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Have White MX Sport Problems Been Fixed?


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I have very bad ground where I hunt locally. Coin signals deeper than 5-6 inches turn to ferrous. Aluminum upscales to read in the coin range. Every VLF detector I get my hands on disappoints me in a way because time and again I prove that VDI numbers are near worthless on very deep targets in particular, but these new hot machines seem to have problems also with shallower small aluminum. Good detectors allow one to chase coin signals in a location, and pull out those clean coin signals rather quickly. What remains then are a lot of questionable signals. When I go back and hunt the same area, ignoring VDI numbers but just digging everything that gives a decent non-ferrous audio signal, I dig a lot of trash, but many more good finds are revealed. Even then, the ferrous items are masking still more good finds and the deeper items that read ferrous are still there.

Every new detector that comes out I somehow hope will just see items accurately in my ground, but in no time at all I go out and find all the same limitations still exist. As long as the underlying technology remains the same, I feel that we are doing no more than scratching the surface when it comes to using discrimination in dense mixed trash situations.

The MX Sport in my opinion suffers from something common in all new detectors, like the Nokta Impact I am currently using. They are not so much metal detectors but metal detecting programs running on hardware. Changing the program changes the way the detector operates dramatically without changing the hardware at all. The programs are complex with many interactions. Changing one thing for the better often makes something else worse. It is very easy for mistakes to be made and for bugs to creep in that only affect things with a particular set of control settings. For instance, with all the settings a particular way and in mild ground, the detector may work perfectly. However, a bug may exist so that at a different ground balance setting a certain target type now reads incorrectly. That bug only exists in ground that causes the ground balance to be set there, and nowhere else. So people running in many places do not experience the bug, people in other places do. There are so many control settings and interactions it can be near impossible to test them all. Think about all the possible control settings on the MX Sport, and the fact a bug could exist at any combination of those settings. It is overwhelming really, and almost every modern metal detector on the market right now has bugs that exist in one way or another. I do not think they ever get them all, they just get reduced to the point the machine works reasonably well for the vast majority of people.

Look at the iPhone after many generations made by one of the richest companies on the planet with resources far beyond anything a metal detector company can dream of. And yet every new version of the iOS software is loaded with bugs that require fixes. If Apple can't get it right after so many generations of phones, it is a miracle small companies like White's do as well as they do with a brand new product.

It is very risky in my opinion to buy genuinely new detector models early these days, unless they have a way to be updated over the internet. Machines that are just another version of an old machine in a new package are less risky, but truly new models I would say now have a better than even chance updates will be issued in the first year. No number of testers, usually a handful, can duplicate all the combinations of issues that will arise when thousands of people use the new detector. Either new models have a way to update at home, or do not buy in the first year, that's my advice, unless one is well prepared to have to mail a detector in for updates.

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What to say? Only XP is working hard on software, but also has serious bugs and delays, new 4.0 update...

But you have totally right. At modern times old models like Nautilus are like Holly Grall.

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Here's an interesting video 

I know that mixed metal coins ring up best with a Tesoro for me. Not knocking the Mxs, I really like mine and my Racer as well but a simple disc and concentric work. Hopefully we'll see the 5.3 coil available one day. I know the 950 is available, but I'm holding out for now.

Oh thought I'd add, I've watched a few of your video's but I never thought of enabling the subtitles! I'll have to check them out again!

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