Well James, it's a close thing. First though, a big thankyou to everyone who has responded so far. I only recently discovered this forum as you can probably tell, but it's for me. Everyone is enthusiastic, and very helpful. It's as if everyone's on the same wavelength, and now I'm "tuned-in" too.
The decision on which detector to purchase is not easy. I've seen the reviews from both Britain, and Europe that indicate the F-75 is at the top of the heap for depth, ergonomics, weight/balance, iron discrimination ability, and an unequalled recovery rate. Plus with the All-Metal motion mode at this operating frequency (around what..13 kHz and a bit?), and full discrimination, with visual ID in all metal and high sensitivity, it's easy to imagine this unit would do just fine for gold prospecting as well as general purposes. At Gary's Detecting in Britain, he describes it as an MXT on steroids...that is to say, it has the MXT benefits, plus it's deeper, lighter, and faster responding. It's interesting to note that despite some criticism over test results published from both locals (albeit in disturbed soil conditions), the results uniformly suggest the F-75 gets top marks. (The results are also uniform for other models, despite how they performed). In Canada/USA it's not so easy to get solid, substantiated information. The F-75 doesn't seem to get much notice from the nugget hunting fraternity, there's very little information and I wonder why; a few that I've discussed it with, are not keen on it for prospecting, but I can't pin them down on why not. That's why I ask questions about it's capabilities...and this post asks about its small target abilities for good reason.
The MXT/X-Terra 70 come highly recommended, the results/comments are uniformly good, as well, from users over here. I'd like to use a unit that's lightweight, so that sort of let's the MXT out. The XT-70 looks good, but I did notice (again in Britain) that neither unit is rated as highly (but still quite good) as the F-75; in depth tests, the F-75 also did better, but those tests were generally for larger targets, not much by way of grain to gram size targets.
Soooo, I decided to ask the people that use the F-75 (you guys) to make comments on small target ability. If the results seem good, then I think I have all the info I need to make a decision. In these parts, it'll cost about $1175 incl. tax (14%), so I'd like to be certain as reasonably possible before making the plunge (that's a wife rule as well). Also, I'm thinking about a ground balancing PI to compliment the F-75 (or whatever), in addition to upgrading some of my other accessory equipment; as you can see, this could be costly. I can't get my hands on one to try it out properly beforehand...oh I could fiddle with it in some shop down in Toronto, but that wouldn't tell me anything much. Therefore I turn to the best possible source...there can be no substitute for experience. Any information, is better than absolutely nothing. Finally, I'm aware that some dedicated prospecting units will do the job fine (ie. GMT), but if the F-75 will do reasonably well compared with either the MXT/XT-70, then it would be my preference.
Before closing, my sincere thanks to Marke and Ron; you guys provided solid information that I can understand; and in Ron's example, that lead piece might have been found even easier/deeper (no doubt) in all metal. Marke..did you hunt in all-metal mode, or in JE mode? If you guys, or anyone else, can add to this thread, please do so. Many thanks..Jim.
