Freshwater Beach Test of the Minelab X50 & Fisher Edge

[BarnacleBill]

Intro
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Fisher Labs and Minelab have provided two new mid-priced detectors with very distinctive personalities. The Edge from Fisher is distinctly American in it

 

[WVAdirtdigger]

n/t

 

[jbow]

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[steve herschbach]

Hi Bill,

Great report... but what's the bottom line? If you had no other choice in detectors and had to keep one or the other of these units, which would you keep and why?

I ask this knowing full well that neither machine is "better". Just depends on a persons preferences and particular needs. But which is better for you?

Steve Herschbach
Steve's Mining Journal

 

[BarnacleBill]

Thanks for the compliment Steve. I spend 80% of my time chest deep in lakes in the summer time using a 24ft pontoon boat as a working platform. I view it more as a floating dock than a boat, which I am sure you can appreciate being in the business you are in. Also have a Keene hookah I run off of that, and NAUI certified, blah, blah, blah. So you get the picture, I'm a water guy. Nothing better than late fall, no tourists or boats, 50deg flat water, 1/4" wet suit, turning leaves on the mountain sides, and diving Loons.

The X-machines with a 20" coil depth limitation are not well suited to that task, so the edge goes to the Edge for deep wading, if I could only keep one.

So that out of the way I have two very clear and distinct preferences in regards to each machine. In thick iron, the Edge hands down. But by the end of this coming summer, when the X50 18.75KHz coil gets turned loose on some beaches, people are going to be amazed, and I do mean amazed. There are two characteristics which can be assumed about that coil which I have found are not holding true, bearing in mind this is in my ground/sand.

Because of the high frequency it:

1. Will have poorer iron disc, I'm not finding it to be much different than the 7.5KHz.
2. Will not find silver deep, again I am finding deep clad/silver with no problem. I feel strongly enough about it that I may not use the 7.5KHz at all this summer.

Sorry to ramble on, if only life & metal detecting was black & white, lottsa gray in there.

Yes, and I still think your love of notching is weird!

HH
BanacleBill

 

[steve herschbach]

Hi Bill,

I agree about the Edge and water hunting. It is a better design by far for wading. I have a CZ-70 pro for the same use and reason.

And I also, as a gold guy, am pretty excited about the hi freq coil for the XT50 and when the snow FINALLY melts in another month I plan to give it a good go. It would be nice to post a nugget find with it!

I am not as much into notching as desiring to have the ability to notch... if I so choose. I simply do not see why a detector manufacturer in this day and age would withhold that ability from me on a digital unit. One off the few advantages of digital over analog is that you can indeed selectively accept or reject certain target ranges. It can obviously be implemented at low cost, as the Ace series proves, so why leave the feature off machines costing much more? Nobody has to use notching on a machine that has it. But I am convinced that judicious notching will result in a better jewelry to aluminum ratio in certain circumstances when hunting certain parks and other dry land areas and so I want it as an OPTION that I can use if I wish.

Which is why I'm sticking with my CZ-70 pro instead of getting an Edge. Sometimes I simply do not want to dig for pennies but if they beep I have a Pavlovian reaction that kicks in and makes me dig it. I'm better off just not knowing about them! People with more will power than I can just ignore them.

Steve Herschbach
Steve's Mining Journal