Beach Vs Land Programs: An Unmasking Conundrum

[ColonelDan]

9 hours ago, PI-Man said:

Col — interesting.  This is a lot of food for thought with what you are finding out about the D2 and it is appreciated.

Thank you but I hope nobody interprets my search for a solution as degrading the Deus 2.  Having been around metal detectors since 1970,  I will say without hesitation that the Deus 2 is the very best unit I have ever used or tested.  
I would not own any other at this point but I would very much like to see this masking issue in the beach modes resolved.  If the XP engineers can solve this, it would make the best detector on the market today even better!  👍🏻😁

[Lodge Scent]

Colonel I am certainly am not qualified to weigh in on this issue as I don't beach hunt (though I am only 30 minutes from the ocean!), but I will ask a question because I like learning. Could there be enough of a difference in the ground balance approach between the beach and land program platforms as to where it could contribute to iron masking in a salty environment?

[ColonelDan]

2 hours ago, Lodge Scent said:

Colonel I am certainly am not qualified to weigh in on this issue as I don't beach hunt (though I am only 30 minutes from the ocean!), but I will ask a question because I like learning. Could there be enough of a difference in the ground balance approach between the beach and land program platforms as to where it could contribute to iron masking in a salty environment?

If the ground balance is significantly out of balance it can cause you to miss good targets but that’s not the case here.  The sandy soil here is mild and the ground balance was right on the money.  

[CPT_GhostLight]

21 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

...

In Beach Sensitive, I tried numerous combinations of sensitivity, salt sensitivity, bottle caps, reactivity, discrimination, silencer,  notch/no notch and audio filter in the 3 beach programs...again, with no success.  The quarter was always masked by the tent stake.  When the tent stake was removed, the quarter came through loud and clear with the expected TID  of 95-96.

Base Settings: 

General: Discrim: 4.6, Tone: Pitch, Bottle Caps: 0, Notch: Off, Sensitivity: 95, Max Freq: 40, Iron Vol: 7, Reactivity: 0, Audio Resp: 7, Threshold: 0, Audio Filter: 0, Tracking: on, Ground Stab: 2, Mag Ground: Reject, FE TID: Off

Beach Sensitive: All settings listed above, plus salt sensitivity, were varied to determine if anything made a difference.  No Difference.  The quarter remained masked.  

...

I may be way off here, Col, but one thing jumps out at me and that's the Audio Response setting. I get that beaches are noisy with people, wind, waves, and such so I would imagine you need to crank it up to hear the tones.

However, the new V1.0 & V1.1 Audio Response was one of the settings that was beefed up by XP in the updates. I used to run AR at 5 in V0.71, but I had to dial it back to 4 with the new updates because it overloaded quite a bit on higher settings in my mineralized ground. I tried to run it on 5 a couple of days ago in an open field, but it really clipped the audio on shallower targets. I went back to 4 and deeper and shallower targets both sounded and separated better.

I think it was Paystreak who has made a few mentions in recent videos that the Audio Response is basically an amplifier circuit and he demonstrated on live digs that when the setting is increased it amplifies everything in the ground more, making larger and shallower targets sounds amplified to the point that they can mask good targets.

I know that doesn't address the TID masking issue, but I did some live dig tests today on a site with a lot of nails and big iron from demolished houses running my Fast Full Tones and Fast Pitch programs side by side. On more than a few instances I was able to pick out high coin tones colocated with iron with only spotty or no high TID numbers. That worked in Full Tones, but not when I switched over to Pitch Tones to check. I didn't try any of the 2 to 5 Tones settings, though.

Just some thoughts.

[ColonelDan]

1 hour ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

I may be way off here, Col, but one thing jumps out at me and that's the Audio Response setting. I get that beaches are noisy with people, wind, waves, and such so I would imagine you need to crank it up to hear the tones.

However, the new V1.0 & V1.1 Audio Response was one of the settings that was beefed up by XP in the updates. I used to run AR at 5 in V0.71, but I had to dial it back to 4 with the new updates because it overloaded quite a bit on higher settings in my mineralized ground. I tried to run it on 5 a couple of days ago in an open field, but it really clipped the audio on shallower targets. I went back to 4 and deeper and shallower targets both sounded and separated better.

I think it was Paystreak who has made a few mentions in recent videos that the Audio Response is basically an amplifier circuit and he demonstrated on live digs that when the setting is increased it amplifies everything in the ground more, making larger and shallower targets sounds amplified to the point that they can mask good targets.

I know that doesn't address the TID masking issue, but I did some live dig tests today on a site with a lot of nails and big iron from demolished houses running my Fast Full Tones and Fast Pitch programs side by side. On more than a few instances I was able to pick out high coin tones colocated with iron with only spotty or no high TID numbers. That worked in Full Tones, but not when I switched over to Pitch Tones to check. I didn't try any of the 2 to 5 Tones settings, though.

Just some thoughts.

Good observation CPT.  I'll try adjusting the AR as you suggest.  One point, you were using land based programs in this run and I too was able to unmask targets using land based programs... it's the beach programs that have the masking issue.  I'll post the results of AR adjustments soon.

Thank you

[ColonelDan]

15 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

CPT,  Gave every level of AR a shot and adjusted other settings in conjunction with the AR variation…. No change in the masking.

I’m sure this is an XP engineering issue and only they will be able to address it.  Now the larger question is, when and if they can fix the masking issue, will the fix break something else….this is always, or at least frequently the risk you incur with software manipulation.

[F350Platinum]

26 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

CPT,  Gave every level of AR a shot and adjusted other settings in conjunction with the AR variation…. No change in the masking.

I’m sure this is an XP engineering issue and only they will be able to address it.  Now the larger question is, when and if they can fix the masking issue, will the fix break something else….this is always, or at least frequently the risk you incur with software manipulation.

Colonel, thanks for this discussion and testing. I'm following this thread.

Was this anomaly present in V.71? 🤔

[CPT_GhostLight]

52 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

CPT,  Gave every level of AR a shot and adjusted other settings in conjunction with the AR variation…. No change in the masking.

I’m sure this is an XP engineering issue and only they will be able to address it.  Now the larger question is, when and if they can fix the masking issue, will the fix break something else….this is always, or at least frequently the risk you incur with software manipulation.

Thank you for checking that, Col. I hope they get that sorted out soon for you and the other beach hunters. I am always interested in learning the beach setting as well so I'll follow this thread closely. Thanks again for bringing this up! 😎

[F350Platinum]

I'm heading to Tent Stake Island in a month 😬

[ColonelDan]

I’ve made arrangements to have this thread sent to the right people at XP so hopefully we’ll see what they have to say or what they can do.