I finally picked up my US version ATMax in Detroit this weekend. I put it together last night and noticed it was quite noisy. I’ve read quite a bit on the ATMax Facebook pages about a small batch of bad coils. So I swapped coils with my ATPro and sure enough it was very quiet. Just my luck I got one of the bad ones. Here is where the story gets better. I sent an e-mail to Garrett explaining how I tried my ATPro coil and it was quiet and I’ve already got a new one on the way, no questions asked. Would it have been that easy if my new machine came out of Australia or France? Maybe, I dunno. All I know is that I’ve had nothing but positive experiences dealing with Garrett.
Anyway, I took it out for a bit today and noticed right away that it ground balanced easily and no had no chatter at 7 bars of sensitivity. I was in the front of an old school across from my house, with overhead wires and street lights. iPhone in my pocket. No chatter at all. I was a bit surprised because I read constantly about people struggling with chatter. Do they have a bad coil too? Running my ATPro coil l’m not experiencing that, so maybe there are more bad coils out there and people are not aware of it.
The next thing that I tested was the iron audio. Listen to it with the speaker and it’s pretty obnoxious. But use the headphones, which paired instantly, it sounds much nicer. I hunted tonight with iron audio on, and it was not a problem. I discovered a little trick that doesn’t seem that difficult. Turn the volume up to a level where the iron audio is comfortable and hunt at that volume. I had no problem hearing the high tones at that volume level. I dug some quiet repeatable signals and dug a junk ring, a US Wheaty and some 1960’s pennies.
Do I like it? Absolutely. Very positive first impressions.
Anyway, I took it out for a bit today and noticed right away that it ground balanced easily and no had no chatter at 7 bars of sensitivity. I was in the front of an old school across from my house, with overhead wires and street lights. iPhone in my pocket. No chatter at all. I was a bit surprised because I read constantly about people struggling with chatter. Do they have a bad coil too? Running my ATPro coil l’m not experiencing that, so maybe there are more bad coils out there and people are not aware of it.
The next thing that I tested was the iron audio. Listen to it with the speaker and it’s pretty obnoxious. But use the headphones, which paired instantly, it sounds much nicer. I hunted tonight with iron audio on, and it was not a problem. I discovered a little trick that doesn’t seem that difficult. Turn the volume up to a level where the iron audio is comfortable and hunt at that volume. I had no problem hearing the high tones at that volume level. I dug some quiet repeatable signals and dug a junk ring, a US Wheaty and some 1960’s pennies.
Do I like it? Absolutely. Very positive first impressions.
