BuckeyeBrad
New member
First, let me open this up by making a few things perfectly clear right up front.
1. I had the opportunity come up to get one of the first 75 LTD's and I jumped and jumped FAST! Mike Scott contacted me about it and there was no way in he** that I would have passed on this opportunity for love nor money.
2. I paid for this detector, and even anteed up the $69 for next day air so I could have it over the weekend and see what this bad boy had to offer ASAP. So don't even start thinking my take is biased, bogus, or colored in any way hoping to suck up to First Texas because I got a free detector or want one down the road. I'd say AND MEAN every word to my best detecting buddies. Now that "the curtains have gone up", I'll be doing just that. Also, FT did not insist that I post this nor did they ask for any editing input. I'm doing this only because the LTD is more than just worthy. They're obviously confident enough in this detector to let the chips fall.
3. I have never nor do I now have a personal need or seek any notoriety amongst others in our hobby. That's just not how I roll. I AM competitive but only with myself. Anyone that knows me personally also knows full well that is true. I ONLY want the same thing that I've been seeking since the early months in the first year I was in this hobby and that is to use, work to master, and compare as many detectors as I can afford to get my hands on for additional learning and reference. The chance to get my hands on this new LTD for testing and working with the folks at FT has been highly enjoyable. If the experience I've garnered can help others, that's cool and I'll be glad to do so when I can, but I'll never be coming from a position of "I know or have something you don't". I only seek continual improvement in my detecting skills, while at the same time exploring the continual improvement of detectors however it manifests itself with the release of new units.
With that being said, let's get to the good stuff! I used the new 75 LTD at a relic site and several difficult coin hunt sites also and in that order. From those experiences, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the boost modes are WAY more than just a typical tweak in order to get an inch or two like we've usually seen around updated detectors in the past. Based on what I saw, I can't imagine anyone not being extremely happy with this new feature and improvement. Opinions vary, but this time it isn't going to be the usual.
When I took it relic hunting to a place I'd been working since last spring, the incremental new and additional finds were VERY impressive. One might think, "well, duh, a site is never hunted out and you just missed them before". I agree with that statement more often than not, but this was something different. Using the BP mode primarily, virtually every non-ferrous target I dug was INAUDIBLE when subsequently checked in DE mode, all else being equal. More often than not, the target would have even been missed in all metal at the height I was forced to swing the coil because of the weeds! So evidently, I had done a pretty good job prior to hitting the site in boost. I prefer a fair amount of stability most of the time and I was hunting BP, S-70, D-6, 2-F. My second recovery of the first day with the LTD was a cut reale in the same small area that I'd been working extra hard the previous several trips to this site with another couple detectors. It was the deepest smaller target I'd ever dug at this site and it sounded and ID'd great. In fact, the conductivity shown in the display was so much higher than any other target I'd dug there in the past, I thought it might be up-averaging before I dug it but it was not. I've been there four times now with the LTD and each and every time almost all of the non-ferrous targets that I dug would have still been there if not for the benefit the boost mode(s) provide. Truthfully, and I'm being serious, the worst part about using the LTD at this site was how bad my buddy felt using a competitor's detector cranked up and not being able to hear any of the targets that I was hearing easily. I hope he can scrape up the coin to get an LTD for himself because I know he sure wants one now.
At the coin sites, things got more difficult with additional chatter. This wasn't mostly due to EMI or line noise (although some was present at certain locations) but was from the additional things the LTD was hearing in the ground when using BP mode. One site has a blanket of nails from an old house that used to be there plus a lot of modern trash in the form of screw caps, foil, and tabs. The second site has slightly less iron but more foil present. I was getting some high iron falses and the foil was lighting up to near that of a coin signature from one direction. The soil was bone dry and that wasn't helping. I finally got the detector to run pretty stable using BP, S-30, D-6, and either 4 tone or DP. Once I achieved a fair amount of stability at these reduced settings, I, like most folks probably would initially under those circumstances and at that point, was thinking since I was having to reduce the sensitivity down so much, I was probably removing most or all the advantage the boost was supposed to provide. I WAS WRONG!!!!! When I finally started hearing targets, I determined that in DE, running S-60, D-6 offered a similar amount of stability as that of required tamer settings for BP mode. I then would find a target in BP and check it in DE with the sensitivity turned back up to 60 like I mentioned. Unlike the relic site, I could hunt with the coil on the soil here and even in spite of that difference; I STILL was getting targets that were being heard in BP @30 that couldn't be heard running DE at 60. I also noted that in BP, I could raise the coil 6 to 8
1. I had the opportunity come up to get one of the first 75 LTD's and I jumped and jumped FAST! Mike Scott contacted me about it and there was no way in he** that I would have passed on this opportunity for love nor money.
2. I paid for this detector, and even anteed up the $69 for next day air so I could have it over the weekend and see what this bad boy had to offer ASAP. So don't even start thinking my take is biased, bogus, or colored in any way hoping to suck up to First Texas because I got a free detector or want one down the road. I'd say AND MEAN every word to my best detecting buddies. Now that "the curtains have gone up", I'll be doing just that. Also, FT did not insist that I post this nor did they ask for any editing input. I'm doing this only because the LTD is more than just worthy. They're obviously confident enough in this detector to let the chips fall.
3. I have never nor do I now have a personal need or seek any notoriety amongst others in our hobby. That's just not how I roll. I AM competitive but only with myself. Anyone that knows me personally also knows full well that is true. I ONLY want the same thing that I've been seeking since the early months in the first year I was in this hobby and that is to use, work to master, and compare as many detectors as I can afford to get my hands on for additional learning and reference. The chance to get my hands on this new LTD for testing and working with the folks at FT has been highly enjoyable. If the experience I've garnered can help others, that's cool and I'll be glad to do so when I can, but I'll never be coming from a position of "I know or have something you don't". I only seek continual improvement in my detecting skills, while at the same time exploring the continual improvement of detectors however it manifests itself with the release of new units.
With that being said, let's get to the good stuff! I used the new 75 LTD at a relic site and several difficult coin hunt sites also and in that order. From those experiences, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the boost modes are WAY more than just a typical tweak in order to get an inch or two like we've usually seen around updated detectors in the past. Based on what I saw, I can't imagine anyone not being extremely happy with this new feature and improvement. Opinions vary, but this time it isn't going to be the usual.
When I took it relic hunting to a place I'd been working since last spring, the incremental new and additional finds were VERY impressive. One might think, "well, duh, a site is never hunted out and you just missed them before". I agree with that statement more often than not, but this was something different. Using the BP mode primarily, virtually every non-ferrous target I dug was INAUDIBLE when subsequently checked in DE mode, all else being equal. More often than not, the target would have even been missed in all metal at the height I was forced to swing the coil because of the weeds! So evidently, I had done a pretty good job prior to hitting the site in boost. I prefer a fair amount of stability most of the time and I was hunting BP, S-70, D-6, 2-F. My second recovery of the first day with the LTD was a cut reale in the same small area that I'd been working extra hard the previous several trips to this site with another couple detectors. It was the deepest smaller target I'd ever dug at this site and it sounded and ID'd great. In fact, the conductivity shown in the display was so much higher than any other target I'd dug there in the past, I thought it might be up-averaging before I dug it but it was not. I've been there four times now with the LTD and each and every time almost all of the non-ferrous targets that I dug would have still been there if not for the benefit the boost mode(s) provide. Truthfully, and I'm being serious, the worst part about using the LTD at this site was how bad my buddy felt using a competitor's detector cranked up and not being able to hear any of the targets that I was hearing easily. I hope he can scrape up the coin to get an LTD for himself because I know he sure wants one now.
At the coin sites, things got more difficult with additional chatter. This wasn't mostly due to EMI or line noise (although some was present at certain locations) but was from the additional things the LTD was hearing in the ground when using BP mode. One site has a blanket of nails from an old house that used to be there plus a lot of modern trash in the form of screw caps, foil, and tabs. The second site has slightly less iron but more foil present. I was getting some high iron falses and the foil was lighting up to near that of a coin signature from one direction. The soil was bone dry and that wasn't helping. I finally got the detector to run pretty stable using BP, S-30, D-6, and either 4 tone or DP. Once I achieved a fair amount of stability at these reduced settings, I, like most folks probably would initially under those circumstances and at that point, was thinking since I was having to reduce the sensitivity down so much, I was probably removing most or all the advantage the boost was supposed to provide. I WAS WRONG!!!!! When I finally started hearing targets, I determined that in DE, running S-60, D-6 offered a similar amount of stability as that of required tamer settings for BP mode. I then would find a target in BP and check it in DE with the sensitivity turned back up to 60 like I mentioned. Unlike the relic site, I could hunt with the coil on the soil here and even in spite of that difference; I STILL was getting targets that were being heard in BP @30 that couldn't be heard running DE at 60. I also noted that in BP, I could raise the coil 6 to 8
