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I took the MDT 8000 up to Tahoe this morning for a few hours of wading. Beach is heavily loaded with magnetite sands. There is a lot of deeper sandy material, but also some scoured out areas with gravel and rocks. The sand tends to have few targets. The gravels are the base and thick with targets in some areas, including lots of deeply rusted ferrous stuff, some of it quite large. I like hunting the gravels due to the target density. It however is not very VLF friendly stuff due to hot rocks and magnetite sand. The MDT struggled to stay quiet in the gravels. Due to the target density I decided to run in 18 kHz DISC for this session, but the high tone pinging was pretty continuous. The good news is I was after mid tone targets so this was not a huge issue. The mid-tone false signals were far less prevalent. Still, I wanted to see what I could do to make the machine run quiet. With Sensitivity 6 I could get a good manual ground balance at 614. I tried Salinity 15, no improvement. I turned on Black Sand mode. No improvement. I lowered sensitivity to 2, so DISC Mode, GB 614, Black Sand On, Salinity 15, Sensitivity 2.... no real improvement on this high tone pinging. However, at DISC Mode, GB 614, Sensitivity 6, BS Off, Salinity Off, the unit was well behaved on the sandy material. It is just the gravels where it was noisy. The reality for me, since I was not hunting coins was.... I don't care. Rather than dumb the machine down I just ran the higher settings in the gravels and ignored the high tone pinging. Simply chased mid-tones. There was some mid-tone falsing but not enough to be an issue for me. I'm used to running machines hot and noisy and hunting by ear so was actually happy with the resulting setting. Like I say though, a coin hunter might get frustrated. The results below, all the recovered targets. Nothing was super deep, but that is no surprise here as this is normally the kind of stuff I'd run a PI in. Was getting the right kind of targets and only a few items tricked me, three bottle caps heavily encrusted with rust being of note. There is also one dime and one quarter than came up mid-tone, but I recovered nails with both so I think that skewed the target id. As far as target id numbers, I have no idea. I was just digging any halfway decent sounding mid-tone. Like I said, I am happy with the mix. I like to see tabs and nickels and unfortunately corroded zincs - all gold range targets. And a 14K white gold cross pendant, breaking a gold jewelry drought I've been experiencing lately. I'm still a MDT newbie, but basically find the machine easy to run and quite capable of doing what I want it to do. If my mention of the ground noise is off-putting, do not let it be. This is some really nasty stuff, and any VLF is going to suffer here. I thought the MDT did quite well.

Quarter under a sheet of aluminum foil. Tarsacci has the foil I.D .number Notched out which is about 6-7 ID.. Note the Safari is for demonstrative purposes only. Keith

Well, I've got to be honest here. I've been detecting for some 37 years, and I have to admit, I've never "taken"too a detector so quickly as the Tarsacci! So simple to navigate, no silly sub-menus, such a pleasure to work with. managed to get about 4hours in, before heavy rain arrived and had to abort. I simply did a Salinity Balance,, came in around 28, GB was between 850-890, 12kHz, TrH -4, Sens 5, Mix Mode...I was searching on a oil seed rape stubble field. Very stable machine, no EMI issues, quite simply a pleasure to use! mixed bag of non-ferrous finds, only a couple of nails catching me out!,,, great depth . Didn't use the pin-pointer,, old trick of "wiggling the Coil" back towards your feet from the target,, when signal disappears, target was directly below the front tip of the Coil,,, worked every time! OK ,, nothing really interesting found, but great fun! I just know that the Tarsacci is going to be undoubtedly, one of the best detectors I've ever used!,, and I can't fault it in any way,,looking forward to getting out again early next week! regards Dave

Please check out my latest Youtube Video. Regards Dave H

Check out the Tarsacci hit this tiny cut quarter at 4” w come on top..... Thanks! Aaron

Hi, I've not gone away,,,,, Tarsacci arrived safely here on Tuesday, I've been testing, only in my garden for a few hours. Build quality is outstanding, carbon fibre shafts, amazing cam locks, no wobble, good Balance, really pleased. I've had to purchase a UK charger, as USA is 110 v & we run 240v, no problem, next day delivery from online shop, cost £10.95,,,,, both batteries now fully charged. I've been playing with the Salinity Balance a lot, looks very interesting,, I'll keep you updated on this. I may try and do a simple video showing this soon, ( never uploaded a video before)....Lol. I've also converted the Tarsacci to "wireless" ,,,, received today,, wireless transmitter, and wireless headphones, Bluetooth aptX Low Latency, made by "TROND" model BT-DUO, and the TROND matching headphones,,,,, amazing sound, no noticeable signal delay whatsoever, really great, and to expensive,,, about £87 delivered. I obviously need to get more hours on the Tarsacci before I start to post further comments, so I will be back soon with new updates asap. Regards Dave.

Here’s another example a even more deceptive sounding crown cap. Now, it wouldn’t have sounded this good if I wasn’t only in -15. I’m usually always in -30 when there’s iron around. And keep something in mind, unlike your standard VLF’s which lose depth and targets with high discrimination, that is NOT the case the Multi Domain Technology.....

Hello all. I've been following the Tarsacci for sometime now, and today, with the assistance from Aaron, ive "pulled the trigger ".... and ordered the Tarsacci. Hopefully my new machine will arrive here in the UK in 5-10 days..... so I'm looking forward to searching on many of my ironage & Roman sites.. any advice/ setting tips would be muc appreciate! im really excited about this new machine,, I've been detecting for 37 years now, however the Tarsacci has got me filled with more enthusiasm than any other machine.....,... not sure why...... just a gut feeling?.......... time will tell........? regards. Dave.

I have been intrigued by the Tarsacci MDT 8000 since it came out. And since then there have been some very interesting reports about it. In particular, I have read reports on inland use for relic detecting with great interest. The MDT 8000 appears to have great potential for much more than beach detecting, in particular pulling non-ferrous targets out of trashy mineralized ground. This excerpt from the recent interview with designer Dimitar Gargov in particular caught my eye - emphasis added: "So we started thinking about introducing this new technology to the market. What makes this detector different is that it handles salt environment, AND,,, mineralized ground simultaneously, both can be adjusted independently. This means that you can reject one or the other or both simultaneously, and this gives you the ability to swing your coil from the dry to the wet sand without changing your ground balance. If your ground balance has changed, this means your Salinity balance is incorrect. We started calling this the “Salinity Balance” for a reason. The main target for this machine was the beach hunters, even though I am a relic hunter. This detector was originally designed for LAND. It has a fast response time, has fast ground balance. The Salinity Balance, I call “salinity” just for the beach hunter but actually, this Salinity Balance helps you reject and to ignore fertilized ground, reject hot rocks like natural graphite, which is non-magnetic but all machines detect these hot rocks because they act like low conductors. Coke, it’s another one. In the same group we can put in the very small foil pieces, their in the same group of targets. And with the Salinity Balance, we can balance out these targets and we can see through them with correct i.d. This is the difference, because this machine does not unmask the salt, it is actually “seeing through” the salt, and the hot rocks using this “see-through” technology. For a lot of the detectors, if we are in the salt environment, or if we have fertilized ground, the depth starts to be greatly reduced. This is not true with Tarsacci, thanks to this new technology, actually this environment may help you. Your preserving the depth, and you will see even deeper than the air test, with the exactly the same settings, what I am saying, this means you set the ground balance, sensitivity, and the threshold and these are your working settings." Well, here is my issue. I nugget detect in places with two types of mineralization that give me trouble. The typical hot rock infested mineralized ground encountered while nugget detecting is one. The other is less common - the alkali salt laden desert areas, especially common in northern Nevada. Some of these places have so much salt in the ground they are just like detecting on saltwater beaches, and when they get damp for any reason, many top gold detectors struggle or fail to operate due to the high salinity. It is just like detecting on a saltwater beach. Finally, I have many places, especially in the Sierras, that are absolutely riddled with ferrous trash. In fact, my last outing last fall, I was hunting one of these. I was having no luck finding gold, just digging trash target after trash target. It used to be I would just stick with it, but I must be getting old. I quit with half a day left and went home. The trash beat me. I've been thinking about that all winter, and thinking about the MDT 8000, and finally decided I need to give this detector a try gold nugget detecting. It can run at one of several different frequencies, 6.4 kHz, 9 kHz, 12 kHz, or 18 kHz. Normally I might run higher frequencies when chasing small gold, but I do not see the MDT 8000 as a small gold detector. Rather, I see it as a possible alternative to pulse induction detectors for finding a little larger gold nuggets, but without the need for digging so much trash. I plan to practice with half gram to gram size nuggets as my potential desired targets. I know there are plenty of those still out there in some of those really trashy locations, waiting for a machine that can effectively discriminate out the trash, while getting more depth than the normal crop of nugget detectors. Anyway, I have a MDT 8000 on the way to me in the near future, and plan of seeing how I can do with it nugget detecting. I will probably also do some beach detecting with it up at Tahoe, but that really is not my main reason for getting the detector. I like trying oddball things that other people are not doing, and I've not heard of anyone giving the MDT 8000 as serious go as a nugget detector. I'm just the guy to give it a try. Tarsacci MDT 8000 Data & Reviews I have to say also that I think the MDT 8000 is a sharp looking detector!

I explained on another thread that I was interested in giving the MDT 8000 a spin looking for gold nuggets in trashy locations. All mining camps are places where supplies were hauled in, and none of it left the site, but is scattered everywhere. Miners were not into wasting time, and if possible built their shack, or cabin, or small town, right in the middle of where they were mining. It is not uncommon therefore that there is good gold right in and around some of the trashiest locations in old mining camps. Time has passed and often the wood is gone, rotted away, or left behind when the structures burned to the ground. Old nails and remnants of rusted cans are the most common items, but every manner of metal item that might be needed to survive and mine in the wilderness might be found. There are detectors that might do better on the tiniest gold nuggets than the Tarsacci MDT 18000, but the MDT has a hot 18 kHz mode that is more than sufficient for common VLF nugget hunting tasks. I knew without even trying it that the MDT 8000 would have the sensitivity I was looking for. My main question was whether it offered anything I could not live without for finding gold nuggets in locations littered with ferrous trash. It is also very common in mining areas that the ground is quite mineralized, though that is not something that is universal. I gave the MDT a go at a location where there used to be a shack built on some gold bearing ground out in the Nevada desert. The shack is gone, but there are plenty of cans, remnants of cans, nails, door hinges, bed springs, stove parts, etc. All the metal stuff that was ever brought there, but was not valuable enough to be scavenged as the years passed. The bottom line is the MDT 8000 did not disappoint, and I did manage to find a gold nugget in the limited amount of time I had. The nugget is interesting to me in that after cleaning it weighs exactly 1 gram, as weighed on my very accurate digital powder scales. I find a lot of nuggets that weigh about a gram, but I don't really recall ever finding one that was 100% spot on before. It's probably happened and I did not take notice of it, but this time I did. Gold nugget fresh out of the ground Exactly 1.00 gram! The good news is I did not find anything particularly difficult about using the MDT 8000 on this short test run. I bounced back and forth between mixed mode and disc mode a bit, and far preferred mixed mode. I am big on audio information, usually running detectors in full tones and preferring modulated audio. I also prefer having visual target id information available, I'll take all the tools I can get, but in general I hunt by ear and prefer complex audio. Many people would find the way I run my detectors to be too noisy or busy but with nearly 50 years of detecting under my belt my detectors talk to me and I want to hear everything they have to say. So mostly mixed mode, black sand and salinity off, sensitivity to max, and ground balance manual 668 on this ground. This is admittedly a very preliminary report based on limited use. However, It does not take me long to come to general conclusions about metal detectors. The Tarsacci MDT 8000 is more than capable for the task of VLF nugget detecting, with gold sensitivity as good or better than popular prospecting models running in the 18 - 20 kHz range. While the machine is very capable, there are a couple things that left me shrugging my shoulders a little bit. First, the audio. The tones chosen for revealing non-ferrous targets are extremely high, with the high tone being almost out of my discernible frequency range. Imagine a "tink" sound like tapping a glass bottle with a knife handle. I have some definite high frequency hearing loss, and while the MDT is usable for me, I'd be lying if I said I loved the audio. There are no tone adjustments I am aware of on the MDT, so it falls into the realm of something I just have to live with. There is some ability to modify the response by perhaps trying different headphones looking for those that deliver the tones as they are in the best fashion possible, but that's about it. The other thing is that many discriminating detectors have a common enemy, the flat remnants of steel cans. Think steel cans, thin wall wood stoves, thin steel roofing... bits and pieces of flat steel anything. Coin and jewelry hunters are quite familiar with the challenges presented by bottle caps. If anything the problem is worse in old mining camps due to the volume and variety of this type of trash item. And unfortunately the MDT 8000 is as prone to calling these ferrous targets non-ferrous as are multitudes of other detectors. That's not a knock on the MDT, but it's a bit of magic that if present would make it or any machine stand out in these types of situations. Some problem items, and a small brass item One of the first non-ferrous targets I found with the MDT 8000 is some kind of very small brass.... something. A little pin-like object. I was impressed by this find before I found the gold nugget, and it alone told me the MDT had the hots needed for the job. I can only speculate how the MDT would do with a small coil... no doubt extremely well on very small targets. For now however the coil that comes with the MDT 8000 is the only one available, and since this machine is aimed at the beach market, all the push from other people seems to be for a larger coil. I'd be surprised therefore if a smaller coil is ever made for the machine. The existing coil is very good, though for nugget detecting it would benefit from a solid bottom scuff cover/skid plate, to make it less prone to hanging up on sticks or sharp edged rocks. What about the target id on the gold nugget? I have to admit I was paying no attention to target id at all so do not know. I was just listening for any medium and high non-ferrous tones and digging those. To sum up, I am not here to promote the Tarsacci MDT 8000 as a gold nugget detector and am not saying anyone should go out and get one just for that purpose. I would say however that if anyone has this detector, it is as capable, if not more so, of performing the task as many detectors made specifically for gold nugget prospecting. I plan on giving the detector another and more lengthy workout at another location in the future, though it may be a few weeks before I report back. In the meantime, for anyone with an interest, I recommend watching this video below by Keith Southern. Pay particular attention to the sounds the detectors makes to get an idea of what I mentioned above as regards the tones. And let's close with one more look at that first gold nugget with the Tarsacci MDT 8000. One gram gold nugget found by Steve at trashy site using Tarsacci MDT 8000

In this article, relic hunter Keith Southern explains how to use the Salinity Balance to “punch” through bad ground, quiet down nail infested areas, recognize big iron and work around it! Enjoy! You cannot Salt balance to iron the way you Salt balance to the soil, not even if it’s a little rusty Sqaure nail. This is because iron is a solid metallic object. However, you can desensitize it some, to work in your favor! Say your on 18Khz and ground balanced. Set to disc -30, sweep around and find some iron in the site like buried nails. Small iron grunts. When you find the nails which should be easy if its a house site, a heavy concentration of them is alway's there. Turn Salt balance on and raise coil up above the nails about a foot, bob coil say from foot to 11 inches above the nails or whatever it takes to barely hear them on the down stroke you want to find where they just start to come in weak. Just a slight wah sound. When it starts to wah pull back up. You want to find that spot above the nails where they are weak .Right where they begin to be seen on down stroke. Start adjusting your salinity balance up a number and push down maybe just an inch but still having to keep maybe a foot above the nails. Go up a number then check with slight push. You’ll eventually find a spot where the nails start to get weaker response. Find the spot on the dial that they are the weakest or even does not report at all on say the slight push towards them.This is the spot you want it at then stop adjusting.You can move back out of the nails and do one more ground grab.then your ready to hunt. You'll still hear the nails as grunts, however they are not gone but they are DESENSITIZED, somewhat to the machine.Think 16 penny nails may look like a 12 penny nail to the machine analogy.Or now, a square nails looks like a finishing nail to it. Maybe not that great but to just give a picture to the minds eye ! Here's what works for me in iron on 18khz for square nails....may or may not work for you in the soil without some tweaking..18Khz, Sensitivity 7,Theshold -2, Black sand off, Salinity about 43, Ground is usually around 800 area. Sweep speed dependent for best results.think CZ speed. Use -30 disc to help on troublesome flip flop or ping pong iron.The machine is very good at ID'ing iron accurately.The tiny small pieces of cut nails may call you out but the -30 disc will let you know its flopping. Bigger iron nails on up are actually quieter than a VLF on falsing. The sonar hit will also tell you its a good target VS a quick sharp ping/chirp of nail false. Sonar hit has that good round feedback sound. What's crazy is you'll get a get sonar hit with no iron buzz but open up the hole and investigate and you'll see alot of nails in hole too with the keeper target. Where as say on your F75 a good hit may be also grunt hit grunt on same target. The Tarsacci isolates the good target and reports only that.Very very quick machine. If it gets a sense of a non ferrous piece it locks on it. Also targets that are somewhat affected by the salinity balance,,,that is, very low conductors. They will seem to ID more by purity than by conductance. Foil for example, to the machine will be different than a good alloy like gold or lead or brass etc. Now say foil, on a vlf reads 2 and a pistol ball reads well on Tarsacci the foil can be fluttery or wavy or disappear And foil reading 2 as the salt balance is neutralizing it but the Pistol ball that reads 2 will slap hard. This is what happens to light iron some of makeup of it is desensitized and the small targets or low conductors jump out better than it can on a VLF where its reading a nail as strong .nail can overtake the pistol ball on VLF but on Tarsacci the nail looks slightly less to the circuit.....SLIGHTLY but in terms of unlocking that's a BIG step. Keith https://forums.tarsaccisales.com/forum/3/using-salt-balance-work-iron

https://forums.tarsaccisales.com/forum/1/interview-dimitar-gargov-part-2 Enjoy! Aaron

Check this out. Keith has the coil over 3 nails at at once w the 11”x8” coil....

To lazy to look up the online manual? Checkout this quick tutorial on the basic controls!

I had a awesome time at the lake today, only there 3hrs and managed to find 2 gold rings and a old Lipsproof lipstick tube from the 1920’s. The large band is 14k engraved w a wedding date of 1949, and some initials. It was only around 6”, maybe dropped this year. It was hitting 17-19 on the meter. Hopefully I can get back to it’s owner. The small 10k girls has some nice stones and it was down around 10-12”. It had a big spread from 5-25, however it sounded consistently good with no changes in tone. The lipstick tube was way down there at a foot, sounded good the whole time too. There A LOT of old iron in this lake and with the Tarsacci, I rarely dig it anymore. Aaron

Of course I did. Bad weather, dry hot ground and work has kept me off the playing field. A brief test produced one flat button. Hope to go out for a few hours this weekend if it would just stop raining.

Check this video out as Keith uses the Tarsacci to detect a thin half reale through a mineralized clay brick........

All the talk about how the MDT 8000 does extracting non-ferrous from highly mineralized ground littered with ferrous trash made me decide I needed to try one out for gold nugget detecting. The detector arrived and I have to say it is a nice piece of work. The all carbon rod design adds a real touch of both quality and class. Very good looking, sturdy detector, that feels real good in my hand and on my arm. The machine ships packed inside a real nice custom rucksack. Another nice touch is including two rechargeable batteries, one for use, one for backup. However, the battery can be inserted either way, and there in nothing on the detector to indicate which way to go. I assumed it was polarity protected, but I've made that mistake in the past and did not want to risk it. The is no manual included, so I checked the online manual, and not a peep there at all about batteries. So I fired off an email and got a prompt reply - positive down, and yes, polarity protected. I plan on getting this out for a first nugget hunt in about ten days, so will see how it goes. I have several locations that I want to try in the desert and mountains so it my be a bit however before I come to any conclusions. Final note - kudos to Tarsacci for including the a waterproof to 1/8” headphone adapter. Headphone adapter dongle should be mandatory for anyone selling an underwater headphone with removable headphones. This will make it a snap for me to adapt the machine for wireless headphone use by employing my TaoTronics Bluetooth low-latency transmitter box.

Took the Tarsacci out relic hunting in a place we've hit pretty hard in the past. Site has a moderate amount of iron and most of the targets that are left are pretty deep. I used disc mode set at -30, sensitivity 7, threshold -2, 18 KHz, GB at 757, salt balance at 41 and black sand OFF. As you can see it does pretty well at picking up both small and large targets.

I have seen people question why the waterproof rating of the Fisher Impulse AQ Limited is only 3 feet if it uses the same connectors as the Minelab Equinox. Well, it does not. The Tarsacci uses a mix of connectors, and has the same M8 size headphone connector as the Impulse, but 4 pin instead of 5 pin. The Tarsacci coil connection is larger, same size as used on Equinox and MX Sport. The Tarsacci is rated IP68 (Up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes). That's it, thirty minutes. So the Tarsacci is really only a shallow wading machine also. The Equinox has no M8 connnectors but instead a pain in the butt proprietary headphone connector. Now maybe we know why. The Impulse power connector on the battery is the same 4 pin connection Tarsacci uses for headphones. The Impulse headphone connection is 5 pin. Go figure. The White's MX Sport / GMX connectors are very similar to the Equinox, coil identical, headphone 4 pin. The White’s connectors look like the best of the bunch in my opinion. Looks like what Fisher should have used instead of the smaller connectors. To sum up, Impulse AQ Limited power and headphone plus Tarsacci headphone only are M8. All others are M12. Click or double click for high resolution photos.... Impulse AQ Ltd power compared to Equinox and Tarsacci coil Detector connections, Equinox, Tarsacci, & Impulse AQ Limited White's MX Sport connectors

https://forums.tarsaccisales.com/forum/1/interview-dimatar-gargov

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding how to do a proper ground and salinity balance. This short video should clear up the confusion. Also note how the very unique Salinity Balance feature is used to actually eliminate nasty items such coke rocks. Thanks, Aaron