweak things, it should only get better
Pluses: Lightening quick, feather light unit, Iron Audio feature is PHENOMENAL at picking through heavy patches of iron, the tones are QUITE rich, easy set-up, waterproof.
Minuses: Depth isn't the greatest, has falsing problems with deeper iron/junk, VDI is erratic and not the most reliable, mid tones seemed to hit better than high tones.
Although not a gold hunter myself, based on how it operates, I would say the Gold is a DAMN good unit...for what it was built for...nugget shooting. It is also stunningly good at picking good targets through iron. Wouldn't say my first impression was that it's a great on coins, but, it can surely get the job done to some degree. I'd say this machine is an 8 out of 10. Was never really a big Garrett fan, but, they did something right with the Gold. Definitely has a home in my arsenal
The unit managed to sniff out 7 nickels today! 2 1945 war nickels, a 1911 V nickel & 4 clad nickels. Also got 1 wheatie, 1 clad dime & a nice Mexican stamped silver thingamajig...as well as a TON of crap since I'm still learning the unit.
Joe
Assembly: As others have stated, the Gold (as well as the Pro) is a bit cumbersome to put together. The rubber washers that go into the bolt area on the coil are small and take a bit of finessing to get into place. Also, same problem with the headphone connector & coil connector - small and tricky. Nothing super difficult, but, a bit of a pain.
Build: The build quality of the unit is pretty good. Of course, not even close to that of a Whites or Minelab, but then, what is?! Unit is light as a feather. Decent ergonomics. The clip on the bottom of the arm rest to hold the headphone cord is pretty much useless, as the cord doesn't stay in place.
In the Field: Getting the unit set-up was simple. Ground balanced, went into disc 1, then turned on the Iron Audio feature and set it at 25. That's it, off to the races! I bought the machine simply as a unit that can say "Dig Me!" in heavy patches of iron, where I can't even put the coil over on my Minelab, so, wasn't needing a depth demon machine, but rather, a capable unmasker. Which is good, as depth seemed rather tame on the Gold. Of course, I WAS in disc mode. This is in MY dirt, yours might be different. Our ground is fairly mineralized here in NJ. I did dig a few larger holes, but, the targets turned out to be big pieces of iron, which any machine would've surely picked up. On coin-sized objects, biggest dig was maybe 5"...most of the time the target ended up being in the plug.
The machine is EXCELLENT in iron!!! Lightning fast. I would say pretty darned close to T2/F75 quickness. I had the Iron Audio feature permanently on thruout my hunt, so I could hear those mid & high tones pop through the iron. Being a higher frequency unit geared towards gold hunting, no surprise that the unit hits HARD on nickels! I found 7 today! Unfortunately (for a coin hunter, like me), it also seems to hit hard on foil & pull tabs...a lot of which registered high on the VDI scale. Speaking of which, the VDI info, IMO, isn't the most accurate. And we weren't talking deep targets either, a few inches. My Safari's VDI is DEADLY accurate compared to the Gold.
As Keith Southern pointed out on Nasa's site, the Gold is good at recognizing shallow iron, however, deeper iron is going to be a problem, which is EXACTLY what I encountered today. Like a Fisher, the unit had a tendency to call deeper iron a good target. Again, shallow iron, no problem. Deep stuff - problem. Of course, it WAS my first outting with the machine, so, still have a LOT to learn. Once I play with it more & tweak things, it should only get better
Pluses: Lightening quick, feather light unit, Iron Audio feature is PHENOMENAL at picking through heavy patches of iron, the tones are QUITE rich, easy set-up, waterproof.
Minuses: Depth isn't the greatest, has falsing problems with deeper iron/junk, VDI is erratic and not the most reliable, mid tones seemed to hit better than high tones.
Although not a gold hunter myself, based on how it operates, I would say the Gold is a DAMN good unit...for what it was built for...nugget shooting. It is also stunningly good at picking good targets through iron. Wouldn't say my first impression was that it's a great on coins, but, it can surely get the job done to some degree. I'd say this machine is an 8 out of 10. Was never really a big Garrett fan, but, they did something right with the Gold. Definitely has a home in my arsenal
The unit managed to sniff out 7 nickels today! 2 1945 war nickels, a 1911 V nickel & 4 clad nickels. Also got 1 wheatie, 1 clad dime & a nice Mexican stamped silver thingamajig...as well as a TON of crap since I'm still learning the unit.
Joe
