Reaney in NH
New member
Time for me to weigh in with my worthless opinion on this machine.
I was shocked at the size of the box... hard to believe a Minelab could come in such a small box.
As stated by others I am verimpressed with the lite wieght and balance. It is a real pleasure to swing for hours at a time with no fatique.
After assembly I stepped outside and hit the power button... then the G/B... I played with that for a bit and I could not get it to balance... it was either high or low...no medium. I check sensitivity and it was at 18... I turned it down to 14 and tried again. It seemed to balance out ok then. As some may already know the soils in my yard are pretty hot... reads in the low to mid 80's on my old MXT.
When i went to my 1 year old test garden i could hit targets.. but the numbers were jumpy... and I had alot of pops and clicks. Now, I have had this type of response with every detector I have ever used in my garden... its just the soils.
Anyway... I check all targets and it hit them all except the 9" silver dime and a 10" quarter. I've only seen a cpl machines that can hit these targets.. sio it was no great surprise.
After the above tests I gotta say... I really was not impressed... it did not seem to work any better than anything else I had used in my garden.
But, I own the machine and I always try to put some time in and find every machines strengths... So Today i went hunting.
First stop... our town green... Very mild soil... hunted hard... but a nice easy place to play around. I G/b... was very easy and it balanced out at a 9.. I hunted there for about an hour and dug about 30 targets and really got to know the Id numbers. I git to where I just knew what was coming out before I dug it. While I was playing I tried cranking up the sensitivity and anything above 17 was really noisy... just like I experinced in my test garden at the lower settings... That got me thinking that perhaps I had it turned up to hot?? Hmmm... I wonder??
So... i packed up and went down the street to an empty house that has some of the toughest soils I've ever worked in. I don't know what it is with the older homes around here... but most have some really hot soils. Anyway... I fired it up... tred to G/b... no way... it wouldn't balance right at all. I turn the sens back to 12 and it was better... so I tried 10... Bingo... It G/b nicely and ran incredibly smooth. I dig and 20 targets down to about 8in... several wheat pennies and a cpl Rosie dimes. I was very pleased... and IMPRESSED.
I packed up and headed back home to my garden... I did the G/b with the low sens... then turned it up to 14 and it was noisey... I turned it back to 12... much smoother... and it hit EVERY target in my garden and locked on with ID on all but the extreme depth targets... I was amazed.
Well... The Above is both my first impresion.. Poor!! and my second impresion... WOW!!!!
All I can say is... Those that are dumping this machine because they thinks its noisey or unstable... Turn it back a little and you will be amazed.
I've only had it out 1 day for a few hours. I found it to be easy to learn and very fun to use. It looks to be a keeper for sure.
I know I rehashed some thing here that have already been said and I'm sorry if some are tired of hearing it. But, I've never had a chance to really speak about somthing new and thought I would give it a shot .
Happy hunting everybody
Reaney in NH
I was shocked at the size of the box... hard to believe a Minelab could come in such a small box.
As stated by others I am verimpressed with the lite wieght and balance. It is a real pleasure to swing for hours at a time with no fatique.
After assembly I stepped outside and hit the power button... then the G/B... I played with that for a bit and I could not get it to balance... it was either high or low...no medium. I check sensitivity and it was at 18... I turned it down to 14 and tried again. It seemed to balance out ok then. As some may already know the soils in my yard are pretty hot... reads in the low to mid 80's on my old MXT.
When i went to my 1 year old test garden i could hit targets.. but the numbers were jumpy... and I had alot of pops and clicks. Now, I have had this type of response with every detector I have ever used in my garden... its just the soils.
Anyway... I check all targets and it hit them all except the 9" silver dime and a 10" quarter. I've only seen a cpl machines that can hit these targets.. sio it was no great surprise.
After the above tests I gotta say... I really was not impressed... it did not seem to work any better than anything else I had used in my garden.
But, I own the machine and I always try to put some time in and find every machines strengths... So Today i went hunting.
First stop... our town green... Very mild soil... hunted hard... but a nice easy place to play around. I G/b... was very easy and it balanced out at a 9.. I hunted there for about an hour and dug about 30 targets and really got to know the Id numbers. I git to where I just knew what was coming out before I dug it. While I was playing I tried cranking up the sensitivity and anything above 17 was really noisy... just like I experinced in my test garden at the lower settings... That got me thinking that perhaps I had it turned up to hot?? Hmmm... I wonder??
So... i packed up and went down the street to an empty house that has some of the toughest soils I've ever worked in. I don't know what it is with the older homes around here... but most have some really hot soils. Anyway... I fired it up... tred to G/b... no way... it wouldn't balance right at all. I turn the sens back to 12 and it was better... so I tried 10... Bingo... It G/b nicely and ran incredibly smooth. I dig and 20 targets down to about 8in... several wheat pennies and a cpl Rosie dimes. I was very pleased... and IMPRESSED.
I packed up and headed back home to my garden... I did the G/b with the low sens... then turned it up to 14 and it was noisey... I turned it back to 12... much smoother... and it hit EVERY target in my garden and locked on with ID on all but the extreme depth targets... I was amazed.
Well... The Above is both my first impresion.. Poor!! and my second impresion... WOW!!!!
All I can say is... Those that are dumping this machine because they thinks its noisey or unstable... Turn it back a little and you will be amazed.
I've only had it out 1 day for a few hours. I found it to be easy to learn and very fun to use. It looks to be a keeper for sure.
I know I rehashed some thing here that have already been said and I'm sorry if some are tired of hearing it. But, I've never had a chance to really speak about somthing new and thought I would give it a shot .
Happy hunting everybody
Reaney in NH
