kac

I don't use notch discrimination but instead use tone breaks on known trash items. This gives me a junk sound on junk and better targets will come through. High trash areas I use smaller coils. Much of park hunting especially for fresh drops there is no need to worry about masking but hunting old sites takes a different strategy where surface trash should be picked up like fresh drop cans and can slaw. Someone doing a dig all approach would be better off in all metal mode or use a PI. Pointless to even use a vdi, tone breaks or anything at that point if your just going to dig it anyways.

The likely hood of a particular flip tab in an area having exactly the same response and id's as a ring is pretty remote. I find it odd someone would keep digging the exact target type over and over again but in kindergarten we had craft time where we would doodle out something in crayon and use paste to make something of it and there was always one of those kids in the back eating the supplies.

If I am in a park and I dig a flip tab that has a particular id and sound I am not going to dig every flip tab. People that dig all beat themselves up. I can't say that dig all is a successful way to hunt when we have machines that give us the ability to discriminate and id targets. Dig all approach in a park is a good way to tear up the grounds and lose the chance of detecting there in the future. But then again people run around with full size spade shovels in parks and leave craters...

Targets can have similar phase angles resulting in same display responses but nuances are hard to display and even if they do in some sort of graphical means it would take us as users a long time to distinguish what it means. If your machine has good modulated audio and it's recovery speed is relative to the size of a target then you should be able to hear the difference between a gold ring and piece of can slaw or pull tab. Aluminum will often have a sharper more abrupt sound and signal can carry further than a piece of gold with similar id numbers. Where things get tricky is when your looking for chains as they are in the foil range and foil tends to have a softer rounder tone. That is where size of target comes into play. Slow steady sweep of coil and watch how big the area is and in different directions can help determine shape.

I've been using black ube lithium rechargeable on mine and carry an alkaline as a spare. Think I need to recharge it maybe twice a year lol.

Apex's Hybrid audio is not for everyone. The short response can make it difficult to isolate targets in high trash areas and hard to tell if your falsing if out of ground balance in bad ground or your swing is too fast in high mineralized ground. It is especially difficult to run for those like myself that are accustomed to smooth audio and audio that follows the size of a target rather than sound off on lead of the swing. I have found plenty with the Apex and have done incredibly well with it but I struggle in those conditions. On the other hand my hunting buddy uses it quite a bit and it was a big upgrade from is old Ace. He is able to pick out targets easily with it and he oddly struggles with other machines like my D2, AT Pro and Tesoros. His comfort zone is with that short beep and following the display and mine is hunting by sound. Both of us to well and I can't say the Apex has made him miss targets other than not putting the coil over the target or running discrim too high. Would changing the audio change minds for those who gave up their Apex? I know if it had modulated audio I would use mine more. I do find it comfortable to swing and really nice easy to read display.

Nexus sort of has that with their color bar. XP has the XY screen though not in color it is pretty handy at times around mixed signals. Whites had the frequency responses on the spectrum. End of the day single tone response of an old analog can still be easier. Sometimes too much information can just add to the complexity of just digging pretty signals.

Both are forms of discrimination. Threshold discrimination eliminates all targets up to where it is set and notch eliminates specific ranges. On digital machines the machine is still responding to the targets and usually they just turn off the audio and or both audio and id's. I typically hunt with no discrimination as it is too easy to eliminate good targets or easily skip mixed targets like coin spills or good targets mixed in trash. If your machine has the ability to change tone breaks then use that and set them on known trash targets so you get a mixed lousy signal vs clean tones on good targets.

Maybe consider the remote and pair of wsa II headphones for your setup. Seems you might need to access the screen much more than with the master setup as I do. I would find the rig your using a little annoying for the type of hunting I do as I often jog between programs for target checking. There is also an easy fix for the broken clock XP has. Simply use the XY screeen that has no clock. :)

Not sure what makes the D2 not relaxing or difficult. Once you set it up it's a turn on and go machine. Actually one of the easiest machines to run. 5 tone pwm in single frequency is pretty easy to follow. I often use 2 tone or 5 tone when relic hunting and full tone square for coin/jewelry. D2 does have a good advantage of being able to range the smf as well as run it in a wide range of single frequencies which makes it incredibly versatile. I always wanted an F75 but weight is a downside, D2 has me spoiled 🙂

Toss a Steve G carbon middle and lower shaft and Apex is very well balanced. Not a huge weight difference but the machine feels better swinging than the D2 with 9". Apex does handle wet salt sand very well. Extremely quiet machine. Hopefully the new machine will add tracking so transitions between wet and dry sand are smooth.

Usually even in bad ground if the area is dryer ie top of hills as an example the copper alloys hold up bit better. Get into low wet lands then they are usaully toast.

Way better shape IHP than I usually see here. Apex gets bit of a bad rap. Maybe because the audio is so short and doesn't have the modulation as many machines they are accustomed to like the ML, XP and even AT series. I have an Apex myself though don't use it nearly as much as my Tesoros I have done incredibly well with it. I have the stock Viper, Raider and Ultimate 9" which really works well on that machine. I noticed slower sweep speeds really helps at least around here where the ground is rich in iron. For what it is worth My buddy and i did target for target comparisons with Apex and 9" ultimate and XP D2 with 9" for coin shooting. Both were pretty equal. XP did a little better on identifying aluminum trash but probably because I had it in 40khz smf and the Apex did bit better identifying iron targets but again that was at 20khz multi. Depth wise I would say the Apex has a slight edge with that coil but not enough to rush out and buy one. Reaper coil does ok but emi and mineralization smothers it here so depth gain is not really worth the weight. Iron trash in the fields makes it much more likely to mask out. On sanded beaches however it is very deep so people beach combing might like it. Suppose it won't hurt but do ya think Garrett could offer an update to add a pro audio mode like the AT Pro had? I had asked Garrett a bunch of times but get the silence treatment. They are really missing the boat on that machine. I know some people like that short blip but considering the Hybrid audio has almost no modulation it makes the machine difficult to hunt for fringe targets in old sites without relying on the screen.

I was a little late in getting more done. Did get a small batch of park probes out. https://www.ebay.com/itm/276423995110?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=-5lIdJmkRTe&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY HH, Ken

That is true. It still becomes an issue when someone is shopping for a detector they have limited scope on comparing different machines. Someone new is more likely to then just snag some cheap pos from ebay or amazon as they have little guidance. YouTube is laughable with all the bs hype about different machines and apple and oranges comparisons.

Late chiming in here, it is never good to compete with your resellers. Seems like they want to maximize profits but the downside of selling direct is you have to hit the pavement and start peddling product. That can be a daunting and expensive task when your resellers would be doing that for you on a much larger scale. Customer support is the next issue as when you have no dealers representing and assisting products then thats the other task that is needed. End of the day it's better to leave the footwork to the dealers and concentrate on designing and building products.

I use a rechargeable 9v lithium in the carrot.

They help me locate a can 3' down 🙂

Weight can be an issue especially if the machine is not balanced well. The Spectrum I believe is fairly well balanced with the box under the cuff.

Buddy bought a Vaquero from Rick and hadn't used it too much. He has been using his Apex and my AT Pro. Other day we hit an old field we picked the hell out of with the Vaquero and found a really nice 1858 flying eagle. Now it's becoming his favorite machine.

If it has been heavily developed then lidar maps may not show much. Another option is either the town hall for records or their local library. Should be some archives there. HH

Very clean machine. Good for those nail beds. Surprised it hasn't been scoffed up yet.

Apparently that Indian artifact that jingled still has some powers. Been raining since you found it 😞 Nice run!

Had a similar issue and was the coil. Garrett replaced it and it works well. Higher trash areas you may want to get the 5x8.

There was a delta 8x9 on ebay, I assume your looking for epsilon?