Omega 8500 Not what i hoped for

[lytle78]

It wasn't the OP with 6 posts - and legitimate concerns - but the cry of "fiasco" from someone else that had me cry foul.

Time will tell. Thanks Craig for your hard work.

 

[detectingMO]

All metal does have numeric ID. I was bumping the thresh dial I guess. The ID having a decimal now does make it seem bouncier than it really is. Crazy to think about 1000 points of vdi but it has it. All Greek coils and f44 coil work perfectly. NEL Greek as well. I suspect original poster has and issue or two. It is different but still very omega like. It seems the ID depth accuracy is same as original but instead of just cutting off detection after that the 8500 add couple inches more depth with less accurate ID. This corresponds to increase in AM depth. I'm not a huge relic guy but I feel like the 8500 has great potential on that front in addition to coins.

Control head is like f19/g2+. 1/4" jack only with rubber plugger. Coil connector placement moved up a bit.

If you silence notches with no volume the detector still shows visual readings but no tone vs disc notch blanking it entirely. Again similar v3i attribute.

 

[bigtim1973]

Do not insult the original poster. He has obviously been using teknetic products in an area where most of us never get to hunt and we do not know what state he lives in either. How come some of you think FT would not produce a disappointing unit or a lemon? Other companies have been doing it for years. Give the guy a break, he may have more experience than most of us on here and he just may be telling the truth too on his 8500. Obviously he is wanting to help some of you who were thinking of getting the new 8500 to either wait for FT to work out the bugs or not waste your money. Personally I do not think FT's last few products have been all that exciting. To me the last one worth a hoot was the ET pro. I have owned everything but the T2 se. But have air tested and fiddled with all of the teknetics line up. FT makes or shall I say "designs" a pretty neat product line. I think they are sub contracted out overseas and packaged up in El Paso. Maybe that is why FT does not or has not made major changes in some of the models throughout the whole product line that comes from their facility and is about the only manufactured units people can purchase from a big box store. Do any of you ever remember being able to buy a Whites. Tesoro or even the original Fisher products from Los Banos from a place like Kmart? I don't, just FT products.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

.....hopefully Dave J. can look into this for us and post a response....this certainly doesn't sound good...I was really expecting some rave reviews...

Dave J. didn't have anything to do with the 8500.

 

[Tom Slick]

bigtim1973 - White's used to make detectors for Sears, Tesoro made detectors for Montgomery Wards and Sears. Probably more that I don't remember, and that's why you can't believe everything you read on the forums. Lots of untruths out there.

 

[onemoreswing]

OK all, i have my second 8500 in hand, i drove 280 miles to get it and it is a different horse than my first one. All my coils work on it and its primary use for me will be utilizing the deep modes and my new opinion on that goes like this; on my old 8000 i had deep targets with no i.d. and weak audio, and now on the 8500 i am getting deep targets with good i.d. numbers and no sound at all ? i think many of us would like good id's with tone on deep targets, but about all brands still fail at that say after 7-8 inches we really still have to dig it up to know for sure what it is. with that i'll use my favorite beep and dig detector the Fisher 1270 for comparison, i can with full truth and confidence say that it is easily 25-30% deeper than this 8500 so just another you cant have it all situation, i may be spoiled and greedy but i expect the best from FTP, just look at the staff there designing this stuff, WOW !! so much talent. So i say to you all just go buy an 8500 and figure out its special uses for your area and remember that its better than wasting your money on cigarettes or alcohol and if you need more money buy a T2 first and take it nugget hunting it will pay you back very fast because it is the king of vlf's for nugget shooting ! Wooooo !

One last observation with the 8500 and the 5"DD coil i saw no change in hitting a 1 gram nugget at 5" in hot soil with a silent thresh hold (-3) versus a normally used light thresh hold (1) this puzzles me a bit but hunting totally silent will be nice and relaxing knowing it will still hit hard. Thanks, the impatient OMS

 

[Dave J.]

FT makes or shall I say "designs" a pretty neat product line. I think they are sub contracted out overseas and packaged up in El Paso.

Only those under-$100 BH models where the box says "Made in China". And you're right, even those were designed in El Paso (by me).

 

[onemoreswing]

Like Cal Cobra said," Dave J. didn't work on the 8500 project", i don't thinks so either, but he had to have some input or at least final approval to go in to production...so what has Dave been working on ???? Here's what i heard from a guy whos sisters neighbor knows a lady that goes to the same book club that's hosted by a guy that has a friend who does custodial work at FTP office in El Paso....Dave is working on the first FTP/Minelab collaboration of a hybrid T2 in a Ctx 3030 housing WoW !!! a T2 we can get wet !!!, and he is also about wrapped up on Fishers first Pulse detector in a long time !! Where do i sign up ???? I cant wait !!!

 

[amberjack]

does the 8500 still overload on surface targets like the 8000 ?

AJ

 

[Dave J.]

Like Cal Cobra said," Dave J. didn't work on the 8500 project", ......../quote]

If you'd have left it at that, you wouldn't have struck out on those last two swings.

 

[marcomo]

Here's what i heard from a guy whos sisters neighbor knows a lady that goes to the same book club that's hosted by a guy that has a friend who does custodial work at FTP office in El Paso....

You can't ask for a more authoritative source than that...Is the guy's name Kevin Bacon?

 

[detectingMO]

Menu walk through

http://youtu.be/EOb5mgUSZfI

 

[bigtim1973]

bigtim1973 - White's used to make detectors for Sears, Tesoro made detectors for Montgomery Wards and Sears. Probably more that I don't remember, and that's why you can't believe everything you read on the forums. Lots of untruths out there.

I know they did and also Tesoro made Pillar and also alot of the other behind the scene under different name brands. I had some of those old sear/whites units. They were real good for knocking out bottle caps. Look I am not busting FT products, I am just saying that I wish they did not sell to the big box stores. Since you used to be a Whites dealer you may be able to relate to that. I just want the OP to have some credit for his first post. And as far as the best gold unit he has ever used it may be the truth in his experience. Don't you remember the article in the Teknetics magazine where that man from New Guinea who sent in those gold bars he made from all of the gold he had found with the T2? It also said in the same article that the T2 had change his whole family's life. He was using it for gold too. I thought of all of the reviews or write up that I have ever read for a metal detecting company, that was the most awesome read I ever came across. I also know from having the original T2 green machine that the new T2 classic is not as good either. For the new user who had never owned the original green machine, they would never know that. Why would they sell that unit for 499.99 if it did perform like the original T2 green machine? I believe it has been throttled back or possibly a lemon like the 8500 the OP received.

 

[rob]

n/t

 

[Monte]

as for OMS's comments, they are simply his 'opinions,' and, while I might differ a wee bit here and there with MY 'opinions,' I'll have to keep resisting because I don't have a problem with his review of the 8500's. Believe me, I have had units in my hand that had problems, right out of the box or after a short while afield. Many years of working with most popular brands and a few odd-ball detectors let me experience flaws. Some a glitch in assembly [size=small](mechanical)[/size], some in calibration with earlier analog-based models with a lot in internal trimmers, models with some errors in the circuitry design, and some issues with our modern-day digitally 'programmed' detectors.

Sometimes the detectors worked great, but the search coils had their own set of glitches be it poor tuning, failing internal components, leakage. or just a bad coil type for the detector design. Usually the things I encountered that I didn't like was because I was anticipating or expecting a certain level of performance or detector behavior, but the design engineers had a different point of view and didn't check with me first.

Being a hobbyist and taking what they give us is how some 'average' folks look at detector offerings. Being a more avid detectorist, with more field experience, hunting a wider range of challenging environments, and also having ample experience with different detectors and 'learning' them in order to 'master' them as best we can, moves us a step ahead of the 'average' hobbyist. The 'avid' detectorist also tries to learn or understand what the design engineers may have been working to achieve in performance, and how to get out of a detector what they tried to put into it.

Sometimes, things just are not in harmony with what we want and need, so we have to credit the designers with making a good try of it, but move on to the models that we already have, use, trust, and are comfortable with. Thus, the 'avid' detecting folks will usually have two or more brands in their model line-up, and have two to four detectors [size=small](sometimes more ??)[/size] that they keep on hand in their travels because they like some makes and models, with selected favorite search coils for the tasks they take on.

I've seen a few people post on forums for brands they don't like or use and all they say is negative things, and push some other brand. In this case, I could tell OMS was simply expressing his 'opinions' and dissatisfaction with an early release of a brand new model on the market. Nothing wrong with that as long as things are kept objective and point to particular concerns discovered. Not that we have to totally agree with 'personal opinions' because sometimes we have different experiences and have formed our own 'personal opinions' that might be a little different.

Here are some of mine.

OK all, i have my second 8500 in hand, i drove 280 miles to get it and it is a different horse than my first one. All my coils work on it and its primary use for me will be utilizing the deep modes and my new opinion on that goes like this;

'Thanks' for getting another Omega 8500 to check out. That's fair to give a new model a chance in case of a new-release glitch. I use smaller-than-stock coils 95% or more of the time and have had my 5" coil on a lower rod just waiting for the 8500 to come out.

on my old 8000 i had deep targets with no i.d. and weak audio, and now on the 8500 i am getting deep targets with good i.d. numbers and no sound at all ?

Did you compare with similar Tone ID operation? With some modern 'programmed' detectors I have noted some pronounced differences in performance based upon Audio Tone operation. I enjoy the Omega 8000 performance, and easily accept the lack of TID/VDI read-out accuracy on deeper-located targets. When I get an 8500 in hand that is one thing I will compare between audio and visual target responses.

i think many of us would like good id's with tone on deep targets, but about all brands still fail at that say after 7-8 inches we really still have to dig it up to know for sure what it is.

100% correct on typical 'accurate' visual read-out diminishing at such a reasonable depth, and in some ground challenges it can be much less depth than that. I rely on an audio response to signal a metal target and, while I might glance at a display for a little info, I still need to recover the target. For over four decades I have preached and encouraged many things, and a main one is this: "Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!" Like you and your Fisher 1270, I have relied on some of my non-display favorite models for 32 years and, display or not, we need the performance to hit targets in any site we hunt ... then take a look and see what the detector responded to.

with that i'll use my favorite beep and dig detector the Fisher 1270 for comparison, i can with full truth and confidence say that it is easily 25-30% deeper than this 8500 so just another you cant have it all situation,

For me it's not 'depth' but having an ability to pick some keepers out of dense iron trash. I challenge any make or model with a comparable-size coil to match the performance I get from my favorite Tesoro models in heavily littered sites with nails and other small iron junk. Visual display are virtually worthless for accuracy in those environments.

i may be spoiled and greedy but i expect the best from FTP, just look at the staff there designing this stuff, WOW !! so much talent.

Perhaps the biggest and best staff of design engineers of any USA detector manufacturer making some good stuff.

So i say to you all just go buy an 8500 and figure out its special uses for your area and remember that its better than wasting your money on cigarettes or alcohol ...

I plan to get one anyway, and at 66 I have never smoked or used tobacco products or been an alcohol consumer. Maybe that's helped me buy so many detectors along the way?

... and if you need more money buy a T2 first and take it nugget hunting it will pay you back very fast because it is the king of vlf's for nugget shooting ! Wooooo !

I have owned two T2's. I currently own and enjoy my 'Classic' T2, but I will disagree about it being the king of VLF's for nugget shooting. Oh, it can find small gold nuggets, but I have used better-performing detectors for that task. Yes, the T2 is 'OK' but I actually did better using an Omega 8000 on the last trip to compare the two, and I do better with a Racer and MXT Pro. Just remember, we get to voice our opinions.

One last observation with the 8500 and the 5"DD coil i saw no change in hitting a 1 gram nugget at 5" in hot soil with a silent thresh hold (-3) versus a normally used light thresh hold (1) this puzzles me a bit but hunting totally silent will be nice and relaxing knowing it will still hit hard. Thanks, the impatient OMS

I liked what the Omega 8000 could/can do and the 8500 will have to impress me overall for the sites I hunt the most, the iron littered ones, to stand out over the 8000. Somewhat similar but also quite different from each other. Still sporting the nice T2 grip design and in a light and comfortable package. I look forward to getting out with one soon myself.

Thanks for your contributions, OMS, as I enjoy reading others opinions and hands-on impressions.

Monte

[size=small]There has to be a loony character out there somewhere, I guess I'll have to keep looking.[/size]

 

[horikindaguy]

thanks for all the work Craig....and 'good on' the OP for quickly getting another (properly working) unit....
certainly doesn't look like a 'fiasco' to me so I'll revoke that word, haha....

I don't like the use of the decimal point...would add too much additional 'movement' to the display and who really cares/needs that sort of granularity anyway....

the fact it has an ID in all-metal sounds great to me....wish my G2+ would have added that ability....and the one-button push from all-metal to disc is a good one also....

looks like the FT team has produced a winner and keeping the same MAP price is a bonus....

cheers, y'all....

 

[Elton]

I'm betting that with a small learning curve..It will produce very well in the field. Just my opinion !.

 

[onemoreswing]

Like Cal Cobra said," Dave J. didn't work on the 8500 project", ......../quote]

If you'd have left it at that, you wouldn't have struck out on those last two swings.

just looking for a few laughs although I have always wanted to go swimming with my T2 and I remember an article you wrote on a pulse Machine you made long ago that only hit nickel and above or something like that I would buy that that would be a breeze

 

[Hightone]

LOL...................

I can't really say much about all the other issues the OP mentioned. Just the nickel thing in the newer FTP offerings. Many times I had my F2 lock strongly onto nickels that my LRP/QDP would travel the scale on. But the newer process has so much more going on inside it's head than the simplicity of the F2.

I still love my Fratbros BH Pros and have no reason to get rid of them at this point. The nickel thing is just the weakest link in what would make a perfect detector for me and what I can invest in.

IMO, the 8500 may be a different beast speaking a slightly different language, that once learned, may surpass the 8000 with it's different beneficial offerings. It took me awhile to have the LRP impress me like it does, and I have a feeling the 8500 is going to be the same for others.

 

[detectingMO]

Have more thought. Will likely out in different thread when I can compile video and use a keyboard.