Fisher CZ-21

I used both the earlier CZ-20 and the CZ-21. I am a fan of the CZ series in general, and consider the CZ-21 to be one of the two VLF detectors I personally favor for serious water detecting, the other being the Minelab Excalibur. I am purposefully excluding detectors waterproof to 10 feet when I say this. The CZ-21 at 250 ft and Excalibur at 200 ft depth capability are far more robust detectors for those that truly intend on using a detector almost exclusively in the water. Detectors good to 10 feet are ok for mask and snorkel use but the CZ-21 is a true SCUBA capable detector.

The downside is that means it is built like a tank with the weight that goes along with that. Unless you actually need that 250 ft depth rating there are far lighter and less expensive options available now. One small thing tipped me from the CZ-20/21 to the Excalibur and that is the way its audio discrimination was designed for coins instead of jewelry, and audibly puts nickel range targets into the high tone coin category. As a detector designed more for jewelry use the CZ-21 should read nickel range targets as mid-tone. That it does not means that to use the discrimination you either have to accept on passing on nickel range targets if you dig only the mid-tone targets, or just default to a simple ferrous/non-ferrous setting. This flaw largely negates the benefit of even having a mid-tone audio response. The Excalibur dies not suffer from this flaw. That is unfortunate as I rather prefer the CZ-21 otherwise as having a standard control panel with knob arrangement that can be easily hip or chest mounted out of box without extra accessories. The battery setup is more straightforward than that on the Excalibur. The tone arrangement is also simpler and more understandable than the more complex audio produced by the Excalibur, again excepting the aforementioned flaw. Finally, the CZ-21 offers a true all metal ground balance mode which I like a lot. All in all a great detector but I wish Fisher would have updated the machine to put the nickel range back at mid-tone, which would make it a far easier choice for me as compared to the Excalibur. It's really that one thing that puts my off the CZ; other than that it is a near perfect VLF machine for use to SCUBA depths. Hip-mounted it actually is also a very effective coin detector .