Announcing The New Makro Racer 2!

[Steve Herschbach]

11 hours ago, Jackpine said:

"Blendy bleedy" audio is fine but the Racer 2 never showed me any super ability to pick out targets in iron that the older design of the T2 could as well.  After 20 or so hours of use and a few direct comparisons it became very apparent to me.  There is a fair bit of nuance in the gated audio of the T2, It is not just off/on thing.

1+ mode works very well for me because the of the modulated audio, the softer hits still stand out to my old ears.  Can't hear that in the constant blendy bleedy audio.

Tom

Yeah, I am not trying to counter anything you are reporting Tom, great info. Just trying to add more information for others. The T2/F75 platform served me very well for many years. I am not a big fan of the blendy bleedy thing myself - it is mentally wearing. Truth be told I just want a machine that just shuts up on ferrous and sings out on non-ferrous.

There is certainly a case to be made about the T2 being an exceptional value at $499 that eclipses the Racer 2 at $749 Teknetics T2 Information I do think also the Nokta and Makro fans have been going a bit overboard with presenting them as having magical abilities. They are good detectors with interesting features for the price but with the exception of the Gold Racer they are are just variations in mid frequency tech. Most of the vaunted abilities get tied to the small coils, but fact is most any good detector can be impressive in trash if you glue a small coil to it.

Personally I am struggling these days over keeping any detector that just runs at a single frequency, the exception being a dedicated high frequency machine like the Gold Racer (GMT, Gold Bug 2).

[Jackpine]

Steve

I decided to go with the X-terra 705 for my next machine partially due to the multi freg aspect.  I had a fair amount of experience on the 70 in the past and found the overall performance satisfactory for my type of hunting.  The weight and balance match the T2.  It has more features than the T2, however the controls once learned are very intuitive to use.  The overall deciding factor was the available 6" concentric coil at 7.5Khz.  Should work out great for my old site iron hunting.  Hopefully it will be the "silver slayer" I'm looking for.

Tom

[Jackpine]

Tip for those that use the Racer 2 and Relic.  Turn the iron audio to 0. The slightly softer "fuzzy beep" sound of certain targets that I and others have noted will be more pronounced.  An early tip I believe from Tom D who should never be taken lightly.

Tom

[Steve Herschbach]

 

 

 

[auminesweeper]

Those English penny's do come up deep, It is quite common to hit them well over a foot deep, the damn things Air test between 24 to 27 inches, it was a Victorian half penny that my mate got at 13 and a half inches and he only had the gain running at about 25%,

I think it is weird how you when you change from one mode to another that you have to keep adjusting the gain from the pre sets, but really it makes sense because it allows every mode to be independent .

[Steve Herschbach]

The indepent saved settings for each mode, and better yet the ability to switch quickly between modes is very useful. The Gold Racer is set up the same way. I run one disc mode with optimum hunt settings. The second I run a very high settings, too high for general sweeping. I hunt with one, then switch to the other to boost the signal response on a found target. It is also easy to hunt in all metal, then switch to disc mode to check found targets. It is one of the best features of these machines and I wish more detectors allowed quick mode switching.

[auminesweeper]

One thing that I was wondering is why does the first guy keep setting the GB to ZERO when he changes modes, does it respond better or deeper with the GB turned off?

[Steve Herschbach]

His ground balance (ground phase) reading was pretty consistent at 87 - 90. I assume you are referring to ground tracking, which he turns on in all metal mode, then turns back off (setting 00) while in disc modes.

Ground is most useful in all metal mode to smooth the variations that occur in ground with varying mineralization. Since the disc modes are silent search there is no obvious benefit and so Makro recommends not using it in disc modes to get best performance. However, when I was using the FORS Gold I found that in extreme ground where hot rocks would break through even in disc mode, engaging ground tracking did smooth things out.

Like most detectors however I would not use tracking unless it is needed, even while in all metal mode.

[auminesweeper]

Yes Steve that is what I was referring too, His ground phase numbers are alien to me as to why they are so high, his numbers appear to be equal to mine running at 50 to 65, I know that from 50 to 95 tells me that the minerals are Iron based and the higher the number the more Iron minerals are present and readings below 50 are more Alkali / Salt based which to me makes sense, I wish all the companies would get on the same page regarding this feature, Even if they had a -50 to +50 system with ( 0 ) being the mid point instead of how it is on this machine and the MXT and the F75, Where as the GMT does make some sense but even that could be simplified, being the Ground phase on Whites machines appears to a guide as to where the GB is set, But many people seem to think that the higher the number the worse it is and a lower number means that the Ground is more mild which is not true because the Ground can have a high mineral reading with numbers like 35 to 40 the only difference being is they are High in Salts / Alkali's as opposed to being Iron Based.

 

The only time I ever use tracking is when the ground is too hot and constantly changing as I found at one spot in OZ

Over her I don't think I have ever had to use the tracking on any of the machines that I have owned unless it was there was no option to turn it off,

Thanks,

 

[Steve Herschbach]

Racer 2 ground phase values:

Mineral content meter: