Badger-NH

If it comes with waterproof headphones, why would I want those? I'll probably want to go wireless. Even if I did decide to go in the water, why can't I use what I have or choose what I want?

One way to help keep the price down would be to sell the AQ without headphones.

At the beginning of the video, why does it get a signal over the empty pipe?

We hunt a lot of woods looking for colonial/early American coins and relics. Much of northern New England was once farmland that has turned to woodland. The ground in the woods is often very clean with occasional iron trash. On average, we might dig a target every 10 or 15 minutes. I dig every signal that I can't absolutely confirm is iron. Most of the targets I dig are iron. We don't see much modern trash at these places. Some farm fields can be pretty quiet too as most have been detected for decades. I always look at the numbers just for that thrill you get when it's in the 20s or 30s, but I mostly hunt by tone. The deeper a targets is, the better the chance is that I will dig it. Maxed out settings usually means the target ID will not be very accurate on deep targets. Some farm fields that contain a lot of gravel will be mineralized. We also hunt cellar holes that are surrounded by iron.

To me, Multi isn't a magic potion that automatically does everything better. My experience has been that multi frequency provides no depth advantage in mild ground and using the Equinox in my test garden has helped to confirm that. My tests actually show Multi as having a disadvantage in clean ground. Multi frequency has the ability to see through bad ground and salt better than single frequencies so there is a point where it will surpass single frequencies but only in ground with a certain level of mineralization. Generally, if I can run my machine with maxed out settings and not hear any feedback from the ground, I consider it clean and mineral free. That's where I prefer the single frequencies over Multi.

I've always thought EMI was just noise and that it had no effect on target depth. I suppose it might interfere with target ID.

Going from 20 to 25 on Sensitivity gives me a gain of at least a half inch of depth for each increment. I think all my single frequencies are deeper than Multi. I relic hunt in Field 1 almost exclusively because it has shown to be deeper than Park 1. I mostly use Multi for mineralized ground and iron and prefer the single frequencies for clean ground.

The only time I get EMI is when running Multi near powerlines. Rather than lower the Sensitivity and lose depth, I just switch to one of the single frequencies and that usually solves the problem. I rarely go lower than 24 on my Sensitivity.

That's right, I remember now. I must have lost track of the topic. I have too much snow here so I can't get out to test either.

If your soil is mild, why would you have ground noise?

That's Chuck E. Cheese. https://www.chuckecheese.com/

I think I'm starting to see a pattern.

I think part of the reason why some PI detectors cost so much is because the people who buy them aren't just hobbyists. They are in it for the money. Many professionals who hunt the gold fields can make a good living at it and possibly strike it rich so they look at the detector as an investment the same way a contractor might look at a backhoe. At some point he will make a profit off the investment. Most water hunters are the same way but with a smaller potential income. Detector companies see this and adjust the price to what they believe the buyer will be willing to pay. The average Equinox buyer metal detects just for the fun of it. He wants performance but he's not going to pay $1500 for a detector. For all we know, the AQ might not cost any more to produce than the Equinox or an F-75.

My 40 years ago comment was a mistake. I wrote too fast without focusing. IMO, Fisher has made some strange product decisions. The CZ is a great platform. They just need to bring it into the 21st century.

I don't remember much about the old CZ series. I think they discontinued the line over 15 years ago. The last magazine ads ads I remember seeing were for the CZ-70. I think it had a salt mode but I don't know how good it was on the beach. I'd love to see Fisher come out with a new line of modern CZs. The CZ-21 and CZ-3D could be considered living fossils.

I bought my CZ20 in 1998 and still use it to this day. It didn't take me long to see what a great performer it is on the wet sand. My intention was that I would use it for water hunting and possibly diving. I tried water hunting and didn't like it and I never got into diving because the gear was too expensive. So I ended up just using the CZ20 on the wet sand. The performance is great but as a beach detector it sucks. Hip mounting is a hassle, the hardwired headphones are crap, and you can't change coil sizes. I would love to see a beach version of the CZ20 but there probably aren't many out there like me who could be happy without a VDI screen or built in speaker. I've said this many times but I'll bet they could easily design a modern CZ for the beach that would rival the Equinox on both performance and price.

I sensed a possibility that the guy in the video might have been slightly exaggerating the capabilities of the AQ.

I have a lot of sites that give off lots of low tones on many of the detectors I've owned. I used to think it was iron but eventually discovered that it was mostly small mineralized rocks. Now I can usually tell the difference between iron and mineralization. They both can mask targets though so I treat them about the same. Hard to tell from memory. I think my 800 reacts about the same as yours does but it's not something that I would take much notice of. I have my iron volume turned all the way down so that any low tones are in the background and easily ignored. I would have to go out and use the detector to know for sure if what I'm saying is right but right now we have eight inches of snow on the ground so I can only go by memory.

YouTube doesn't have any sneaky hidden agendas if that's what you mean. It's owned by Google. There are no risks in subscribing to a YouTube channel. There is nothing to be suspicious of. If you see a video posted on a forum, click where it says YouTube at the bottom of the screen. To subscribe to a channel, all you have to do is hit the red subscribe button and then hit the bell next to it. To go to a persons channel page, just click on the name of the person who published it.

That counts me out. $2,800 is too expensive for me. What is a depth rating?

I can understand not doing FB, but what do you have against subscribing to YouTube channels? There is no membership with YouTube. You can subscribe and unsubscribe as much as you want. Right now I'm subscribed to 18 YouTube channels. I check my YouTube subscription page now and then to see the latest videos.

You may be right about the overstatement. I don't have any data. It's just from my experiences with them. I noticed a big jump in depth when switching from the stock 7"x11" to the 10"x12" SEF on the T2 SE. More than what I would expect from such a small increase in size. Especially since the centerline of the SEF measures only 10.5 inches. I've never liked the oval shape of the 7"x11" either. It doesn't seem to work well for depth or separation. I did like the 5" round coil on the Gold Bug Pro and made some good finds with it, but I did not get as good results with the 5" round on the T2 SE and F-75 LTD. I just haven't done all that well with Fisher coils overall and much prefer the SEFs over the stock coils.

All Fisher/Teknetics coils have poor performance. They really need to be re-designed from the ground up.

Beach 2 is generally just for saltwater. Beach 1 should perform better for out of the water. On the wet sand, I run RS 4 always. Less than 4 doesn't add any depth and will be so slow that you might miss targets. Higher than 4 in not necessary and will only decrease depth. IB 0 always. I haven't found any need to raise it. 0 Discrimination always.

I always turn on the module first. That way, the startup doesn't make as much noise and will be less likely to draw the attention of nearby people.