The French Vs The Turks

[Steve Herschbach]

My Makro Racer 2 meets my XP Deus....

[Jackpine]

No Steve don't, please stop!  I can't afford another machine. LOL

Tom

[DDancer]

Chunk light tuna verse's full on Albacore tuna?  Problem is which one to put on my salad?.... Interesting.  got some dumb questions now but I'll read a bit before I put into the salad. ;)

[Steve Herschbach]

I will tell you this - three hours of cross checking on found targets and I can't tell you which is the light tuna and which the albacore.

[nvchris]

Is your Racer the final version?

 

[Steve Herschbach]

Yup, production unit, helps to know the right people for quick delivery (thanks Dilek!). I had nothing to do with testing on this one and learned about it the same time as everyone else. I would guess distributor has them now or any second.

Really, really sweet detector - could not be more pleased. However, just as one would suspect the Gold Racer does a better job on extreme low conductors. Foil targets my Gold Racer calls non-ferrous will go ferrous on the Racer 2 at stock setting. However tone break can be adjusted to compensate.

Seriously, for me to ditch the F75 for the Racer 2 says a lot. Lots of machines tried to knock my F75 off its pedestal for a long time but I always went back to it. History now. I can't say the Racer 2 goes deeper - gave that game up long ago with VLF - but I just like the various options on it better.

The Deus is easy to like from a performance aspect, nails the targets. But I remain biased in favor of machines with lots of cheap coil options. Between Makro, Mars, and Nel there are now something like 16 coils available for the Racer. And so far the Racer 2 holds its own against a detector costing nearly twice as much. Really fun to get them both into dense targets.

Let me know when you have the V4 update for the Deus Chris - still looking forward to that. Looks like late summer at best now however. Bummer.

[deathray]

How you running the Deus? My favotite setup for relics in iron , full tones, zero disc, 18k, reactivity between 2-4, silencer -1. Running like that, hear everything, including the ground.

[Steve Herschbach]

Which base program? Of course any base can be changed into almost anything but where do you start?

As a rank novice with both machines I am pretty much running stock to stock. Racer 2 in three tone, only adjustment bumping Gain from 70 to 85 (out of 99 max), disc (ID Filter) at preset 3. I am not seeking max performance so much as stable performance for learning purposes.

Deus I went with GM Power (Program 2) which is in three tones as preset, 18 kHz (Racer 2 at 14 kHz), Gain at preset of 90, reactivity at preset 2, disc at preset 6.8 - all presets. I toyed with maybe using G-MAXX instead, GM Power is more for bad ground, G-MAXX for high conductors (8 kHz) but again, I am in a learning about how both machines act at relatively conservative and similar settings. The only thing I did do is since the ground here is so bad I ground balanced the machine. XP tends to recommend you just leave at 90 but I am not seeing that be a good idea in this soil.

I really am more a wide open full tones guy so honestly in the long run will end up using your settings Ray but again, not really trying to prove much here, just getting the feel of both machines. I was not really even looking for anything, and went after weird targets just to see what they were. I actually have as much fun doing this as most anything else metal detecting. I am fascinated by the responses and working the target and trying to guess what I am going to dig.

I am always amazed at how this ground just kills the performance of all VLF detectors I run here.

The bottom line is these are two really terrific metal detectors and I am just a fortunate guy to be able to do what I am doing. I will pick up the MX Sport next week and have a new CTX on the way so all four can play together over an extended period of time. I am not looking for winners or losers I am just going to try and learn all I can about all four and figure out how to best make each one shine.

Life is good!

[Steve Herschbach]

You know, most of the issue for me is the ground, and the fact it is so bad. It levels the VLF playing field. My theory is in mild ground you see bigger differences between machines. Bad ground compresses everything and the differences shrink. As long as you are talking top-of-the-line machines the performance differences are hair splitting stuff. If you spend long hours cross checking found targets it is just now and then one machine might have a tiny edge here, but then 30 minutes later the other machine has a tiny edge there. It sort of evens out. And though I should not really say this, if you spend most of your time like I do running a PI or a GPZ, all VLFs seem gutless in bad ground. Unless you run them in all metal but then you may as well run a PI.

Come on Minelab - add full range disc to the GPZ! Some day......

[deathray]

If they get full disc for the Z, some how, some way, I will find the funds to own one,lol. That will truly be a game changer.