This dont sound good (7k)

Have a gander at this link, could be my premonition coming true.

http://golddetecting.4umer.net/t20957-not-impressed

Well we all know it's early days, but some of these reports coming through is putting an element of doubt in my mind!
What worries me, if this 7K is no better than the 2300 or 5K, then the investment of 10,700 goes out the window, unless they come up with an upgrade to the software
Time will tell, but until it is proven, a lot of potential buyers like myself will be reticent to buy it
Pete

G'day yeah been looking at that thread from umer. What I know to be fact is two things. The zed will kill the 5 for detecting small gold at depths up to 8".
It wasn't a test bed that we set up it was a recent patch in extremely hot ground as mentioned here before.
Zed does not like mineralized ground. You can tame it but obviously at a detriment to performance.
The next test really needed is deep gold in situ test, zed against a gpx.
I was personally looking at getting a zed off ray but maybe I'll hold back for now. It is a worry, 10.7k ain't chicken feed.

Jase
Appreciated your report, look forward to hear what your results would be in a depth test against the 5K mate

The 7000, in future can they upgrade it without physically changing it? Through a computer? When the 2100 came out, within minutes i knew it went heaps deeper, getting big deep targets including gold on a patch straight away, ......but lets not forget the 20 inch coil thats coming......could be a1...

goldstrijk wrote:Jase
Appreciated your report, look forward to hear what your results would be in a depth test against the 5K mate

No probs mate.
The only way is testing over gold in ground. Buried targets or air tests mean nothing.
But where are the testers reports on the depth capabilities?

Yeah, considering the 7K has now been released, where are the test results previous to the release

Seems the 7000 will do (almost) everything the 2300 and 5000 will do. The only question outstanding as far as I see it is, will it punch 40% deeper on big gold, and that my friends is going to take quite a while to come to the surface so to speak. So it's just a matter of sitting and waiting for reports to come in, or not come in.

Spot on Toad

Pete

Interestingly, when the 5000 was first released, one of its selling points was the “Fine Gold” timing and the ability to detect very small bits. On another forum, numerous people ranted and raved about spending over 6K on a machine to pick up fly shite! Well, with the Zed those people can now really arc up because from most reports so far it looks like you will need to spend nearly 11K to do the same thing!

On the other hand, there well may be people out there quietly beavering away picking up chunks on all the well known patches before the word gets out and the rush starts.
Time will tell.

Col

I see the jury is still out on the ZED but come on guys purchasers have to be realistic, did they really expect to spend 11k run to the back field and after a few swings get there money back. Don't forget gold is were you find it and it makes you work hard to reap the rewards. The ZEd is totally new technology and without extensive testing by ones self and getting to understand how the technology works I don't believe anyone can form an opinion in such a short space of time.
As pebbles quite rightly says when the 5000 was first released there was a lot of flak about its performance and yet here we are today all dedicated 5000 users.
I have great confidence in minelab they have never sold a dud yet, I only wish I had a spare $11000 dollars I would not hesitate to get one. Still me and jan love the trusty 5000 and it has done us well large and small, not as large as we would like it but every time we go out its an adventure and even a sub grammer makes us feel it's all worth it.

Time will tell on the 7000, and its a bit early really to make an informed opinion either way, all will be revealed when all the cool weather prospectors hit the goldfields, that's when we will start getting real and unbiased reports on the performance.

I cant shake the gut feeling that this machine will turn out to be just average, and people will then really start to question the price tag and the choice they made to buy one, also being that its the first in a new line of detectors it will be like the Sd2000 compared to the Gpx5000 they are a long way from the refinement that went into pi detectors from the start to the present.

And all that will depend of course if this new technology is expandable and adaptable like in the pi platform was? if it is then I reckon the next release or the one after that would be the one to look out for.

Other things that raise further questions are, there are no other coils available at the moment as far as I can find out, I was told that a replacement standard 14" coil is in the range of about $1300, if you want a 20" coil or a smaller coil then it might be that you will be forking out a further $2500 or so as well, and cant find any information on how you go about replacing the coil if you want a bigger or smaller one, it does not seem as though it would be a 2 minute swap over like with the 5000 etc.

Sitting on the fence and completely undecided at this point in time

au-fever

I still can't help thinking 5K standard coils, with an aftermarket Ai Coil and one Big coil (total in Dollars 7K) is still better value

compared to

Zed (11K) with no options and only an effective medium depth detector only by the evidence I've seen), it's still at least 3K overpriced.

i THINK CHANGING COILS will be quicker on the 7.
Its easy and you dont have to stuff around re wrapping the lead around he upper shaft.

I've got one, haven't used it yet.

The 7000 seems to be doing quite well in North QLD. Must be the XXXX that gets splashed on it.

Regards Matelot

I don't care! There has been so many opinions, which is good, but at the end of the day, it's a decision you have to make
I should have mine soon and I will give it a go, I just love being out there

The way I look at it is, every detector Minelab have brought out is an improvement on the previous
No I can't afford it price wise, but I'll take the punt!

Regards Goldstrijk

Alan WA wrote:i THINK CHANGING COILS will be quicker on the 7.
Its easy and you dont have to stuff around re wrapping the lead around he upper shaft.

I've got one, haven't used it yet.

Isn't the 7000 balanced for the stock coil? If you put on a bigger coil, there's too much front weight. Can you move the handle forward? Is the lower shaft long enough?

As I understand it, the 5000 took quite some time to learn how to use it to get the best results, so why do we all expect this machine to teach us instantly to get good results. I suspect those who go quietly about their business, learning the intricacies of the 7k will be chuckling in their beards about threads like this 
Cheers
Russo

Shinegold
I'm just over 6ft and the shaft is plenty long enough.
The handle doesn't move but the cuff does.
As a detector I like it apart from the weight.
Minelab have fixed some long put up Hassel's with earlier ones.
No leads,coil cable hidden in the stem. Its a pick up and go machine if you
want to jump out of the ute and give a spot a quick look over whereas you might not have
bothered if you had to 'rig up' as before.
But as I said, I haven't tried it yet.

Alan

PS, how do you do the 'quote' thing?

Alan WA wrote:Shinegold
I'm just over 6ft and the shaft is plenty long enough.
The handle doesn't move but the cuff does.
As a detector I like it apart from the weight.
Minelab have fixed some long put up Hassel's with earlier ones.
No leads,coil cable hidden in the stem. Its a pick up and go machine if you
want to jump out of the ute and give a spot a quick look over whereas you might not have
bothered if you had to 'rig up' as before.
But as I said, I haven't tried it yet.

Alan

PS, how do you do the 'quote' thing?

I'm a bit sceptical about the shaft but I hope you're right, I'm over 6 foot and always had issues. The CTX shaft system seemed comfortable when I tried it though.

As for quoting, just click the quote button on the top right of any post. The text that you're quoting is in-between the quote fields, type your text outside of that. You can change the text of who you're quoting as well, delete lines you don't need inside the quote fields.

[quote="Shinegold"]

Alan WA wrote:Shinegold

Got it I think....



PS, how do you do the 'quote' thing?

It seems a bit longer on the 7 and the balance is good



I'm a bit sceptical about the shaft but I hope you're right, I'm over 6 foot and always had issues. The CTX shaft system seemed comfortable when I tried it though.

As for quoting, just click the quote button on the top right of any post. The text that you're quoting is in-between the quote fields, type your text outside of that. You can change the text of who you're quoting as well, delete lines you don't need inside the quote fields

You're not quite their Alan.
When you hit the quote button all the text between the quote & /quote is contained in the white box. You type your message after the /quote.

Nightjar wrote:You're not quite their Alan.
When you hit the quote button all the text between the quote & /quote is contained in the white box. You type your message after the /quote.

As Shinegold mentioned you can delete unwanted quoted text within the white box.

Nightjar wrote:

Nightjar wrote:You're not quite their Alan.
When you hit the quote button all the text between the quote & /quote is contained in the white box. You type your message after the /quote.

As Shinegold mentioned you can delete unwanted quoted text within the white box.

Thanks Nightjar, if I haven't got it this time I think I'll go back to 'cut and paste'

Well,no guts,no glory.Listen to all the stories,rumours and opinions you want-what it boils down to is how YOU operate it,where YOU take it and what YOU find with it.As for shortcomings with any machine,who cares as long as it finds gold better than the last one.The 2300 is a good example,plenty of shortcomings which people like to grizzle about,but it never ceases to amaze me how good it is at doing what it is designed for and i will put up with a few problems and either adapt myself or the machine.I have a 5000,a 2300 and they make a great combo.I will add a gpz to complement the others and hopefully it will excel in its particular application as the other two do.Im quietly confident that it will,but if it doesnt,you live and learn.