F-75 LTD controversy--is it worth the price?

[Greg (E.Tn)]

Boy. One thing I have learned from visiting metal detecting forums is that some detectorists sure have thin skins where their machines are concerned.

It's pretty doggone childish.

But.......is the F75 LTD worth the price?

For me it is.

Here's why:

It's a huge improvement over an already great machine, in that it works good in high grass, and it hits harder on small items at greater depth.

Isn't that what we all seek in a metal detector?

Over the years, I've owned nearly every brand of detector- here's the chronology:

First machine--Bounty Hunter II--1974. Then.....

Garrett ADS II--Garrett Groundhog

Whites 5000D

Fisher 1220-X, Fisher 1260-X, Fisher 1265-X, Fisher 1266-X, Fisher 1270,

Minelab Explorer, Minelab Sovereign

Tesoro Tejon

Nautilus DMC 2Ba

Fisher F-75, F75 LTD.

I currently own the F-75, F-75 LTD, Fisher CZ-21, and the Nautilus. Why? Because those machines best suit my style of detecting (at the current time).

Now the question: WHY did I go through all of those machines over the years? Research, personal preference, and feedback from other detectorists and detecting forums. But also because I am ALWAYS looking for the "ultimate" detector.

A lot of us are.

If you look at the above list of detectors, you'll see an ascendency through detector technology as well. I went from the standard BFO (Beat Frequency Oscillator) non-discriminating type of machine, through the VLF/TR Disc., and into the full VLF with target ID and all the "bells and whistles."

And I'll bet there are others on this forum who have done the same thing over the years.

I won't bash other machines. Reason is, I detect with guys who use minelabs, whites, garretts, nautilus' and other machines, and they are doggone GOOD with them.

Soooo, all that being said, yes, the F75 LTD is definitely worth the price.

To me.

 

[Neil]

plus some of us dont even have to justify it

if you want one get it(any detector) and if not dont. they can all pay for themselves.

 

[Bill Ladd]

Many will say or are already saying maybe it's just fancy marketing & a new paint job & not much else......
Though some people made it sound like you get 5" more with the new modes, I'm trying to offer some strait up video's and feedback to let people come to their own conclusions. I don't think anyone can push VLF technology 5" deeper....
Some folks who disliked the old F75 because it was "too noisy" or picked up interference should like this LTD alot better. (Again, it has not become silent search by any means, but the chatter difference I noticed right away). Minelab guys who like to go slow should like it better too for the CL possibilites (I struggle with it 'cause I whip the coil). It should also be a nice improvement for folks who hunt wooded sites, tall grass, stubble, or mineralization, as you can really raise the coil & still maintain solid depth with less falsing.
I have alotta cellar holes in pine forests where the straw on top is like 5-6" thick & they have never produced for us. Perhaps they will now....
I don't have enough hours on mine yet to elaborate much further....but those are a couple improvements I have seen so far. I'm going out tomorrow into the woods to see if I can locate some real deep "fringe targets" that maybe BP or CL may hit on noticeably better......
HH,
Bill

 

[go-rebels]

My History, in chronological order:

Whites 5900-Di (circa 1976?)
Whites Spectrum Eagle
Whites XLT
Minelab Sovereign
Minelab Explorer XS
Minelab Explorer SE
Minelab Explorer II
Fisher F-75
Fisher F-75 LTD + Garrett Ace 250 (A great little unit for those of us that usually only hunt with "top of the line")

 

[Daniel Tn]

I have pretty tough dirt and in checking targets I've just noticed more stable IDs in the BP mode. As I've said a thousand times now, I hunt in motion all metal only. From the original F75s motion all metal mode to the BP mode in motion all metal, there IS quite a gain in depth. 5+ inches...no. 3 is more like it, with 4 being the max. This just being the distance I can hold the coil above buried targets and still get an audio tone and visual ID of something on the meter. I still say that you guys running disc mode are missing out on a lot of good stuff. Yeah you'll find some stuff in disc mode. That's how I hunted the 75 when I first got it but since I started hunting in motion all metal, I've found three times the amount of stuff and most all of it came out of sites I first hunted the 75 in disc mode!!

Now as for the LTD being more stable. I've read that from a couple of folks now and either I have a fluke unit or we're crossing some wires there. You can tell a world of difference on my LTD from just going to the regular modes vs the BP and Cache modes. It is way more stable in the original modes vs the two new ones on my machine. In my video the other day, we only dug one bullet on film, and dug a few others off film. In searching the ground between finds, I noticed it was very chattery over the ground. I eventually put it back into regular mode, motion all metal to get it quiet. Now one thing to note is that I have two sets of power lines running over the field I was hunting in. I'm sure that has something to do with the interference/chatter too.

 

[Greg (E.Tn)]

Power lines can be (and usually are) the big killer of depth and target recognition where just about all detectors are concerned.

And keep in mind that some detectors are so sensitive your cell phone can interfere with them, even when you're not using it.

And lastly: I had a relic hunter who has a HECK of a lot more experience than I do point out the errors of buying a machine, putting a few hours into it, then going on to the next one. He told me that a person needs to put AT LEAST 100 hours in a machine before they can really get comfortable with it.

I believe that.

All that being said, what you're doing is trying to find the optimum machine for YOUR KIND OF SOIL CONDITIONS. I'd venture to guess that, if you ever DO find that machine, you'll also find it lacking when compared to others under different soil conditions, or with different features.

Have you noticed that Nautilus CONSISTENTLY wins the GNRS hunts, while other detectors CONSISTENTLY come in far back in the field?

Do the detectors have anything to do with that? Sure. But knowing as we do that Nautilus users are predominantly relic diggers, who really know how their machines perform relic hunting, it would be safe to say that user experience has something to do with that as well.

But......have you tried a Nautilus in your dirt?

And you know what......it might just come down to this: a person MIGHT find that they need a few different machines, the way a golfer needs different clubs for different conditions.

Is there any thing wrong with that?

 

[Daniel Tn]

I agree with your post. I've owned many different detectors over the years. My list would be something as follows to the best of my memory:

Fisher 1265-X
Fisher 1266-X
Tesoro Bandido II uMax
Tesoro Eldorado uMax
Fisher CZ-70 Pro
Fisher CoinStrike
Fisher ID Excel
Fisher CZ-3D
Tesoro Tejon (owned 3 over the years)
Tesoro Vaquero (owned 2 over the years)
Tesoro Cibola
Whites MXT
Whites DFX (owned 2 over the years)
Whites M6
Minelab Quattro
Minelab Advantage
Minelab Explorer II
Minelab X-Terra 50
Minelab X-Terra 70
Garrett Ace 250
Shadow X5 (owned 2 over the years)
Nautilus 4
Nautilus IIb
Fisher F75
Teknetics T2
Fisher F70
Garrett Infinium
Whites TDI

and now I have the F75 LTD and the TDI.

By far, out of ALL of those, my favorite VLF machine is the F75. Hands down. In my dirt, for raw depth, power, and just flat being able to dig the crap out of relics...the F75 was and is "THE MAN". That's why it didn't take me long to jump on the LTD.

As for the Nautilus machines. I agree that in the sandy dirt and in good clean dirt, they are hard to beat. But in my case, I have one site I take every detector to that is my testing grounds. It is where every one of my YouTube vids are filmed. It's the nastiest dirt I have and if a machine can do well in it, than I am happy. Many machines have failed to handle it. Both Nautilus machines I had weren't able to handle it. Actually I had given up on the place because I could go and spend a couple hours in there and leave empty handed. That was until the F75 came along. I went back to just play and see if I could dig ONE bullet. I ended up with over 30 the first time I took it there and ever since then I've not failed to leave with no less than 20. This coming out of a site that I had given up on!!

 

[BuckeyeBrad]

and also, what sens. setting does it take to get a fairly stable threshold?

 

[Greg (E.Tn)]

My digging buddy and I have a site in upper East Tennessee that was one of Burnside's 1863-64 camps. The dirt's average for the east tennessee valley. When we started digging on it, we both were swinging Fishers, 1260 and 1265 X I believe.

For the next several years, whenever we got a new machine, we'd take it up there and eke out a few more pieces, which I think is normal, but some oddities came out as well.

For example: we NEVER dug any pecussion caps out of this site until I took a Shadow X-5 (higher freq) machine up there. Suddenly, turns out some of those 1265-X snap, crackles and pops were P-caps getting discriminated out.

A few years after that I took a Fisher 1270 there and dug six Infantry Cuff Buttons. Funny thing though--those were the first "I" buttons that had ever been found--all the rest that came before were eagle staffs.

And here's the kicker--none of the stuff was deep at all--heck, some of it was right on top of the ground, under the leaves. I kicked a pair of period spectacles aside when I was kicking leaves from over a signal, and almost didn't retrieve them because I thought they were surface trash.

You know what I like about the F75 and the LTD in particular? I think it's one of the most versatile detectors built today. And that goes for the T-2 as well.

It's fast, its deep and it has accurate TDI. And it's target separation is amazing.

Again, I'm not trashing other machines. However, I think the LTD gives the user the ability to pick up one machine and do good in a variety of situations, from wet salt sand to relic hunting, from coin hunting to prospecting.

 

[Bill Ladd]

but in my soils, which is not anywhere near your clays, disc mode on 0 has always given me the best depth on the old T2/F75 combo.
In Culpeper red clay then all metal is the way to go & yes, disc would be missing stuff.....
I have not used all metal much with the LTD yet because I have been concentrating on disc processes & sensitivities. But that sounds like a good thing to do (switch into Bp all metal of a deep target) for a "part 3" LTD video....
HH,
Bill

 

[Daniel Tn]

Brad,

I'm running Sens of 90 in both old modes and the new BP. 90 has never given me trouble in the old mode, unless I was directly around power lines or people's houses. Usually then, even lowering the Sens didn't help much to amount to anything. With the new mode at the bad dirt sites, lowering it doesn't seem to matter. I run my threshold at -1 so to me its like hunting in silent search mode. Yeah I might not hear the fringe depth targets or what not, but if I'm digging 12-14+ inches for bullets, I really don't want to go much deeper especially if the ground is hard. On hot ground though, the BP mode at 90 is chattery. I hunted a little bit Friday evening at a site with no powerlines within 200 yards of me and no houses either. Just a big field is all it is. The ground here hit was sort of good ground...hit around .1 to .3 on the FE. But there the detector wasn't so called "chattery" as it was giving me more of the style sound you recognize when you need to GB. It seemed like I could go a few feet and have to GB again.

 

[bf109gboy]

i can,t see the sense in spending 700 plus $ to find a few P caps & a couple I buttons in a almost hunted out camp. you 'd have to pop out some real good stuff to justify spending that kind of money to upgrade. I am 58 years old ,and have been relic & coin shooting half my life, and rarely dug a plate more than 8 to 10 in . i think jumpin to every new detc. is a crutch 4 lack of good research and doggedness . spend time learnin what ur using . I've had a couple people kick my butt with a ACE 250 coin shootin , and me using my new F 75 !!! I didn't have enough hr's on it . until i could not get parts for my grand master hunter, I would regularly out hunt people with new generation detectors because of the time I invested using that machine. As Yogi Berra says, "It ain't bragging if you can do it."