Long Post ( Seeking Old School )

[Krazyglue]

Greetings to all you owners/users of the classic 1200 series detectors. I've been doing quite a bit of reading in the archives of several "brand" forums that i've been interested. I've mainly focused on the Fisher site because i know Fisher has been around a long, long time, and i know they are deep detecting machines. I've been detecting on and off since the mid 70's starting out with a whites coinmaster 5000 and presently using a x-terra 70, with numerous brands in between over the years. I'm getting that, " time for another detector itch feeling", so i'm throwing a few thoughts out to see what people think. I always consider the opinions of experienced users to help me choose between what i have narrowed my choices to be. That being said :........................
My main purpose is to determine whether to opt for the new fangled state of the art detectors on the market or hold out for an "old school" analog. My main concern is depth, ( like most of us are, i'm assuming ), and discrimination. What attracted me to the 1200 series is the depth capability and the discrimination feature. If i'm understanding some of the posts right, these earlier units will crack or sizzle on the foil or dreaded pull tab if set right, yet sound solid on a ring or nickle. If that's true, this appears to be something i would be familiar with, quite similar to a Whites 6000 di. It seems most of the digital detectors with there notch systems just don't let ones ears be the judge. And if one totally rejects those lower areas there is a loss of depth with digital. To me, it's just not the same. Can someone tell me if i'm on the right track?
Now the depth issue: ....... On the deep small objects,do the 1200 series give that "whisper low audio" letting you know, ya got a dig for it. It's difficult to me to get used to that all or nothing sound and checking the depth meter to see if the target is 3 inches or 7 inches. I know there are some digital models presently on the market that will have that modulation, yet they still to me seem to struggle a little to much with the deep ones, ( my opinion ). Anyone on this?
I know that many of you members that post on this forum, and other brand forums, have a variety of detectors in your arsenal and all have their specific uses for the particular sites being hunted. Myself, i'm a one detector person, only because i can't afford to have multiple units, but that's on my shoulders. That being said, if you could only have two machines, one present market, and one of the 1200 series which choices would you prefer. ( Hopefully, this can be answered without anyone or me getting in trouble ). I'm curious about the 1236x. As far as i can tell by some online comparison charts it's the deepest of the series. Next would be the 1266x. Any input on the two?
I also know, I might wait for a long time to find either of them. I did have a cz5 once, but never really gave it much of a chance although i did recover a 12 inch IH that my brother couldn't get a peep out of his 6000 hipmount. The darn thing gave me too many mid to penny range signals at 4-6 inches that ended up being pull tabs. After weeks of that, i gave up on it.
Hope to hear from alot of you members and thanks.
Pat

 

[88junior]

1266x is a awesome machine I've dug a lot of good coins and relics with it. I've used all of the 1200 series machines and always preferred the 1266x cause it's a deep detector that always seemed to produce the goods for me. And the weight and balance of it was perfect.

 

[Krazyglue]

thanks 88J . Can you tell me if the deep coins have that soft whisper sound. The graph on metaldetectorreviews.net shows the 1236 to detect at nearly 14 inches compared to the 12 inches of the 1266. Don't know how reliable the source is. Probably dosen't make that much of a difference anyway, i suppose. Dual disc on 66 , single on 36, any pronounced advantage to the dual, and any significant loss of depth?

 

[88junior]

The deeper the target the softer the sound. The dual disc is great I always set disc 1 to knock out a nail and set the second disc on 4 when I'd get a target in disc 1 which is the primary I'd check to see if disc 2 rejected it if not I dug the target. I dug a 1907 barber dime at around 11-12" using the 1266x. The 1236x2 is a good machine but I don't see it being deeper than the 1266x.

 

[WV62]

I always try to keep some kind of a beep and dig machine around along with a good meter machine. I also started detecting back in the mid 70's with some of the same machines you were talking about.

I know a guy can become very meter dependent, can't say if that is good or bad.

I have owned both the 1266x and the 1265x and now have 1270. I loved the feel and balance of both the 66 and 65 but the one thing that I didn't like about them was the fact with running higher disc settings the detection depth would drop off a lot. I suppose I wasn't using them for what they were designed for, I am pretty much a coin and inland jewelry hunter and these machines were more in line with relic hunting. As you know the 1270 was the last 1200 series machine they made and it does not suffer with the depth loss with high disc settings. But I must add it does suffer with being a little on the heavy side and does not have the feel or balance of the 66 / 65.

Now this is just me, I like all these machines but I preferred then with the smaller coils because I hunt coins in with the trash. My 1265x with the little 3.75" coil was my nickel machine. The 1270 I have now I have a little 3.75" coil for it but I haven't tried it out on nickels yet, I am thinking it should jump all over them. Also I used the 1270 for what I called silver blasting, I would run max disc and max sensitivity and she was noise but it was hitting silver coins that others were missing.

All the 1200's I have the modulated auto that gives you some idea as to the depth. The other thing you are talking about the sound give you some idea as to good or bad target, we called learning the detectors language. I can't remember ever seeing anything in the manual about this but it was there and kind hard to describe. To me it was like the front and back edges of the response were rounded or soft on the good targets and more of a abrupt (square edge) for the trash.

Ron in WV

 

[MarkCZ]

Soft and sweet sound of deep targets. This is what's known as "Modulated Audio" deep targets sounds deeper or farther away.

"Crack or Sizzle" on foil and tabs if set right. The only way this happens is if the discrimination is set to the point of that item being partly rejected, or to say the item is on the threshold being excepted or rejected. There isn't a setting that will "Crack or Sizzle" on a tab but sound solid on a nickel. You could set the discrimination to start rejecting foil and get good responses to nickels and tabs because the later is higher up on the discrimination scale.
The 1200's (pre-1270) where geared towards relic hunting, yes they will find coins and in their day they were a much bigger deal then they are today, I don't mean to say that they're still not a good detector but they are more legendary in history than they are in modern application.
They make a LOT of noise when you run them, on long hunts the noise makes it more tiring then detecting needs to be.

I would say that if your an all-metal type hunter like a relic hunter or even a coin hunter that pretty much hunts at the foil range of discrimination then a good 1265 or 1266 would do very well, if you have the patients to put up with it cracks and pops. I remember back maybe three years or so I took my 1266 along on a day hunt but I also took another detector with me and that one was a Coinstrike. Well I started out the day with the 1266 I was hunting with the discrimination set to accept nickels, I hunted about three hours with the 1266, I found some,
belt buckles (common modern ones)
pieces of pipe,
other scrap metal with a very few coins. I was digging a lot and the detector was cracking and popping, nulling out. At the end of three hours I decided to switch detectors and for the first thirty minutes or so I had to keep throwing targets on the ground just to make sure the Coinstrike was even working, the operational noise difference between the two was nothing short of amazing! With the 1266 the ground was just alive with metallic noise, but with the more modern metered machine the ground was dead in comparison. I was coin hunting that day, not relic or junk hunting and with the jump to the more modern machine I dug 95% less junk and 80% more coins.
If I was going to hunt meteorites I would probably go with the 1266, when I plant a coin garden I use the 1266 to clear the area. (anything I would use all-metal for)
If I'm going to hunt for jewelry I'll either use my Tesoro Tejon or my Fisher F70.
If I'm going to hunt for coins I'll use my F70.
Mark

 

[Krazyglue]

Thanks for all the comments. I am primarily searching for old coins, which i forgot to mention. Don't think i could get up and down like i used to,so i hunt at old homesites, picnic grooves, etc. I'll leave the clad for the younger folks.
Sounds to me that there is little incentive or advantage to go back in time, instead should be focusing on the new breed of detectors. I'll just keep reading all the forums to see how everyone is doing. Great info, thanks again.

 

[mudpuppy]

I really like that modulated audio...the F70 has it...a guy can really 'see' down into the dirt for masked silver or deeper targets with it, forget the screen and go by target sound/depth/size....I bet theres a lot of masked targets in old picnic groves, multidenom coin spills etc...all it takes is a buff nickel on top of a Seated dime to really skew that target to 'junk'...toss in an Indian head penny, or an old knife, and thats a real crappy signal most would not dig! Great post, Krazyglue, learned a lot!
Mud

 

[Krazyglue]

F-70 has that modulated audio? hmmm that's interesting. I'll start reading the posts on that one. Thanks mudpuppy

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah, and it has Delta Pitch tones, which gives you a different tone for all integers on the scale from 1-99! So a guy can easily tell a dime from a Q and a Half from a Q...A guy hardly ever looks at the screen, except for parameter set up and maybe batt life...the audio tells you everything you need to know..so for somebody familiar with hunting by sound alone, it would be something to try out maybe?.. Its super light and runs off of 4AA's for a very long time...like 40hrs...
Mud.

 

[John(H)]

thanks 88J . Can you tell me if the deep coins have that soft whisper sound. The graph on metaldetectorreviews.net shows the 1236 to detect at nearly 14 inches compared to the 12 inches of the 1266. Don't know how reliable the source is. Probably dosen't make that much of a difference anyway, i suppose. Dual disc on 66 , single on 36, any pronounced advantage to the dual, and any significant loss of depth?

....If you go with the 1266X....it is deeper than the 1236...forget that chart...not sure on what type of soil that is based on??.....It has a lot of crackle and popping noises in trash...this is an acquired and learning taste.....the deep targets emits a softer sound but one needs to get their ears adapted to these sounds. The dual disc is the best....hunt in the 1st disc mode in low disc.....then can be checked by the 2nd disc mode set at a higher disc setting. No loss of depth to me!!

 

[E.V.]

I own 2 of all the 1200 series. I consider the 1265 the best (less noise than the 1266 and still plenty of depth) I also have 2 MXTs. Excellent detector!

 

[Krazyglue]

Know what you mean about the mxt, if that's what you were referring to. Fantastic machine, just need a little more depth.

 

[HaroldILL.]

Sweet modulated audio it doesn't get any better then that. I didn't know the F-70 had modulated audio? I know the F-75 doesn't or at least the First run way back when as I had one for a brief period,But didn't care for it and went back to my CZ-3D.