First impressions of my AT Max

[amcoins44]

First time posting to the forums. I'm coming from 12 years with a White's XLT. Love the machine, but thought I'd try a new unit to see if faster computing power might be nice. Waterproof too. So I ended up with the AT Max.

I have been out with my new AT Max on 3 hunts now. Really just park coin shooting to try and learn the AT Max.

My first impressions of this machine are not good. VDI's jumping. Like several others have noted this machine pops and crackles like crazy. It throws even high tone pops very frequently. I have been up and down with the sensitivity settings. I've lowered threshold. I've had no discrimination and I've had a dime and quarter cherry picker super disc setup, and all have this problem. The best solution I have found is lowering the sensitivity to below 4, and that stopped most of the pops and crackles, but it's got to be killing my depth.

Is there something wrong with these units? This seems way too noisy, and it's really taking away from the fun of the hunt. I would really like to hear from others who have the same problem or others who don't and how they are setting up.

Thanks, Andy

 

[John-Edmonton]

Lowering your sensitivity does not always mean losing depth/targets. Running your machine too hot will make you lose targets. With the sensitivity run too high in an environment makes the coil read the mineraliztion, which can/will mask good targets, not to mention your ability to pick out the good targets and lock on to a target.

I hunted a very high alkaline lake the other day. It would ground balance to 39 in some spots. I had to also turn down the sensitivity to 3 bars to get it to run smoothly. That's why a sensitivity control exists. Did I maybe lose depth? Probably. The lose of depth for a metal detector is proportionally related to the amount/type of mineralization that exists. Another option to help was to hunt in true all metal mode with a negative set of the numbers for the threshold.

The NEW AT MAX is a very powerful metal detector. You will get some extra snap crackle pops at times with a useable high sensitivity setting. You can still notch out the repeatable VDI numbers of junk targets which can also help. There are also a variety of coils, both factory and after market coils to help tailor hunting preferences.

Put on some more hours on the AT MAX! It is a very different beast then the XLT.

 

[amcoins44]

I put in another 2 hours this afternoon. The pops and crackles and the high tone blips seem to occur when the machine is discriminating. I'm a parks and schools jewelry and coins junkie, and I use discrimination features a lot.

John, if I do turn the sensitivity down to, say, 3 bars, and I am in the coins mode, is there something I can do further to minimize especially the high tone blips? Those are the most irritating to me. I frequently get them at the end of a swing, I think because the coil motion stops, and for a moment it behaves like an all metal, if I understand correctly. But I also get high tone blips not infrequently in mid swing.

Still interested in other new owners chiming in with their impressions; especially those coming from the AT Pro, but also completely different machines altogether, like my XLT.

Thanks, Andy

 

[Albert]

I too get a lot of noise crackle and pops with my at max . Sometimes I have to scan the spots several times to make sure that what I'm hearing is truly trash and not good targets. I usually hunt real trashy parks. One thing that I did notice was if the target was a good target and not very deep , it would hit pretty hard. But even then there was a lot of noise coming thru. Maybe it the nature of the at max to work that way. Need more hours to understand what all the pops and noises are.

 

[88junior]

I have watched several videos and the AT-MAX seems like a whole new animal compared to the AT-GOLD and AT-PRO when it comes to target ID it kinda reminds me of a standard Fisher F75 with the bouncy ID numbers. And I think John has a good point of the sensitivity being over driven in the upper bars where as with a AT-PRO it didn't have that much power even when maxed out on sensitivity. So running it down to three or 4 bars and it would probably be as hot if not hotter than a AT-PRO. A lot of being able to run that sensitivity up is your soil mineralization. If it's bad you ain't gonna be able to run it as hot as what you would in non mineralized soil.

 

[John-Edmonton]

And....a lot will depend on your areas you hunt. If you hunt schools, parks, gravel bottomed lakes, you have to turn down the sensitivity due to the many junk targets which are under a coil at one time. Another option is to switch to a smaller coil such as the 5 x 8 coil, where you can often times run it at full sensitivity. The new MAX is like the AT Pro/AT Gold on steroids. You can not expect it to run smoothly at the same settings on the other AT's. Choose the coils wisely for the areas you hunt! Owning another coil often times equates to owning a different metal detector.

Although not mentioned yet, the contest coming up will include a Garrett coil of your choice free of charge.

 

[Buddy_TX]

[size=medium]One of the most important things to me to help that problem, and most people don't mention it for some reason, is you HAVE TO SLOW your swing speed WAY down. I also had an XLT years ago and they are different than night and day. But slow the swing way down, the Max's recovery speed is super fast thus some chirping can occur, Hang it there a little bit think you will be surprized[/size]

 

[amcoins44]

Thanks everyone for their input. Hope to keep hearing more people's opinions and ideas.