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Just Wondering


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With all of the new machines out or coming out, I was just wondering how many of us Tesoro fans still use them on a regular basis? Also if all these new machines are so much better, Why so few Tesoro's for sale? I own a NOX 800 and NM multi kruzer and like them both, But seem to find myself drifting back to the low Khz Tesoro's. I'm a coin guy and love silver and copper coins. Gold to me is a welcome surprise but it's not what makes me smile. Running my Umax over the 800 as of lately really seems magical. I feel like I'm much more in tune with the tones vs blended audio of the 800. I'm also a big fan of concentric coils, they just perform so much better in dense trash. I know everyone chases depth, but I do not. Most of my coins rarely go beyond 7'' with the exception of big silver (oddly) Ha Ha. Beginner detectorist's IMHO rely to much on their screens and discard the fundamentals of detecting for a machine that they trust without knowing what that means. Something awesome about a 1 tone machine with a hundred nuances. 

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  Yep, you and Kac have made me a believer, and upped the prices!!😁👍👍

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20 minutes ago, dogodog said:

Why so few Tesoro's for sale?

Probably because as a percentage of total detectors sold, Tesoros are small (compred to Minelab, Garrett and Fisher).

Being discontinued will have a psychological effect too, in that someone's less likely to sell something they aren't sure they could replace easily.

This latter explanation is one of the strongest reasons as to why I'm consiering selling my Equinox 600 instead of my E-Trac; the fomer will be FAR easier (and likely cheaper) to replace in the future if I decide I made a mistake.

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New machines sell because of the bells and whistles and do make detecting fairly easy as someone can just run the numbers in a park and do well. Majority of finds are not hard to detect with just about any machine and only in the more difficult areas where there is poor ground, high emi, deep targets, masked targets and highly hunted areas do people look for that little bit of an edge.

If you look back at all the hours we invest into hunting with an analog machine and learning it's language so we don't dig all that trash it is pretty daunting and not everyone has that time or are willing to do that.

Lower frequencies do very well in poor ground, it's 5-10khz that wins the day in some the miserable spots and even do well at the beaches with that range. Even most jewelry with the exception of micro jewelry can easily be found with those low frequencies.

Of all my machines if I was only to keep one then hands down it would be the Tesoro. Replaced my GB pot today and can't wait to get out there :)

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3 minutes ago, kac said:

Majority of finds are not hard to detect with just about any machine and only in the more difficult areas where there is poor ground, high emi, deep targets, masked targets and highly hunted areas do people look for that little bit of an edge.

Very true. 

I believe that based on where and how I hunt, an AT Max and E-Trac can find 80-90% of what I would have found with my Equinox 600. But it's nice to have that extra edge you mentioned for the ocassional hunts that take me to somewhere different or going after targets that are in the super mineralized clay where I live.

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In my areas I bring both the 800 and a tesoro. 800 for clean areas (so to speak) and the umax for high iron old sites. My buddy runs the 800 all the time and he is really good with it but he is amazed by the simplicity of the umax. Tesoros to my happiness are NOT beep and dig machines. 

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Here's a response that's slightly more on point.

I hade 2 Tesoros for a short while, but wasn't happy with their performance. The Vaquero's ground balancing seemed cumbersome and only when in All Metal Mode could it detect the clad dime and/or iron nail in my "test garden."

But I do like Tesoros. I enjoy their light weight, retro-futuristic look (like Steampunk on steroids) and their "beep and dig" approach to hunting. I also liked their modification potential. And like the OP recognized, I think I could have learned how to use them better if I spent the time to learn the nuanced sounds my Tesoros made.

My ears are odd. On the one hand, I'm tone deaf. If you played me just one of the 5 tones the Equinox makes in 5 tone mode, I probably could only identify the iron and second lowest tone reliably. But I'd get the mid, mid-high and high tones mixed up. When I'm hunting with my Equinox 600, I occassionaly confuse the mid-tone with the mid-high tone. And I almost always think the mid-high tone is actually the high tone. So VDIs are kind of important for me...😕

It's like in band class from years ago when I couldn't tell if my trumpet was playing a C or G.

But on the other hand, I'm pretty good and recognizing patterns in certain voice and melodic cadences. This allows me to more easily identify voice actors or composers. We have yet to see if that "skill" can translate to metal detecting...

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2 minutes ago, dogodog said:

umax for high iron old sites.

You use a concentric with your Umax, right?

Seems like there's two ways to hunt in heavy iron.

One, there's using a machine with high recovery speed and great target separation and tring to surgically isolate the good signals amongst the bad.

Two, there's using a concentric and letting the iron bits merge with the good targets. And even though the signal received by the Tesoro or other "older" machine might be an average signal of the high and low tone targets, if you set your discrimination knob in the right spot and have learned the nuanced sounds of your machine, then you can still reliabily identify when there's a good target amongst the iron trash.

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Two is about it with the exception of disc. With the umax you can pretty much disc all but the large iron out and still pound copper or silver even most clad. The circuitry of a tesoro will allow you to not hear small bits of iron anywhere near your target. When hunting for silver I run 1/2 way between zinc and max disc, this still allows me to pick up some clad to not make for a boring day. I'm a big fan of low recovery speeds on other machines, swing speed is much more important. As for tones on a Tesoro They are hard to explain you have to run one for a while to start to understand the fades, crackles and rolls. 

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