Garrett AT Gold, and recent popularity.

I'm noticing as of late via Facebook and Forums that the Garett AT Gold is being used as relic machines more and more. I had an AT Pro and thought it was a fantastic unit, complimented my Minelab Etrac nicely. When the CTX3030 came out the AT Pro got sold and a Teknetics T2SE entered my lineup for relic duties. Now the AT series have been around awhile now. The AT Gold at least 4 years! Now all of a sudden I see a trend of people jumping on the AT Gold for relic purposes like its a new thing and hasn't been around for years! I actually have an AT Gold being delivered tomorrow to see what all the hype is about, and to use it as a dedicated fresh water machine.


What are your thoughts on the Garrett AT Gold?

I had two AT Pros. One when they first launched, and the other a few years later. The first one was deeper. The second one seemed to be tamed by the factory. I hated it and sold it after a few hunts. The AT Gold does not have some of the features of the Pro. The factory states it is not to be used in salt water. I guess it is tuned for small gold so the salt water can't be ignored. The true all metal mode and threshold of the AT Gold plus the higher frequency seem to be the best of it. I have seen videos of them both working in heavy iron. They both have great audio and separate targets wonderfully. Depth is the question with the AT series. I never liked detectors that I could run full sensitivity the majority of the time. It makes me believe the factory took the extra sparkiness out of the detector, and just leaves me wanting more.

I think the big interest has came from some mighty big guns successfully using them on their YouTube channels. AquaChigger has over 330,000 subscribers to his channel and uses the AT Gold. Nuggetnoggin has 170,000 subscribers to his and also uses the Gold. Heck they have me wanting to try one too.

I think the AT Gold is a lot more machine than the Pro. Think about it. Half the AT Pro is Standard mode. Who uses standard mode?
I bought the AT Pro because it was my first detector when getting back into detecting 3 years ago, and I wanted it to be useable in salt water.
Now that I have other detectors for beach use, I'd rather have a Gold...except now I have a Racer, FORS Relic, and MXSport for relic hunting, not to mention the PI Minelab GPX 4800. So why do I need an AT Gold?

Personally, I've not noticed any recent uptick in AT Gold popularity based on my views of forums and youtube. But that is not to say it isn't a popular detector. Perhaps it has just come into its own. The AT Pro with its huge following may have overshadowed it a bit.

Wayne

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2016 05:37PM by ncwayne.

I got an AT Gold a month or so ago and have been pleasantly surprised. I never considered the Pro as it has features like notch that I don't need, and the Gold has a true all metal mode. The ground balance window works well and helps in bad ground, which we have quite a bit of in Virginia. The depth is pretty impressive with the 5x8 coil. I got it to freshwater hunt for relics, and only bought it for that purpose. But the more I use it the more I'm impressed with it. It's got really good separation, good audio, and while I don't know if it will be my primary relic machine, I'm sure I'll use it quite a bit for land hunting in the fall. I'm sure a bigger coil will add quite a bit of depth over the stock coil. It's a much better machine than it's given credit for.

Old California (Paul) seemed to like the At Gold.

I miss him here-- what a guy!!

His hunt posts were exceptional in my book.

Talented person too with his detector mods.