Comparison air tested my Vaquero and Cortes

[jabbo]

using 14K and some 10K gold jewelry, no coins. Items were: mans medium weight wedding band, mans lite weight wedding band, tiny earing, another tiny earing, baby bracelet, childs ring, girls ring, girls chain bracelet, bangle (opened), medium weight Christian cross. Tested All Metal mode and Disc. mode with Disc. set at minimum. All signals were solid, no iffy signals were recorded. The result was both machines were within one inch of each other for every target in both modes. The Vaquero had a very slight edge on some targets and the Cortes had a very slight edge on some targets. The Vaquero ground balances in Disc. mode so that might give it more depth on buried targets when searching in discriminate mode. I thought the Vaquero with its higher frequency would be more sensitive to gold than the Cortes, but not according to my test. Hope this info helps someone choose between the two machines.

 

[tabdog]

n/t

 

[jabbo]

n/t

 

[tabdog]

Crank it up. Super tune the Vaquaro and see what happens. That's supposed to increase depth on the Vaquaro. You can check the manual for super tuning.

HH,

 

[jabbo]

between All Metal and Disc. with just a flick of the switch.

 

[tabdog]

I had a Cibola and it was like that. Choose depth or choose convience.

But for the test to be fair the machines should be set to the max. Or at least to where one does not have less than optimume settings. In other words one was set more better than the other.

HH,

 

[jabbo]

machine would be better for gold. I look for jewelry to about 8 inches deep. Since the results are about the same, I'll use the Cortes because I like glancing at the screen for depth reading and getting a hint what it might be.

 

[JB(MS)]

The way most detectors are designed, higher frequencies are more sensitive to small, low conductive targets. That doesn't mean a higher frequency detector will go deeper, either in air tests or in the ground, on a low conductive target that a lower frequency detector can detect, but most higher frequency detectors will detect some really small low conductive targets a lower frequency detector can't see at all. Something along the lines of a tiny gold nugget, a really small gold chain or a single link from one. In any case, there's not enough difference in the frequencies of those two detectors to make much of a difference in their ability to detect 99 percent of the gold jewelry that's lost.

 

[tabdog]

You are lucky to have both to choose from.

They are different machines and they are both very good machines.

I'm sure you will find that they both have qualities that will assist you in many different hunting situations.

HH,