Wow, quite the thread! I was contacted by Dilek at Nokta this morning about evaluating the Fors Gold and had to see what prompted that. I had not looked at this thread previously.
Thank you AzViper for the vote of confidence. I am sure everything californiagold has posted is true but I would be the very first person to tell anyone never put all your trust in a single opinion, even mine. You want to take an average of a dozen opinions, though you certainly can put more weight in the opinions of those whose word you have come to trust over time. I certainly have a short list of people that when they post, I read it and pay attention to every word.
That said never forget we all filter what we think about a detector through our our own needs, desires, and past experiences. The reality is VLF technology is well advanced and just about anyone with decent electronic skills can build a good one. The whole thing about VLF depth is a red herring as nothing has changed there since 1990. What matters is ergonomics, sound, feel, stability, ground handling capability, EMI resistance, accuracy of discrimination, and recovery time between targets. All these things directly impact your ability to pull targets out of the ground every bit as much as bench test depth comparisons. Given the advanced state of VLF metal detector technology these days, I mainly am looking for clean performance where a detector keeps its little speaker shut until it gets over a good target while still delivering depth. There are too many detectors these days pushing depth by also delivering lots of noise, then laying it all on me by telling me I need to train my ears to better discern good targets from bad. Frankly, I am getting tired of listening to the racket and so my new standard is "quiet performance".
Anyway, I tried to scare Dilek off by warning him I call it as I see it so we will see what develops. And guys, chill out! It's only metal detectors.
