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Excalibur I, II, or Whites Surfmaster Dual Field PI?

W

whisperer

New member
I'm going to go for a new detector for Hawaiian beaches and underwater snorkling use and am fairly much a newby, at least to the new-tech units. I have done a little bit of land detecting years ago but everything is totally different now with the machines. I'm leaning towards the Ex II as I like the sound of the multi freq and discrimination, but a local dealer is telling me about the Surfmaster and how awesome the PI thing is. I could sure use some opinions from you guys that at least have a bunch of hours attatched to one or the other. Also, is there a big difference between the Ex I and the Ex II other then some flourecent green paint? Also, am I missing some other super steller unit in my choices?
 
If it was me.. I would go with the PI... but then again its all I use water hunting ;) I'll have a new Dual Field fairly soon :)
 
So the PI is more of an advantage then the multi frequency on the Excaliber when you are dealing with salt water and black sand?
 
Don't forget about the new Beachhunter 300 here is the field test..

http://losttreasure.com/fieldtests/ArchiveView07.cfm?ID=LT20080723
 
I have several years working the beaches in Hawaii while stationed at K-bay on the windward side during the 1980's. I started using the whites beach master detectors which were t/r machines. I used the vlf garrett sea hunters and later on the first pi sea hunters. I say all this to let you know my detecting back ground and hopefully you'll listen. I like garrett so I have a positive attitude toward their machines. I think with the amount of money that the beach hunter 300 is going for it is reasonable to seriously consider the garrett infinium ls. The good news there is a lot written about the ls so you can make some judgment about them. My experience with the metal detector guys in Hawaii in my day were very tight lipped about what they were finding. I know there are tons of rings lost there every year. Currently I'm not detecting and am considering buying a ls. I am living in coastal North Carolina. Best of luck, Mike
 
The LS is a great machine and my buddy Erick uses one and he likes it. My only problem with that machine is that it's a PI and has a high & low tone so you have to dig everything.

I dont know how much junk is on the beaches there....
 
99.9 percent of my experience is in the water in Hawaii. In my time, 1980's, using a pi machine( garrett sea hunter their first pi machine) we, my wife and I, dug every signal and removed the junk along with the good stuff. In those days pull tabs, bread twist wires were the most common junk. The more junk you pick up today the less there is tomorrow. I wish to say the last time I was detecting was Aug 1989 so I know much of my knowledge is out dated. Best to all, Mike.
 
I owned an Excalibur and after using it went back to my PI... The Excal is a good machine but the PI is deeper, lighter and faster swinging..
 
Think it boils down to how bad is the ground conditions on the Beach you are going to hunt ... Black sand real bad..... PI for sure....... Black sand not a problem .....Then the EXcal or the CZ or BHID you now have Discrimination....... Over here in Southern California the Beach's are pretty bad with Black sand in some spots it's purple in color, and that gives my PI a challenge...... If I got any other detector near that it would go off like a Coo-co clock ....... I Believe that some Beach's in Hawaii have that Lava issues ? so maybe a PI would be your ticket ......check with the locals

Good luck
 
Wow guys, thanks very much for the info, MUCH appreciated. There are both black and light sand beaches on the Big Island where I'll be at. I do want something that will do both so I'm guessing that's a solid vote for the PI machines. I was always under the impression that even the black sand over there was not ferrous, it was just from black lava but maybe I'm wrong? Any info on that would be cool.

So, this might sound like a stupid question to those of you that are in the know, but are there any PI machines that also have disrimination or is that one of those either-or things with the technologies?

Floridabill, I'll go check out the new Beachhunter 300 link, thanks for that.
 
Some PI's do but with discrimination comes loss of depth and that is not good in my view.. Hunting in the water there is less trash so discrimination isn't needed or in my case wanted :) If you were going to venture into the dry sand then by all means get a VLF.. you don't want to go to the dry stuff with a PI ;)
 
Whisperer, I have a friend who lives in Hawaii. He has used the Excal I & II 800 there and the performance was poor. Could be the mineralization from the volcanic rock. Don't get an Excal, for Hawaii, it will be a poor choice. If you want a discriminating submersible, then the CZ21-8, would be the best choice. Otherwise, stick to the White's PI. He has used one of those and still uses one there and from what I've seen, it works.
 
What about the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II? That seems to be a PI with discrimination. Is that real or are the new machines much better?
 
Whisperer, there are no submersible, discriminating PIs currently available. If you DID use the discrimination circuit on the Mark II, you'd effectively cut cher throat on gold, savvy? Been there, done that on the Mark II. For all intents and purposes, it is a PI, that's it.
 
OK, makes sense. Guess the only way to get the best of both worlds is to buy 2 machines, one for water and one for land.
I have a local dealer that just came back from checking out the Surfmaster DF PI and he says (or at least this was my take) that the DF isn't substantially better then the PI Pro. I can get a decent deal on a PI Pro that is a factory refurb so I'm leaning that way.

I have another question? What is the deal with the hard-wired headphones on the Surfmaster? They have this in the features list like it was a good thing. It would seem to be an advantage to be able to plug in a nice set of not-waterproof phones when using it on dry land. Do fish like to swim off with your headphones if they are not hardwired? (joke). What's up with this?
 
Well, I prefer everything to be hardwired, whenever possible. It eliminates leaks and can keep you from having costly repairs or with warranty, down time at the factory. I DO have my Excals set up with the ikelite connectors on the headhones to use the Gray Ghost Underwater Headphones though. The benefits of using the Gray Ghost's over the stock Koss outweigh the potential for leakage, imo. The audio quality is staggeringly superior! Minelab installed them for me and they do not void the warranty, if they do the installation. There has been no detectable leaks using them either, so I'm happy. The Koss were fitted with ikelite connectors too, in the event I have a failure. There was a broken wire recently on one pair of GGs and sent them back to Detector Pro and they repaired them and they are on the way back now. Using the Koss in the meantime on Huntress's 800 and she does not like them very much!
 
Probably the first mod I will make is to install a audio jack in the line so I can swap phones at will. Grey Ghost likely for the water and something excellent like Yamaha's for dry land. One of the hat's I wear is as an audio engineer in a studio and I can't stand crappy headphones.
 
The headphones on the PI PRO are just fine being hardwired... the quality is fine as well and why would you want to switch out waterproof headphones for non? What happens if you are caught in a downpour and you fry your headphones? Regardless the headphones with the PI are fine and its my opinion switching them out is just asking for trouble and at least for me would be a waste of time and money..
 
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