Naturally, the "varied opinions" will come from people who have their own personal perspective on how the different detectors work, as well as the search coils, and that is also going to be with regard to the types of sites they hunt and their own interpretation of what you mean. The more experience folks have with the two models you asked about, and the more time they have put in hunting a variety of challenging sites, the more opinionated they might be.
So, keep in mind that I have been a very devoted Tesoro owner and user since July of 1983 when Tesoro introduced their Inca. I also started as a Tesoro Dealer at that time so I have had the opportunity through the years to use most of what they have made, especially to Nov. '04 when I stopped dealing in them. The Bandido II µMAX [size=small]
([size=small]micro[/size]MAX)[/size] has been and remains atop my all-time favorite Tesoro models. It is there because I have used it a lot, learning and understanding its strengths and weaknesses, so my opinions about it are biased in favor of it.
The other model you referred to, the current issue Cortés, is one I had a couple of from their early release, and I have also worked with a couple that people owned and brought to one of my seminars. By
'with a couple' of others it has been exactly that, only two of them. They haven't been really fantastic sellers, they are over-priced compared with the market, and have been since they were introduced. Of all the Tesoro models made since '83, the Cortés is perhaps my least liked model of them all. Yes, it has some good points, if I look hard, but it has more negative points that directly effect the performance, or lack thereof when afield. Therefore, my experiences
and opinions will not be as savory as with my favorite model.
TN Mike said:
Was wondering if the Cortes is close to the Bandido II uMax in terms of audio quality, feel, depth.
Audio Quality? The Cortés audio response is pretty much 'on-par' with how many/most Tesoro's report detected targets, but it does have its own set of differences. With ample field time an attentive ear can discern some of the Tesoro-type audio qualities.
Feel?: Due to the somewhat larger and heavier control housing, compared with the [size=small]micro[/size]MAX sized housing, and rear positioned battery holder, plus using the standard 8X9 Concentric coil, the Cortés does have a weightier feel and seems to be a little nose-heavy by comparison to the Bandido II µMAX.
The word 'FEEL' can also be a matter of how we personally 'feel' as far as 'comfort' or 'faith' in the detector's abilities, and in that consideration I didn't 'feel' confident in the performance of the Cortés when I checked out several search coils and hunted a variety of sites. With my original Cortés it seemed to work OK most of th4 time with the stock search coil. I prefer smaller-than-stock coils most of the time because I hunt trashier and brushier locations mostly of the time while Relic Hunting, and when I mounted my thin-profile Troy Shadow X2 7" coil, the Cortés was noisy in most places I hunted with it.
The cause? A too negative Ground Balance for the Discriminate mode, and that is an internally preset trimmer adjustment. This was also a problem at many urban Coin Hunting sites because at the time I lived in NW Oregon where there is a higher level of mineralization. So I traveled about to work the Cortés at an Oregon coast beach, and to a few Eastern Oregon, Utah, and Nevada ghost towns, some gold mining camps and towns, logging camps, and more.
Most of the time it works OK with the stock coil and only falsed on a rare occasion. However I used my Super 7 Inch Concentric coil, a thicker Tesoro 7" coil, an 10X12 coil and a Clean-Sweep coil, switching to each of them to check performance in desert and mountainous Relic Hunting sites as well as in big urban grassy parks and private yards and renovation sites when Coin & Jewelry Hunting. In every case with any non-stock search coil, I experienced falsing from a too-negative GB.
I related this problem to James Gifford in a phone call and expressed I needed the unit to be function and it wasn't. I sent it in for repair with a hand-written note of what I was experiencing. I also sent an e-mail with the same description of the problems, and that I used a number of different search coils that I had on-hand since I was a dealer, and while my 7" and Super 7 Inch coils were mine and used but pampered, I tried many different brand new, never used coils and the issue was the same, ground balance related. I made another call to James while the Cortés was there as a reminder that it needed adjustment.
When my Cortés was retuned it had the new decal on to kind of help see the tiny and poorly designed display a little better, but absolutely no difference and improvement in performance. Many Tesoro models only have one internal trimmer and usually that is for tweaking the GB setting on the turn-on-and-go preset models. I needed a detector that would work properly in a variety of locations with a few different search coils, so I opened the unit up.
* As a note of caution to Tesoro Tinkerers, there are quite a few dinky-sized trimmers in the Cortés and you can really mess up the performance if you errantly fool around with them.
Anyway, I used the stock coil, and my Super 7 Inch, and Tesoro's 7" Concentric and a CleanSweep to tweak the internal GB trimmer for the Discriminate mode. I worked with some samples of the more challenging ground I usually encounter and ended up with a very functional Cortés. I still didn't care for the fact it was a preset design, nor the display and a few other things, but it was then 'functional.' I used it for a couple of weeks, almost, and found quite a few good targets and compared it against my Bandido II and Bandido II µMAX, then I sold it.
That was after I unboxed another new Cortés to check it for a customer and we noted it had a bad internal GB with three of five coils we tried it with. So my 'FEEL' was that I wasn't comfortable with the Cortés and wanted nothing to do with them. I also noted similar bad behavior with the two I handled that were brought to a seminar.
Depth? Well, again it is a matter of opinion, but I will say I felt the Cortés I had, after tweaking to be functional with my preferred coils, and compared with my Bandido II µMAX and Eldorado with the same search coils,
seemed to get just a little bit better depth-of-detection. That was with the unit set up for maximum performance, but overall the depth difference wasn't anything to write home about, and several competitive brand models out-performed it in the same areas with a comparably-sized search coil.
TN Mike said:
I've gotten use to listening to the B2mm and can tell what Im digging most of the time ...
Great, and so have I. Matter of fact, I liked the audio quality and interpretive audio response of some Silver Sabre II and Silver Sabre [size=small]micro[/size]MAX models, and Bandido, Bandido II and Bandido II [size=small]micro[/size]MAX favorites, plus an Eldorado and a Cutlass II ... all of which I used to use almost full-time, and the units I still have on-hand today. Once learned, they can be very 'informative' to help make a reasonably good guess.
One thing to consider, too, when thinking of the Cortés and audio quality, is that it does have the audio SUM function, which I don't care for due to the designed conductivity response break points. It also has a so-so functional Target ID with numeric read-out, but that is also kind of a bad design [size=small]
(in my opinion)[/size] because so many targets get lumped in the high-reading number.
TN Mike said:
... but would like something I can move fast with ...
Ugh-Ohh, now we might have a problem. You want to use a two-filter, slow-motion/quick-response Tesoro
and move fast with it. The Tesoro's can seem to be quick response models ... and they are is you're doing an 'air test' evaluation. But they will have difficulty handling more mineralized ground and/or what I call "intense mineral bodies" such that the Tesoro models ... just like most of the two-filter/double-derivative detectors we have and use require a slow motion sweep in order to process out the ground signal and pass along a target response.
If the mineralization is too intense, such as a lot of dark grey or black sand used in volleyball courts or playgrounds, or pea gravel and other sites that have a lot of small to medium dense mineralized rock, you can't use a fast-motion sweep speed because they don't have the ability to process out the ground signal; and pass along a desired target signal. This for of good target masking is a simple matter of how some detector types are limited in their ability to handle difficult challenges such as "bad ground."
TN Mike said:
... and use the cleansweep coil.
Ugh-Ohh,
again, because the CleanSweep, like many similar search coil designs that are narrower or just most DD designs, are not designed to achieve much 'depth' in the first place and they need to have ample time to process ground and target signals, especially in any very mineralized environment.
TN Mike said:
Not digging pennies and tabs.. especially tabs.
If not then you are either using a lot of Discrimination, or you might be relying on the visual TID to help you try and visibly distinguish possible pull-tab and penny conductivity targets. You can do that using any detector with variable Discrimination about the same, and once you start to rely too heavily on any visual Target ID to help classify junk targets from desired keepers, you have to be comfortable knowing that many desired coins will, not be recovered. You are still going to detect all the junk that can be processed with a conductivity read-out that
is similar-to desired coins, or you will be missing a lot of coins that have conductivities similar-to the unwanted junk.
For example, there are many trash target that might have a 'read-out' that is similar-to a US Nickel, Dime, Quarter, Half, or even the lowly Penny might have some targets that producer their coin reading. Then consider the Pull-Tabs. Most of the earlier ring-pull type tabs had conductivities that spanned quite a broad range on the visual TID scale, and while most of the 'ring' portions or complete specimens fell just slightly above to a little farter up from most common US 5¢ 'Nickel' coins, the broken-off 'beaver-tail' portions often had a Nickel coin conductivity.
Add to that challenge the fact that most of the modern, and current, rectangular pry-tab type of pull-tabs have a conductivity that almost duplicates those coins exactly. I also have a pry-tab off of a beverage container that my oldest sin detected at an urban city park playground last summer that I keep with me as a 'test sample.' Why? Because it is different from most and has fooled every make and model detector, including the XP Deus and Minelab CTX 3030, because
it reads exactly like a modern US Zinc Cent.
Mike, I think the best idea is to just keep using your Bandido II [size=small]micro[/size]MAX and the best coil for the site you're hunting. Make use of the light-weight design and very good audio response quality, and don't try to make a Tesoro perform like some of the competitive models. I use my Tesoro's, like all detectors, in a manner to get the best performance I can out of them for the site environment I am searching. If I have a real need to use a faster coil-sweep search of an area, I'll use a different model from my arsenal that is designed to be able to do that more successfully.
Best of success with your decision and in your searches,
Monte
, there are a few brands that I don't care much for but I would never say I am glad they are gone if they were to leave because I know there are others that happen to like and enjoy the ones that I don't.
