Garrett Vortex VX9 may have major flaw(s) with latest version software.

[John-Edmonton]

I got to include a little gold prospecting testing on the VX9 and I will do some more. Gerry and some of the other Garrett Gold Challenge participants got to tryout the VX9 for gold prospecting and they liked it a lot. So did I. It is easily better than the AT Gold and Apex for gold prospecting as it is right now even though it does not currently have a one or two tone VCO audio option. It also doesn't have its 5X8" coil yet which will make it even better for gold prospecting.

After doing my testing, if you asked me to go out and hunt a gold prospecting site that was likely to have mostly sub 0.5 gram and smaller gold instead of larger nuggets and I could only choose between the Garrett VX9 with its current stock coil running in multi frequency and Deus 2 with its smallest available 9" FMF coil in its FMF prospecting mode, I would choose the VX9 even with its lack of a gold prospecting program.

I am pretty sure that my decision would be different if I had the new Deus 2 HF2 coil and software update.

That's good to hear, as I prospect part time. The VX9 should be a killer with the 5" x 8" coil. I just got my hands on a new highbanker a couple of weeks ago. I had a long discussion with one of the builders of highbankers in Edmonton about a new design. Well he liked it and built one. I put in some 1/2" x 1/2" drop riffle matting and have had it out a several times. I made a video last evening with a description of it's operation. It called the Wedgy and the lower sluice flairs out, reducing the flow with the progression. It lets the gold drop out where it chooses to.