How about this...what was the FIRST detector that just blew you away...

[azsh07]

The thread below on what was your first detector got me thinking.

My first detector was a blue box Bounty Hunter back in 75...that thing just mesmerized me...I was hooked.

But...the first detector that just floored me was the Whites Spectrum XLT. I paid $1100.00 new for one when they first came out...no internet...had to buy local. But man that thing just blew me away...nothing ever had come out that was that COOL. Just using it made detecting like...20 times more fun.

Now we are used to LCD screens and such but back then that thing was like a computer on a stick.

Obviously there have been some others come along...but that was my first.

 

[ken ward]

I have had a gob of detectors. The one that blowed me away was my little Tesoro Compadre. That thing has been so much fun. Very light weight. Will find very tiny gold items. I hate to put it down... KEN. Ind

 

[metalmedic]

My Fisher CZ5! Still have it, still use it, still relevant! Considering an F75....hope it blows me away!

 

[jtalley007]

Scott, I think for me it was the Teknetics Mark One LTD first. The thing had phenomial depth in our good soil. I dug a large penny 14" beside a confederate rifle pit with the 10" coil.

The tone ID is still the best of any machine ever built, bar none.


Then when the S/T came out it was so cool looking, like a detector that they would have on star trek, LOL

The other thing that blew me away was that it was it was so ergonomic and the all metal mode was the smoothest and one of the deepest to date.

I don't think I had any problem with false ground signals like the White's and even nautilus on clay soils.

It was also super quiet on iron targets in the disc mode.

I need to get one fired up and go back to some of my old analog machines, still enjoyed the sound of them and found more coins with the Mark One relic hunting that any machine I ever owned.

Then came the Wilson Relic and Coin. My deepest civil war button to date I dug with that little machine was a New York coat button at 13" That detector was so quiet you had to check it with your shovel to see if it was working.

Today I am pretty impressed with the CTX 3030 as well.

 

[Elton]

I loved that detector .......................... It could do everything I wanted and more............. It wasn't the deepest , but it was the neatest in that day and time.....

 

[Hank68]

I had the shadow x2 it was my favorite back then

 

[JimmyCT]

The first detector that "blew me away" would be the Sovereign GT. I went back to many of my old sites and was pleasantly surprised at the coins that were missed not only by me but hundreds of others.(left for dead parks) Also, its ability to see non-ferrous lying next to a ferrous object, ignore the ferrous item and register the non-ferrous with a tone is absolutely fascinating.

 

[Flintstone]

I had a 89 Eagle ll sl and that was the best detector i had, Then i got a MXT and still use it more than any other detector i have and i have 9. I sold the 89 Eagle and mist it so bad i got a 1990, i think the 89 was a little better but still have the 90 Sl. I just got a Minelab Safari and have not used it yet, hope it will do as good as the other Whites that i have. But the Eagle was the one that got me hooked. Flintstone

 

[sprchng]

Used the 4 "c" batteries like crazy. I had been using the 70khz Gold bug and was going nuts in my ground. Put the tiny nugget shooting head on the Eagle and the first thing I dug was a 135 grain piece of sponge gold wrapped around a garnet chrystal. That pretty much blew me away until the etrac 20 years later.

 

[klever]

Have to be the Tesoro Eldorado umax. What was better about it then the other detectors I had was everything. Depth, a coin magnet. It loved the nickels which helped me start locating more gold, and it was spot on pinpointing. I sure miss it!!!!!

 

[Dang]

When it came down to deep silver dimes
I was amazed by my minelab explorer2.
I sold it and bought a canoe and a used
Bandido 2 umax. I love the Bandit because of its
great discriminaton, its dead on pin
pointing and its so light! And it loves gold.
Or at least it use to before i stuck it in
the hall closet. .

 

[Neil]

Minelab Sovereign. When they first came out me and a friend each bought one and were amazed at the ocean and local beaches with it. Still have a few Sovs.

 

[MarkCZ]

Teknetics 9000/B it was just Amazing! The one I had was a hip mount,
took 14 double AA batteries,
I also had a 'Mark I' which was a bit deeper, but overall the 9000 was better.

Mark

 

[jim tn]

cz 6a back in the early 90's. Had several detectors from the early 70's up to the cz and I was totally blown away by its depth. I've had and do have some good ones since, but that cz blew me away. HH jim tn

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Yup. I agree with you and flinstone . The Eagle SL II 90 was the machine that blew me away too. It was the first TID machine I had. So even though other machines prior to it had TID, (tek's, earlier 6000's, etc...) yet this was my first taste of it. And while it didn't go deep (and wasn't particularly suited to wet salt mineral @ the beach), yet it had a great recovery speed. An instananeous reading the millisecond you were swinging over the target. The later Spetrums and XLT did not have that. They had an annoying delay in the time you swept over the target, to the time the TID displayed on the screen. Quite annoying. But the eagle didn't have that problem. Worked great for junky sites (old town demolition, etc...)

It also had an idiosyncrasy that later Spectrums and XLTs didn't have: If you toggled over a target while in motion disc, you de-tuned to that level-of-metal in the ground. Ie.: you desensitized it, to wherever you clicked at. Therefore, if you were attempting to re-gain your threshold (re-tune) you had to be careful to raise your coil in the air, and click away from all metals. I found that a beneficial tool to use, when trying to isolate targets one-from-another in clutter. You merely clicked in close proximety, and then target you wanted would be more isolated from surrounding targets. Kind of like switching to a smaller coil with the click of a switch.

I asked Jimmy Sierra why the Spectrum and XLT didn't have that, and he said it was because he told the engineers to "take that off". He was afraid people might click next to a garbage can or whatever, and then be oblivious to the fact that they were de-tuned. What a bad decision, in my opinion.

The only reason I changed away from the Eagle, was the the Explorers coming on the scene in the late '90s had much superior depth, and pretty durned good separation and ID for the power-house that they are.

 

[Phillip_in_NM]

"Blew you away" - quite the high praise and a great topic (Thanks!)

My choice would have to be the White's M6... Gave me my first: Indian Head, Buffalo, Shield, V, War nickels, Barber and seated dimes, Walking half, Ike dollar ... And 30+ pieces of gold jewelry, mostly from turf!

 

[michael NY]

What an interesting idea of thought! For me it would have to be my Minelab Sovereign XS using a meter and the Sunray Probe its killer setup, prior to it using a Garrett Garrett Grand Master CX Plus that did an amazing job and really got me hooked on the hobby, learning how the detector worked and operated.

 

[azsh07]

There are no right or wrong answers to this....it simply is your opinion. Very interesting to see what detectors really impressed a person....also interesting to see the difference in the time machine factor. As in when you started detecting verses the current technology.

Seems the Sovereign has a high number of blown away people. Yah...I can see that...I remember when they came out so vastly different. Took me owning one 3 times until I "got it"...but when I did it was like a Eureka moment.

Also see some Explorers also...to be expected. Also a nice sampling of other machines even a simple Tesoro...and a rather honest reason for being blown away.....awesome. Again...all answers are correct right.....this is pretty cool!

had I owned one when it first came out the Compass XP 200 Challenger would have been the first...but I owned one a few years after the Spectrum. But that w as a very incredible machine when it came out

 

[azsh07]

I did not own my first mark1 until years after it came out or it too could have been top of the list...don't think I owned my first Mark one till the late 90's..maybe like 1999.

 

[bootyhoundpa]

Ive only ever used like 5 detectors in my life, such as garrett gta 1000, whites 5900, minelab excall and sov gt... of those the sov gt still amazes me...its killer on deep coppers, multi frequency makes it versatile for land and salt beach hunting,