First off, the Cortés is never likely to be changed or modified. It has enough trouble with some coil changes and not having adjustable GB for the Disc. mode. Honestly, I find it to be an overpriced model compared with what is available on the market today, or really since it was first introduced. The Cortés is what it is and I doubt there is any capital or engineering talent down there to produce a new model offering that would replace it and provide any serious competition in today's market.
Now, let's look at your desire to have a wide-range audio Target ID for Coin Hunting. Visual Target ID can be helpful to help classify or identify potential coins, but only somewhat. Thirty-five years ago Teknetics [size=small](the original folks with George Payne the design engineer)[/size] brought us the new Coin Computer series and that was the start of visual TID. Shortly after he added the 'B' version to the 9000 and 8500 which added audio Tone ID. But thirty-five years ago, in 1983, the metal detecting surge was on here in the USA and this is where the bulk of the metal detector manufacturers and sale were. And because so many early detector designs were developed here, they catered to the greatest number of Hobbyists who were active in Coin Hunting.
Therefore, the early Target ID models were designed around our USA coinage which was, and has been, almost all made of very good, conductive, non-ferrous metal. That made it easy to design Target ID and Tone ID ... FOR USA COINS!
Our good neighbors up north of us in Canada have had a few coins that were made of a nice-and-proper metal mix, but the bulk of their coins have been and are made of magnetic-based [size=small](ferrous)[/size] metals, such as Nickel or Steel and mixes of metals that are difficult to get a good response on. Metal make-up that doesn't lock-on very well, and that means the audio Tone ID is equally as inconsistent and can be close to useless. The interest in metal detecting has been on a decline here in the USA for the past twenty-five years, but more interest has grown in other countries all around the world. That means many targets of interest other than coins, and even just considering coins to find, there is an unbelievable amount of sizes, thicknesses, shapes and certainly alloy content, with a lot of them of a magnetic metal. So most Target ID designs today have gone away from specific labels for individual coins, such as our 1¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢ and 50¢ coins, to using a numeric VDI [size=small](Visual Discrimination Indicator)[/size] so that anyone, anywhere, can learn how the objects they are seeking might read-out with the more functional TID method.
I mainly Relic Hunt these days, but I still spend a good amount of time Coin Hunting urban locations, and for a lot of my hunting I do like to use some form of audio Tone ID. I currently have 10 models in my Regular-Use Detector Team, and some of them offer 1-Tone audio, some have a 1, 2 or 3 Tone audio option or mode design. One has a 1, 2, 3 or 4 Tone option, one model lets me pick from a 1, 2, 4, 8, or 20 Tone selection, and then there is a model or two that lets me choose a wide-range of audio Tone ID pitches based upon the conductivity of the received targets signal. Most of the time I either use a model with a single tone, or one where I can select a 2 or 3 Tone audio response. Out of my 10 detectors, the only one I like with a wide-range of Tones for Coin Hunting is my XLT.
And multi-tone audio ID is at its best when the located target is positioned from surface to about 3" to 4", and beyond that depth there can be variables that result in an incorrect Target ID and Tone ID. Also, hunting in a very littered site is going to make Tone ID unreliable most of the time. I have a couple of Tesoro’s in my personal battery and I’m sending off a payment tomorrow morning to acquire another. They are single-tone models, but they do what good Tesoro’s do best, and that is pick good targets out of trashy sites. If I want to use a good Tone ID detector, I grab one of my other devices which provides me an audio Tone ID that I feel might benefit me at certain sites. I don't see anything coming from Tesoro that would be designed and developed in this country that would be competitive in the Tone ID market.
Monte
