Hi everyone. Just joined, first time poster. I recently moved to a known gold bearing area so i purchased a Gold Monster as an entry level detector for fine gold with the mindset that i was taking up a new hobby. I found a few little pieces and was very impressed overall, but after reading all the reviews and being totally hooked on detecting after my little finds i decided to "upgrade" to an SDC. I just have to say....and i say this through gritted teeth because this thing was f*** expensive for a student....that i'm extremely disappointed with the SDC after using the monster.
At this point, i would like to pause, backtrack a little bit and explain how i arrived at this point.
The GM instruction manual talks a big game regarding its auto and auto plus settings. The first 5 days of ownership proved this to be absolutely rubbish in Australian conditions and was the primary driving force in my decision to upgrade - the auto and auto plus settings are incredibly agressive and significantly decrease the sensitivity of the detector in the mineralised soil we have around here (warwick). I found my first gold nugget on day 5 after realising that manually setting the detector's sensitivity relatively high (around 6-7) and leaving it on gold only discrimination gave almost the same sensitivity to my little gold test target as the so-called 'deep all metal mode' but with much fewer false positives from hot rocks and mineralisation. Although i still got false positives, they were minor in tone and NOT repeatable making them easy to ignore and allowed me to continue detecting. The same gold target i used for testing did not register on the SDC - i repeat - did NOT register....AT ALL.
The SDC is immune to the hot rocks in this area which is great - i mean REALLY great. The GM would beep on everything coloured red and riding on the surface in all metal mode which got really annoying really quickly, necessitating the need for switching to gold only mode which made a huge difference when activated. Even in gold only mode (from my experience) the GM is more sensitive and will give a nice solid beep on a known fine gold target where the SDC signal is indistinguishable from its idle babble on the same target. Saying that the SDC is the gold standard in super fine gold is, in my experience a huge myth.
This is a big problem for me because my gold monster is now on ebay, with active bids (meaning it will sell), and i wonder now after using the SDC whether i am making the right decision. Honestly, every fibre of my being wants to go back to the monster. Sure it takes some getting used to and is prone to false positives....but it HAS found gold. To this date, here in Warwick, the SDC has not.
My summary - GM users should set their sensitivity high manually and leave the detector on gold only mode. Swing back and forth to find targets that repeat. SDC users enjoy your walk in the forest until you come across birdshot on the surface or a gold target large enough to register.
