GaussMD - a glimpse of the first detector from the Ukrainian company Mars

Mars has been in the detector business for over 10 years, so many of us have come across its products, either physically or at least virtually. Until now they have been manufacturing accessories - structures, tracking devices and primarily coils for other brands of detectors. It was this experience that they wove into their first machine.

I signed up for the test out of curiosity. I knew Mars products to be of high quality and robust, so I expected nothing less from the new detector. I tempered my expectations, however, knowing that few people manage to get all the functions and features right the first time.

After unpacking the box, the first surprise came. Mars had thought of the classic woes of all searchers, such as losing small parts. The box of screws and gaskets contained a large number of spare pieces of each type. Who has folded a detector somewhere in muddy terrain outside the car (it happens to me that in the woods after a hard search I still wash the coil and individual rods in a stream), knows that such sealing rubbers can be lost quite easily. This gave me the first idea that they don't want to waste money on us.

Like other colleagues, I chose a period to review when it was raining heavily, the fields were waterlogged and everything I had planned beautifully in my head could only be done half-heartedly. Even so, I managed to test for a few days and take the detector to my special location as well. I tried searching in the woods, in the meadow and in the field. Then at the end of the article you will find three short videos, two of them just from the first two days of walking. Now let's briefly talk about the individual parts and features.

Construction

When I first took the design out of the package, it reminded me more of the body of an AK-47 rifle. And like the iconic Kalashnikov, this design is made with two goals in mind - durability and compactness.

The carbon material coil rod is coated with a coating that protects well against abrasions and major mud sticking. The length of the rod is adjusted with just one massive locking screw, which does not need to be tightened with great force. One short turn sets the desired distance from the main frame firmly and without bowing. You have to be careful not to tighten the screw too much, as I did. During field testing, I assembled the detector at a temperature of approximately 2 degrees. It is the temperature changes that can cause some components to change the size of the material, which is probably why I was then unable to loosen the screw. It helped to spray WD-40 under the screw at home in the heat and wait an hour. This probably doesn't happen to everyone, but for me the habit from using the Equinox of having to tighten the rod to the max to keep it from coming loose seems to have worked. This is definitely not an issue with the GaussMD. Everything holds fantastically tight after a slight tightening.

The main body of the structure feels very solid and gives the impression that nothing can happen to it even when hitting branches or rocks. It includes a rubberized handle for holding, at the end of which is a grip for the detector unit. The unit snaps into the holder by sliding it in, just like the Deus detector unit. The handle was perhaps a little thicker than I would have liked for my small hands, but this is just a minor detail and again a habit from using another brand. It was more comfortable to touch and wave then though, as the rubber surface improves grip and puts less strain on forearms and wrists. Again, you can see that Mars have thought about the little things that can bother a person over time, but you don't realise at first glance.

The armrest is in the classic design as with all detectors. The only thing I found odd was that it didn't include padding or a tightening strip. The grips are there for it, though, so I guess those things just weren't part of the test package.

Coil

I was given a single coil Tiger version to test. It is a relatively large oval probe 25.5x33cm, which is more of a middle size for the Mars brand. I won't describe their other coils as they were not included and I don't have much experience with them. The Tajgr has good construction, a standard hard cover, the cable lead out is protected by a reinforced yellow rubber cover and the body is pretty subtle. You can see that they tried to minimize weight but maintain some strength. This is evidenced by their durability tests and the crazy things they did with the coils.

Very nice to put the reel on the rod, which is literally a nightmare for me with other brands. They ingeniously used a lock, where on one side there is a classic screw that you screw the reel in with and on the other side a lever that you just tighten into a firm fit with the last movement. In fact, when I first installed it, I didn't understand that other brands didn't use this system. The cable connector has another perfect gadget, which is a protective rubber sleeve. I recommend using it whenever the connector is unplugged. Connectors are a fragile and vulnerable thing that you shouldn't let dust, dirt, or water get into. Not so much because of the connector, but pebbles and sand can damage the pins (needles) in the unit's socket.

The coil mounted design is not fundamentally heavier than other high-end detectors, and the balance is quite nice. The separation properties and depth are consistent with the size of the oval, but I was still surprised that a coil this large was able to separate quickly in analog mode, and catch small silver in contaminated areas in cL mode. If I had my druthers, I'd take an even smaller coil.

Unit

We'll stop at the unit for a little longer chat. As with all detectors, it is of course the "brain" of the whole machine. It interprets the data that your hand movement gives the coil from the ground. Therefore, not only the description of the "hardware", or physical features, but also the software and the list of settings it allows.

Features of the unit

I see the biggest bright side of the unit as the ability to detach from the structure. The list of advantages is enormous - whether it is the practicality for carrying in a backpack and the associated protection from damage, charging in the car or anywhere else without having to remove the entire structure, very quick assembly of the detector, etc. Many know this from Deus designs. For me a great move.

Charging is via a magnetic connector with a USB connection. As with other "mag-safe" connectors, be careful not to get black magnetic sand on the magnet. This can cause an increase in resistance at the point of contact, which can cause the connector to heat up and burn out, or slow down charging. This is true for all detectors or electronics with this type of charging. Otherwise, the Gauss charges pretty quickly, conveniently, and can be charged while searching.

The display is good quality and allows for backlighting. It is not a graphical display with pixels, but a panel with segments where it is fixed what information it can display. That's why I was a bit surprised that Gauss doesn't show the depth of orientation for ID as well. The display does include a depth scale. Later, I was informed that a software update is coming, which should already include a depth indicator and other improvements. As one of the drawbacks I would perhaps mention just a little neglected marketing communication from Mars. I would have welcomed a dedicated Facebook or Twitter page focused on news around the development, where they would communicate in English.

Unit setup

Given the previous reviews and the fairly decent manual, I won't go into detail on the setup, but I will list the features that have a major impact on the function.

When you turn on the detector using the power button, a basic screen is displayed which contains quite a lot of data and indicators. In the middle is the classic space for the target ID and depth indicator. Unlike other brands, the display shows virtually all the values you have set, except for volume/fe-volume. In addition, there is an obscure outside temperature indicator. Many people have wondered why such information is always in plain sight, but when searching somewhere in Siberia or the desert, you can perfectly wellimagine getting to a critical temperature point where it's better to put the detector away if you don't want to lose the battery, coil or unit.

After pressing the setup button, two buttons scroll through the menu items. Let's take a quick look at what they are for.

Gain (Sensitivity)

There's nothing to worry about with sensitivity, it's a similar principle to the other brands. You can afford to increase it according to the detector's calm and stability. I usually apply the principle that I try to decrease by 20% from the maximum and increase the value when the site is too quiet and clear.

Disc (Discrimination/break tone)

Gauss uses tonal discrimination, where you set which ID to break the scale into color. For most detectors this is somewhere around 0, I went on the advice of the more experienced -2, but basically you can get by with 0. Full audio discrimination of the iron can then be achieved by lowering the FeVol to 0, which turns the iron sound off completely. This doesn't discriminate individual IDs yet, but it's not necessary either.

Freq (Frequency)

For the frequency, they cleverly came up with the option to set a "universal" frequency of 16kHz or a high frequency suitable for fretwork like obols or natural gold, namely 48kHz. These two values are distinguished by the letters L and H, followed by a digit to indicate a shift of a few Hz so that the two Gaussians don't interfere. However, a little confusing is the fact that L1 a H1 have a 50% reduction in power (current to the coil) and L2 a H2 have 25% reduced power. These frequencies should be chosen when the soil is too wet or unstable (due to mineralization or interference). Perhaps Mars could also point this out with some sort of indicator, as the instructions have it in tiny print and I can imagine a situation where the user sets this up and wonders if the detector can't see deep enough.

Search (Search conditions mode)

This setting basically allows you to better tune the detector and increase its stability when you are in a problematic location. Includes settings for low, normal a highdepending on how mineralised and wet the soil is. I usually chose the safe option of normal.

Mode (Working Mode)

Modes the intensity of data processing from the coil. The first option Analog gives you the answer straight away without further filtering, so the response is extremely fast and you will enjoy the benefits of good separation. However, the stability and accuracy of the displayed ID may fluctuate. What I noticed was that for smaller and poorly rotated targets, the ID in analog tended to jump a lot and one might not be completely sure. Filter modes cL a CL are slightly slower, but cL as a safe option will probably work well almost everywhere. I walked around with it and both stability and speed were OK. CL is a more intense filter, which I only tried a couple of times, but I didn't notice a particularly better result. Maybe it would be worth it in the woods, for example.

Vol (Color Volume)

The volume of the colour signals. Since I was walking around without headphones, I set some lower value at the beginning (around 6) and stayed with it.

FeVol (Iron volume)

The volume of iron tones, or discriminated tones. I was going around setting 2 here, but I tried turning the iron completely off in the field as well. It's definitely a good one to try when the site is very overwhelmed with iron and you have trouble focusing on the good tones.

Trans (audio output type and channel)

This is where you can choose whether you want to output to a speaker or headphones. For headphones you then set the channel of the transmission.

Other than that, the unit offers ground tuning in two modes - automatically (by pumping until it lowers enough sound response) or manually - by the same movement and pressing of buttons that scroll the value.

The top two buttons (ground tuning and settings) have two more small icons on the horn, the sun and moon. Holding the button down activates this setting, which means the display is backlighted for the sun and the moonfor the sun, it's an interesting and for me long-awaited (I always wondered when someone would finally come up with it) sleep function. Why? Because when you need to put the detector on the ground for a while, try to follow up with another detector, or walk past a disturbing fence, you don't always want to turn the detector off and on over and over again. This feature puts the Gauss to sleep for a while, the settings stay with you and you don't have to wait for the power to turn on. Apparently, it saves the battery, too. Maybe a trifle for some, but with older software versions of the Equinox the problem was that the detector played like an orchestra when you turned on cellular data. This is exactly why I always wanted the sleep function. Someone at Mars has really thought this through.

Field observations

As I wrote in the introduction, the few rainy days were definitely not enough to get a good feel for the Gauss and listen to its tones. Apropos the tones - they remind me of older Sega games. The sounds are nice, but it took me a while to get used to the timbre. Sometimes I thought the iron tones were actually more pronounced than the colored ones. Probably because my ears are used to Minelab's parrots.

I used to walk around in the woods with a setup G: 36, D: -2, F: L3, S: no, M: cL, V: 6, FeV: 2.

From the first moment I turned it on, I had no problem in the woods. I found the ID evaluation to be similar to the values the Orx showed me in the woods when I tested it - and even with a similar coil. It even showed almost the same ID on the small silver coin as the Orx that found it. I knew then that identifying a good target would be no problem.

In places where no major separation is needed, these big coils are literally a wonder, and pull good targets from ridiculous depths. I walked the woods where I'd found a gold ring and some silver the week before. I was kind of hoping there would be more, but I ended up digging buttons from 30 cm and piles of bullets and shells. The Gauss was quite excellent there and my fear that it wouldn't fit and I'd want to pick up a Nox as soon as possible didn't materialize. After a few hours of frantic searching, I had a pile of knobs, modern coins (coppers and sockets) and lots of bullets and projectiles.

I then selected high frequency for the first time in the meadow and field, and so the setup looked like this: G: 34, D: -2, F: H3, S: no, M: cL, V: 6, FeV: 0.

Depending on how much iron was around, I either turned the sound on or off. Now in hindsight I might have tried H2 or H1 at that point as well, but at least I proved to myself that even with full power it was manageable in an infested environment. But you have to be prepared for fluctuating stability and a lot of iron crosstalk.

In the meadow, the Guass took my breath away for the first time. I was walking on what I call the Golden Wire. It's a site I discovered and an archaeologist and I are trying to map prehistoric activity there. There have been several people with Equinoxes, Deusas and even Vanquish running around the sites with concentrations of finds. Gradually, all that's left at the site is a lot of iron rings. That's why I wanted to see how Gauss would interpret these "sounds". It's an iron and slag infested site. After 15 minutes I suddenly had a stable ID 83 under the coil, which seemed too high for a nice target. I didn't realize at the time that the high frequency slightly shifts the ID higher, so maybe in the low frequency it could correspond to 65-75. After the kick, a Roman denarius rolled out at me. I was excited and my motivation went up 200 percent.

After a few hours, I managed to pick up pieces of bronze, ranging from large pieces to tiny specks, no bigger than, say, a Vienna phoenix. Almost all of it came from a reasonable depth and from an environment where there were pieces of iron and slag around. I was definitely happy, except at this point I would have appreciated a smaller, ideally sniper reel. At the same time, I'd probably set the H2 frequency there today.

Conclusion

After this talk, it probably won't surprise anyone that I'll classify the GaussMD as a high-end detector, and mark it as a serious competitor to established brands in the future. I'm sure there were a few things I would have improved, changed or added, but I didn't expect it to grow into the palm of my hand this quickly. I wouldn't say that this is a detector suitable for a beginner, as the settings and options it offers will be confusing to a novice. It will be a detector for the moderately advanced user who is thinking about taking their search to the next level. When choosing a new detector, it's best to try the machine out in person first and see if it fits me ergonomically, as well as in terms of behavior and sounds. I can now say that if you are planning an upgrade it is worth trying out the Gauss as well. Finally, I'll mention that I regret that I didn't have time to test the Gauss at a prospecting site where one can find, for example, Celtic oboes. I'd be quite interested to see if Tiger can manage to peck up such a tiny silver coin. Maybe it will be a good motivation and idea for other testers.

Thanks to the huntertreasure shop and Elmar for their involvement, also apologies for stretching the delivery of the review due to work reasons.

Carpathian

Video introduction

Video forest

Video meadow