kittlitz
Active member
My Vista X arrived this past weekend. A cold snap was just ending and the ground is frozen solid, so it may be a couple of months before I can really use it. But that didn't stop me from putting it together and trying some tests in the house.
Assembly was straightforward. I was a bit worried that the shaft cam locks might be tricky to adjust but had no trouble with them... despite the fact that several photos referred to in the manual are actually in the Quick Start guide
Build quality seems very good overall; solid and rugged. My only beef is with the coil hardware: the rubber washers are too loose to stay in the lower shaft on their own and so are at risk of being lost when changing coils.
As others have noted, having the speaker on the underside of the battery compartment could lead to problems; I'll probably cover it with protective tape since I always use headphones. The headphone jack location, at the back of the battery compartment, makes sense for wired headphones but is going to be tricky to use a wireless adapter with. I'd be interested to know if anyone has figured out a good way to attach a Z-Lynk system to it.
Due to the crazy amount of EMI in my house, I did most testing with the 6" coil and could get it stable if I kept the Gain and Threshold low enough. I'm very impressed with the machine's tonal response to various targets. For example, a coin gives a very tight response while an elongated, though not large, piece of foil gives more of a "stretched" tone. That could come in pretty handy in the field. The sound of both the high and low (iron) tones are pleasing to the ears (my ears, anyway). I'm grateful that a flatulent 60Hz frequency wasn't chosen for the iron tone as is the case with some machines.
The discrimination control is very fine-grained; I was surprised at what difference even a teensy nudge of the knob could make. It was easy to find settings at which common trash items like a figure-8 pulltab and crown cap start to break up (emit a high/low tone mix). My sample rusty nails were a bit sparkier than expected: I could get sporadic high-tone chirps out of them when the disc was set to 20 or 25. The high-tones don't sound as healthy as what a coin produces, however, so I'm hoping that with experience I won't get fooled by them too often.
A real surprise was how the X performed on Canadian steel clad coins. Most machines just classify them as iron, especially if equipped with a DD coil. That was the case with my Vista Mini. I was expecting the X to do the same, but it behaves more like a Tesoro with a concentric coil, and gives a predominantly high-tone hit on a steel dime (laying flat) with the disc up to 38 or even higher. This means that I can use it for day-to-day "fun" hunting as well as for sniffing out good old targets at pounded sites.
Regarding the disc knobs: though it's nice that they're tight enough to not be accidentally moved, I wish the primary disc was a bit looser so I could easily thumb it up and down to get a better idea of what a target might be.
I can't wait to try this machine in the field when (if) winter finally ends. I'll have to reserve judgement on how it really performs until then, but I'm pretty optimistic. From what I've seen so far, it really does seem to be an analog machine taken to the next level.
-Ken
Assembly was straightforward. I was a bit worried that the shaft cam locks might be tricky to adjust but had no trouble with them... despite the fact that several photos referred to in the manual are actually in the Quick Start guide
Build quality seems very good overall; solid and rugged. My only beef is with the coil hardware: the rubber washers are too loose to stay in the lower shaft on their own and so are at risk of being lost when changing coils.
As others have noted, having the speaker on the underside of the battery compartment could lead to problems; I'll probably cover it with protective tape since I always use headphones. The headphone jack location, at the back of the battery compartment, makes sense for wired headphones but is going to be tricky to use a wireless adapter with. I'd be interested to know if anyone has figured out a good way to attach a Z-Lynk system to it.
Due to the crazy amount of EMI in my house, I did most testing with the 6" coil and could get it stable if I kept the Gain and Threshold low enough. I'm very impressed with the machine's tonal response to various targets. For example, a coin gives a very tight response while an elongated, though not large, piece of foil gives more of a "stretched" tone. That could come in pretty handy in the field. The sound of both the high and low (iron) tones are pleasing to the ears (my ears, anyway). I'm grateful that a flatulent 60Hz frequency wasn't chosen for the iron tone as is the case with some machines.
The discrimination control is very fine-grained; I was surprised at what difference even a teensy nudge of the knob could make. It was easy to find settings at which common trash items like a figure-8 pulltab and crown cap start to break up (emit a high/low tone mix). My sample rusty nails were a bit sparkier than expected: I could get sporadic high-tone chirps out of them when the disc was set to 20 or 25. The high-tones don't sound as healthy as what a coin produces, however, so I'm hoping that with experience I won't get fooled by them too often.
A real surprise was how the X performed on Canadian steel clad coins. Most machines just classify them as iron, especially if equipped with a DD coil. That was the case with my Vista Mini. I was expecting the X to do the same, but it behaves more like a Tesoro with a concentric coil, and gives a predominantly high-tone hit on a steel dime (laying flat) with the disc up to 38 or even higher. This means that I can use it for day-to-day "fun" hunting as well as for sniffing out good old targets at pounded sites.
Regarding the disc knobs: though it's nice that they're tight enough to not be accidentally moved, I wish the primary disc was a bit looser so I could easily thumb it up and down to get a better idea of what a target might be.
I can't wait to try this machine in the field when (if) winter finally ends. I'll have to reserve judgement on how it really performs until then, but I'm pretty optimistic. From what I've seen so far, it really does seem to be an analog machine taken to the next level.
-Ken
