Garrett ATX versus New ML coming out next year THREADS MERGED

[Bignuggs]

First topic message reminder :

This is bound to get some diehards talking but it grabbed my interest.  Now the ground in the vid clip is sandy but it's interesting to see how both machines compare.
Anyone know if this machine has been used on West Oz ground and how it compared with the 5000.

[Bignuggs]

What we need here is a loaner or hire machine to see how it stacks up against the 5000 with ordinary Joe Blow detectorists using it   

Find a target and see how both machines read it. All the vid clips in the world mean nothing until I see it in action for myself. Test beds ? forget it. It's loose ground.
I wanna see it get thru true hard ground.

Cheers
Cliff

[Mxt Sniper]

One of my nugget hunting buddies just got a ATX here in Calif. will be testing early spring in Nevada backcountry, weather too bad now to do much. I agree staged tests are not very revealing. Need some realtime swinging.

[martinjsto]

here is something new on the Garret ATX from Bill and Udo of gold prospecting WA.

Garrett ATX First Impressions
Hi Everyone
Sorry about this late newsletter Udo and I have been preparing for the seminars and we ran the first one in Cue last weekend so time just caught up on us!
As promised Udo and I have purchased the Garrett ATX, the full kit, to test.
Those that know us will know that we do not have an affiliation with any equipment manufacturer and we try to give our honest opinion on the equipment we buy and try. We are independent and fiercely so.
Ok, given that knowledge we want to ensure that we give the equipment we test the best workout we can. These are our first impressions and you can be sure that we will do some more testing before we put the video up on our metal detecting page.
Protective Package
Love it, congratulations to Garrett for putting together the heavy duty case to protect the machine in the Deepseeker package. It costs extra but worth it to protect your investment.
Maybe that will tickle Minelab along to provide a decent protective case with their detectors so customers can protect them right from the start.
Owners Manual, Setup and Ease of Understanding Instructions
Although Udo and I have been around detectors for a while we thought the setup of the machine and understanding the instructions was reasonably simple, it was easy to set up out of the box and came with batteries inserted and a spare re-chargeable set to recharge and use later.
Some post purchase training would be very helpful to new users though.
The Manual was readable and easy to understand so we could get going pretty quick with the detector.
The red writing on dark green on the display was very hard to read for old-timers eyes and not a good contrast.
Maybe gold on green would have been a better contrast and with enough difference to the white printing on green to quickly comprehend the Primary and Secondary controls.
Signal Noise
We are not headphone type people preferring external speakers reverberating from our shoulder speaker to our hat brim and back so we can hear them.
The volume created by the Garrett using the speakers only was not sufficient for determining soft sounding targets.
This almost forces you to use the headphones in the bush where there is other noises in the environment. We didn't like that and think it could be improved - maybe that is a personal preference thing for us.
The detector noises are electronically strident until you tune the machine up to quieten them and that was a bit disconcerting.
Field Performance
We went to the goldfields of Cue and detected some targets that we knew were gold with the Minelab 5000 and 12x8 inch Mono Nuggetfinder coils, then we attempted to video the comparison on signals over the same targets while they were still in the ground.
The Garrett did not detect them, even when we tweaked the settings – so the jury is out on performance with small gold nuggets (these were in the 0.1 to 0.5 gram range. We haven’t yet walked over a bigger one in the 1 gram to 10 gram range yet to test the signals
It picks up other metallic surface objects OK but that is not what detecting for Gold Nuggets is all about!
To be fair to the Garret Machine we will test performance over the next month so we can ensure we are more experienced and expert with the setting and use of the Garrett ATX machine.
We will video the results, sounds and comparisons and put a video up on the gold-prospecting-wa site in May.
Our initial conclusion are however that if you are in the market for a Metal Detector to detect Gold on the WA goldfields this season, the Minelab 5000 is superior to the the Garrett ATX.
More next month.

interesting
martin

[Sponsored content]