Jeff McClendon

This is just a preliminary review of my QED PL3 which has the August 2019 update, a Sadie NuggetFinder 8X6" coil, Detech 12.5" mono coil, Commander 11" DD coil, the small control box and the battery and guts of the detector under the arm cuff. It looks similar to the one in the second photo above except that mine has a Whites S curve TDI SL type shaft. Unlike the stats listed by Steve H, mine weighs 3 lbs 8 oz with the Sadie and with an 11" Commander or Detech coil it weighs 4 lbs.

My QED is not optimized for USA 60 Hz power sources so I cannot use it very close to power lines or near my house. At any rate, when I am able to use it away from power lines and urban areas it works very well. I like that it is easily adjustable for target size by optimizing settings for small, medium and large size coils by changing the pulse delay. The pulse delay range is 7.5uS to 12.5uS which makes it very sensitive to both very small gold and larger gold/targets. It does have high/low and low/high audio changes according to target size and will double tone on elongated targets like nails, etc. Waterproof coils are available for the QED and the latest update will work with DD coils too so I can see using a QED on wet sand or very shallow calm surf as a real possibility as long as I use a waterproof DD coil and am careful with the electronics which are not waterproofed. Two 4.7 volt 18650 Lithium batteries provide plenty of power for this compact PI. However, its 3D printer made plastic parts are a definite drawback in my opinion from a durability standpoint. I have not broken anything yet but...........?

After doing some head to head testing, I found the QED PL3 to be almost as sensitive on very small gold as my SDC2300. It outperformed the SDC2300 on larger gold simply because I can put any sized coil on the QED I choose and change the settings for larger coil/gold accordingly. Plus, it is far more comfortable to swing, has easy coil changes, has a threshold tone that can be adjusted from silent to as loud as one wants while not being unstable and very annoying like the SDC2300 threshold audio and it has plenty of user adjustable features.

Where the SDC might be preferred over the QED for small gold detection is the SDC's rugged construction, waterproofing and simplicity of operation.  

Can the QED compete with a GPX 4000 to 5000 for depth and sensitivity on gold over 1 gram in size...........not from my experience so far. Is it an alternative for the SDC 2300.....definitely. Will it out perform a Whites TDI SL.......absolutely.

Extreme magnetite iron mineralization testing will be coming as soon as the snow melts.

The Vanquish 440 with the 10” coil is beautifully balanced and makes a great grab and go detector, a loaner or a wonderful beginner detector with all of the features needed to be successful at metal detecting. Just like the Vanquish 340, it will detect targets very accurately down to 10” even in mineralized soil, it works well on salt water beaches and it has three features that are not on the 340 which are an excellent pinpoint function, the ability to customize discrimination patterns, and the great iron identification tool, the horseshoe button. For a person on a tight budget that wants to do some park, field and beach hunting, this inexpensive, easy to use detector would be an outstanding choice.

The Vanquish 340 is an amazing detector for the money. With the included 10” coil it is nicely balanced, had easy to understand controls, can be adjusted for just about any sized person and most importantly, it can detect and correctly identify targets from surface to its full depth of detection like no other detector even close to its price range except for its siblings the Vanquish 440 and 540. It lacks a pinpoint button. Otherwise, I have zero complaints about this excellent beginner detector.

The Garrett AT Gold was also my first metal detector with an LCD screen. I was a little overwhelmed at first after using a Tesoro Lobo and Lobo Super Traq for many years. So, my first impressions were not that great. The audio, especially the iron audio was very brash and could not be adjusted.......I bought my AT Gold used and it did not come with headphones. I didn't have very good volume adjustment on the headphones I had. I grew to really like the AT Gold however, even though there are some things that always bothered me.

There are three things I do not like about the AT Gold which are the Iron Audio, it is not optimized for high mineralization despite what Garrett says and I have never liked the weight or where the coil connects on the 8.5 X 11" DD coil.

The iron audio even through the Garrett MS-2 headphones can be heard for miles and really can't be used continuously by me anyway. I don't think Garrett intended for it to be operated like that in the first place. It is just for investigating a target. The AT Gold's iron discrimination works very well at breaking up on smaller iron objects anyway in the two discrimination modes and I like how you can use a little iron discrimination even in All Metal if you turn Iron Audio on.

I never could get it to ground balance in some places or get it to quiet down a bit on some pesky hot rocks in All Metal. The Ground Balance Window thing is iffy at best. I ended up just prospecting in Disc 1 often with iron discrimination set on 25 which worked fine.

The 8.5X11" is really a boat anchor. The 5X8" is awesome. I love how well balanced the AT Gold is with the 5X8" coil which has excellent recovery speed by the way.

I like everything else about the AT Gold, especially the very short audio tone length (compared to the AT Pro which takes forever to stop sounding even in Proportional mode). Garrett always describes the "Pro" audio on the AT Pro, AT Gold and AT Max as being proportional pulse width modulation tone roll audio. That is nice BUT the proportional audio on the AT Pro and the proportional audio on the Gold and Max are definitely not the same even though Garrett never mentions this. The medium and high tone audio on the AT Gold is MUCH better in my opinion than the stated "same" audio on the AT Pro. I also like how the audio uses exactly the same medium tone in the Discrimination and All Metal modes too. It has good recovery speed with iron audio off and is also not too shabby at unmasking if the iron audio is off and some iron discrimination is used. The Gold has a good threshold, is easy to operate and has as good a target ID accuracy as any single frequency induction balanced VLF on the market. The Gold is well built and I have always trusted it under water and have had no problems so far.

It is a very underrated, excellent detector for coins, jewelry, relics and gold prospecting for .20 gram or larger nuggets. The AT Gold has often been maligned as a detector for the ridiculously loud and slow to recover iron audio and really awkward coil and headphone connectors which are justifiable criticisms. Garrett did upgrade the coil and headphone connectors and the hand grip on more recent versions of the AT Gold. Other than that, if operating in mild or moderate mineralization, it detects very well. 

After owning my 600 since they were first released I finally recently sold it (upgraded to a second Equinox 800). It did everything I could ask for from a detector and I used it at least 15 hours per week for almost 3 years with zero problems whatsoever. That's over 2000 hours of use!!!! If you don't need the gold prospecting modes and some of the more advanced features, the Equinox 600 is hard to beat for the money if buying new and buying one used with some warranty left is an incredible deal for around $400 currently. I made some amazing finds with mine and paid for its original price with just one of them. It took me about 40 hours of detecting to really get comfortable with it and trust what it was telling me. Now I can hunt with either a 600 or 800 and know that I won't miss many targets unless I decide to not dig. There are a couple of detectors that can out perform the 600. One is the 800. Otherwise, its rock solid target ID (once you learn to trust it) and outstanding features make it an excellent choice for someone moving up from an entry level detector.

I can only echo what Lunk and Aureous have said here. I really like this detector for gold prospecting. It has so many great and adjustable features that it makes nugget hunting even more fun than it already was. I especially like the XGB ground tracking, push of a button shift from VCO to two tone ferrous/non-ferrous pitched audio,  silent search when I want it by adjusting the threshold tone, nice ergonomics and the super hot 6.5" coil. Awesome, fun, can't wait to use it gold prospecting, relic hunting and even coin and jewelry hunting detector.

Recently purchased the XP ORX. A family member gave me a generous dollar amount Amazon gift card. I had nothing to spend it on since I'm not a Prime customer and I was sort of missing my former Deus. I had read a lot of speculative reviews (how can you write a review without having one in your hands to use) and some really negative ones too which had lots of seemingly inaccurate information. So I was eager to give the ORX a try once it became possible, money wise.

I sold my Deus because of the lack of ID normalization for the HF coils which made coin and jewelry detecting no fun with them. Those coils were great for gold prospecting and I loved the packability of the Deus.

The ORX really does have full ID normalization for all four search modes and all of the 21 frequencies I have tried using the elliptical HF DD coil. It has a much improved numerical target ID screen and gives accurate numbers and tones down to 4" using either of the coin modes in the moderate to highly mineralized dirt where I detect in the Rocky Mountain region. It outdoor air tests and test bed tests very well on .2 gram to 1 gram nuggets and lead in both gold modes at 68kHz and is comparable in depth to the Makro Gold Kruzer and Equinox 800 (6" coil). The iron probability bar and the large numerical target ID are displayed when a shallow to fairly deep target is detected in all of the 4 search modes and the two customizable modes. There is no horseshoe graph, XY graph, microscopic mineralization bar, or small, hard to see target ID numbers on the ORX.

It comes with two gold modes which are based on the Deus gold field program. One is for milder soil conditions and the second gold program is for highly mineralized areas and smaller gold. It also comes factory preset with the Deus Fast and Deus Deep programs which work very well in my area. It also has a salt mode when needed. There are no adjustments for audio response and the silencer is adjusted when reactivity is adjusted in the Coin Fast program. It has three tone audio which may sound very limited to long-time Deus users but works very well. US nickels and almost all aluminum trash and gold jewelry down to about 4" depth register as medium tone. Zincs up to large silver coins and jewelry register as high tones. The target ID numbers are also very stable down to 4" here. They should be stable much deeper in mild soil. Modern nickels hit hard on 62-63 while most coin sized or bigger aluminum trash hits between 65 and 80 which is a nice large range. Smaller aluminum seems to hit in the 40 to 60 range while small foil hits in the 30s. I have dug several 1/4" in diameter foil wads which sounded great at 6" in Coin Fast at 28kHz. Being a micro jewelry/gold prospector, this is very encouraging. So, I can't wait to get the ORX and its gold modes up to some prospecting areas in the Colorado mountains this summer.

It comes with simplified wireless back phones that just control the volume level. I couldn't see the display on the WS4 module without magnification anyway so not having that problem to deal with is fine with me. The back phones work well. The ORX remote control has the same 1/8" jack as the Deus so that is an option for wired headphones along with using the Deus wired headphone adapter card that is an accessory and attaches to the back of the ORX back phone module the same way as the Deus WS4 puck controller. It will pair and has advanced functions when using the Mi6 Pinpointer also.

At 1lbs 14 oz, it feels a lot lighter than the Deus, has a great, easy to see target ID/iron probability display, HF coil ID normalization and is simple to setup without all of the sometimes cumbersome audio features of the Deus. The only adjustments I have made coin and jewelry hunting are slight frequency shifts and lowering of the sensitivity in highly mineralized areas. I have not experienced any EMI problems at all above 28 kHz. 14 to 17 kHz is a little more chatty of course, but can be controlled.

Despite much of the speculative and negative pre-release opinions, the ORX is an outstanding selectable multi frequency, multi purpose detector that is a joy to use and have success with, without wondering most of the time if I have it setup correctly. For me and my detecting needs, it is actually an improvement over the Deus not just a simplified Deus and it definitely isn't a DPR 600 which uses much of the same display platform as the Deus and has four single tone threshold based all metal modes for prospecting and no coin/jewelry modes.  The ORX has all of the audio sensitivity of the Deus if you were to set the Deus up in three tones. So, it looks a lot like a Deus, sounds like a Deus, detects like a Deus and swings like one too. It has been a lot of fun so far.

Jeff

Hi,

I owned a previously used XP Deus with 9" HF coil version 4.1 software for 6 months. I was able to use it for some basic coin and jewelry hunting and for gold prospecting. I found it to be an outstanding metal detector. However, in highly mineralized soil I found it to be fairly hard to find the right settings in order for it to get much depth for good audio signals past 5". 14kHz did not work well for depth. Sounds crazy, I know but 28 to 30 kHz was much better. Unfortunately, this made the target ID numbers for US coins at depth to be in the 70s to mid 90s along with most of the other jewelry targets I was after. Much of the coin sized trash also ended up in that target ID range unless it was very small foil or tiny can slaw pieces. So, coin and jewelry detecting squeezed into a 25 segment target ID range with the HF coil was not particularly pleasant even after lots of tone break and tone pitch adjustments. 

The Deus worked very well as a gold prospecting detector for smaller gold using 28 to 54kHz settings with the 9" HF coil. I had no trouble setting it up for the sites I was prospecting. It was fairly quiet in high mineralization and abundant hot rocks. The XY graph worked great for iron probability and for visual support for lead and gold range targets. The 9" HF coil went fairly deep on sub gram gold (up to 5") and it was a pleasure to swing and especially to put in my backpack.

Eventually, I decided to sell the Deus. Using the HF coil only for relic hunting and gold prospecting makes sense. Using it for coin and jewelry in medium to high mineralized soil did not. I was using only two of the 10 programs regularly since the others could not handle bad mineralization very well and did not see the point since I already had some very capable gold prospecting detectors and great coin and jewelry detectors which the Deus was not appreciably better than in the field. Hopefully, the person that bought it from me will not have my soil conditions to deal with.

For most normal soil conditions and with fully supported coil frequencies that have ID normalization, the Deus would be fantastic.

Jeff

I recently bought a Teknetics Patriot. I have been interested in this detector since it was released and finally found a deal I could not refuse. I have owned another Teknetics 13kHz detector that had EMI issues in the urban areas I usually hunt in . I was afraid that the Patriot would exhibit some of the same behavior. Fortunately, even on the default settings in Program 1 (discrimination mode) the Patriot was very quiet and needed no adjusting except to turn up the sensitivity!!!!  

So far, I have really enjoyed detecting with the Patriot both for its detecting prowess and for its outstanding ergonomics. It will easily detect accurately past the 5" level in my two to three Fe3O4 bar mineralized dirt and is an absolute joy to swing. It is beautifully balanced and feels like a 2 pound detector not a very nose heavy almost 3 pound detector like some of the Fishers and Teknetics that do not have a battery box under the arm rest. It should be a great relic hunter, a good prospecting detector and has already proven to be a very fine coin and jewelry hunter.

If you are considering buying one of these, read up on recommended settings for the F70/Patriot. Lots of good information on this forum and two others that will really help setting it up for your conditions.

I highly recommend this detector either for a relative newbie, intermediate user, or a very experienced hunter in need of a mid single frequency or backup detector.

Jeff

I like the Tesoro Compadre so much that I have owned three of them! I have had two with the smallest coil which I later sold. I liked them just fine but I live in Colorado and depth is always an issue in our highly mineralized dirt. When I heard that Tesoro was in trouble I managed to find the Compadre model that I always really wanted with the 8" doughnut coil. My Compadre goes with me on detecting trips to parks and tot lots where there are lots of fences, metal benches and other metal structures that this detector's coil can get right up next to and not overload. It detects 7" coin sized targets well and like most Tesoros it sounds beautiful on actual coins and jewelry. Those that have no long-time experience with these uncomplicated detectors just don't understand how well they discriminate and how interesting it is to listen to different analog tone responses and learn them. Its just the same pitched tone for every target BUT they sound so different to the practiced hearer. It is refreshing for the detector user to be such and integral part of the detecting process. Your ears are everything when using a Compadre. 

If you want to have some fun with good old fashioned beep-dig metal detecting without having to ground balance, the Cibola is a great 14.7 kHz detector. It is lightweight, easy to setup, has an excellent threshold based all metal mode, has a good pinpointer, and if you are using the 9x8 concentric, you target should be in the center of the circular coil opening. The Cibola works great in most soil conditions, it will detect gold nuggets, it sounds great on coins and really nice on gold rings. It does occasionally have trouble with deep silver maybe due to its transmit frequency. I found some really nice jewelry with mine while I had it. Hated to sell it but...............

Jeff

Hi,

I have never used an Omega 8500. I have read that it has improved EMI shielding.  I have owned the earlier version, the Omega 8000. The O8 is an excellent detector. I owned a version 4 with the 1/8" and 1/4" headphone jacks. This detector had two modes: all metal and discrimination. It reminded me a lot of the F19/Teknetics G2+ but at a lower transmit frequency and better audio features. Its major drawback was it suffered heavily from EMI interference at least in my area. It was impossible to turn the gain up above 50 even with frequency shifts and using the all metal mode was not pleasant due to all of the racket. In a more rural setting or with better shielding, this detector would be a joy to use. My experience with it was more of "I hope I will be able to detect with this machine today..........." only to find out that it was not possible far too many times.

I finally got my hands on an F44. I was looking for an easy to use loaner for my family, that was not a beginner detector, that actually worked!,  and that would challenge them (and me too) for basic coin and jewelry detecting. My grown kids grew up with pretty crappy detectors whose brand name will go unmentioned here and they expect something much better but not so complicated that they won't have any fun when they visit me.

The F44 so far is meeting that need. It has plenty of quality features that work very well. It has respectable depth (as deep as my F19 and Omega 8000 with the same coil in discrimination mode) and has good, accurate target ID numbers down to about 4". No snickering please....... I hunt in 3 to 4 bar highly mineralized decomposing granite and volcanic ash clay with an incredible amount of natural iron particles of various sizes. My very expensive detectors don't go much past 6" with any accuracy! The F44 also has a very good All Metal mode along with a custom mode that can be adjusted to one's needs easily. It has VCO, bass, low, medium and high tones. The pinpointer works very well so far too. Coil selection is great with both concentric and DD coils available from FTP and lots of aftermarket coils. The weatherproofing of the control box is awesome. It is lightweight, well balanced and easy to swing even for the occasional user.

My only complaint is with the quality of the audio modulation. Really good headphones are a must with this detector especially for the medium and high tone signals.

Otherwise, the F44 is a very good, well designed and made detector. It feels very sturdy and of higher build quality compared to its close cousin the Land Ranger Pro. 

March 13 2019.

After having my Equinoxes for about a year I have sold most of my other detectors which didn't get any use. I kept my F44 however. It is so light-weight and actually has more stable target ID than a particular detector I used to own that costs $1000 more!. I picked up a simple 8" round concentric coil and a 5" sniper coil for the F44. The 8" round (greek series coil) works great on the F44 and makes pinpointing a breeze. It easily gets 9" of repeatable tone depth and 5" with usable target ID. It is much less chatty than the stock 11" DD, almost as deep and has better target ID. The little 5" DD round is fantastic in heavy trash and can easily hit 7" targets with good repeatable tones. I really enjoy using this detector for first-time hunts on new fields, purposely shallow hunts, bad weather hunts and tot lot hunts.

I really love the Fisher F19 Teknetics G2+ form factor. I love it so much that I have bought 2 of them in the past 3 years. I used them for gold prospecting in all metal mode and for detecting in tougher ground balance areas and at beaches for coins and jewelry.  I really like the look, operation and comfortable feel of these detectors. They are great for gold prospecting in the .5 gram and larger size range. The 10" X5" coil size both in the stock coil and in some of the aftermarket coils worked very well and provided good depth and stable operation.  I did not like this detector as much with the factory 11"X 8" coil. It was less stable in general and did not provide much more depth since I had to lower the gain in order to detect usually. 

The reason that I no longer own either of these detectors is the lack of audio features and the awkward shifting from all metal to disc mode. Having just two tones and VCO for coin and jewelry hunting in discrimination mode got old fast especially since a large portion of the target range had to be VCO which can sound almost like the low tone on these detectors. No fun constantly looking at the display to figure out the audio response. Shifting from all metal to disc mode and back was really clumsy too since you had to reset your gain or threshold each time. I love the knobs but not for that purpose. 

The F19 and Teknetics G2+ really are fine prospecting/relic detectors especially with the latest feature upgrades. To bad the audio features are still very limited  for the coin and jewelry hunters.

I had the opportunity to use a Land Ranger Pro for awhile recently and I was quite impressed with all of the features of this detector and with the detector in general. I have used many FTP detectors and Bounty Hunters too. This detector worked fairly well in my high EMI and high mineralized soil conditions and should be a blast in more detector friendly environments. It locked on to targets well at 3" to 4" and only suffered a little from EMI. I think part of that is the 11 x 9 DD coil that came with the detector I used. I have to say that the two negatives for me were the somewhat flimsy build quality and of course the malfunctioning to non-functioning pinpoint button. I especially disliked the flimsy DD coil. On my Minuteman and Gamma the same 11"x 9" DD coil was much more robust, sturdier and had better quality coil cables and screw on connectors. I really was afraid I could easily damage the LRP's coil. Otherwise, this is a lot of detector for the money. With a working pinpoint button, coil connector modification and some better quality coils, this detector would be really fantastic.

For the most part, I really enjoyed using the TDI SL special edition with the Miner Johns coil. It was well balanced and had almost enough features to satisfy me. Where it was lacking the most was in audio nuances and basic power. I could not hear enough audio information for me to distinguish target characteristics easily. Coming from a GP3000, I loved the TDI SL's simplicity and light weight but not its limited tonal deficiencies. The biggest problem though, was its lack of power. I tried different battery scenarios including the RNB product for this model. It helped some but not enough for me to trust that the TDI SL had the raw power to detect effectively past 5" in high mineralization on medium to smallish gold targets. At least that was my experience.  In milder soil conditions or in really bad serpentine with shallow targets, it would be great. In my opinion it cannot compete with the GP/GPX series as a gold prospecting PI in the vast majority of detecting environments. As a relic or beach detector it would probably really do well.

The Treasure Master I used for a while actually out performed the MX7 and Treasure Pro in my high EMI and mineralized soil environment. I had one for a loaner and everyone that use it enjoyed it a lot. It was not able to detect with any stability past 3" but it locked on to targets much better than its more expensive cousins and amazingly its auto tracking system worked fairly well.  The display and audio were very nice and the stock concentric coil seemed to be the difference somehow as it matched up better with the characteristics of this detector.

I had the opportunity to try out two Treasure Pros. Sadly, neither of them could handle the high mineralization and EMI in my area. This detector could not lock on to any 3" or deeper targets, period. The stock coils were not helping the situation. I was able to try a Detech SEF coil which helped a lot with stabilizing target ID and recovery speed but depth was still poor. The features and display on this detector were excellent. I am sure it works much better in milder soil and EMI environments.

I was very excited to purchase the MX7. Unfortunately I was pretty disappointed with this detector. It struggled with the high mineralization in my area whether in auto tracking or locked ground balance. Target ID was very unstable and jumpy at depths beyond 3" and the detector was very susceptible to EMI and crosstalk with other detectors. I loved the display and the tones of this detector. I found it to be too heavy for longer hunts. I am no weakling but this detector gave me lots of wrist and neck fatigue no matter how I adjusted it. The 6" Detech coil was a vast improvement over the stock Whites coils which were disappointing. Hopefully others have had a more favorable experience with this detector.

The Delta has many very good features. Unfortunately it could not cope with either the bad EMI or high mineralization in my area. I'm sure that in milder soil mineralization it would be great.

The Gamma is a very feature rich detector. Unfortunately it could not cope with either the bad EMI or high mineralization in my area. I'm sure that in milder soil mineralization it would be great.

If you need an easy to operate but very capable inexpensive beginner or loaner metal detector, the Minuteman or the Eurotek Pro with either the 9" concentric or 11"x 9" DD should be on your list of possibilities. I have owned or tried out many FTP detectors with more features than the Minuteman. Those that had preset ground balance struggled to operate in the highly mineralized soil and EMI challenged environment where I live and lost depth and target ID accuracy within 3" depth and were so noisy that detecting was impossible unless the sensitivity was turned way down. Even some very expensive FTP detectors with automatic and manual ground balance struggle here for the same reasons.  The Minuteman's preset ground balance setting and EMI resistance were the best of any FTP I have used except for my F19 which cost over $300 more! It locks on good targets up to 5" here easily and sensitivity can be run at up to 80% without chatter. It has as good a pinpointer and depth readout as detectors costing several hundred dollars more. It has on screen iron and depth indicators and large target ID number display. It has three menu functions: volume, sensitivity, and discrimination. Within the volume control is FTP's FeTone volume control system. Within the discrimination control is a Variable Tone Breakpoint that is somewhat adjustable for one, two or three-tone operation. It is a very well built and sturdy detector and feels even more expensive than most of FTP's other budget line and some of the Greeks too. It is like an Omega without all of the features. I personally like the simplicity of the information from the audio and the display. You listen for the pitch and quality of the tone and you check the stability of the target ID number. That's it!

I have used a Minuteman as a loaner for complete newbies many times. With just 5 minutes of instruction they were all able to be successful with this detector and since it is so light weight and adjustable there was very little fatigue for new users no matter their age, size or stamina.