Ist Take on the X-Terra Pro

[morelic1955]

It's raining here, so I tested it out in my garage. Concrete, no rebar in the floor. Setup, easy. I hunt relics so mine is simple. 2 tones, tracking on, recovery speed 2, I like to hear the iron, so FE volume is set just a hair below regular volume.
Set the tone break at 0 to try it out 1st when I get to the field, might change. Sens wide open, no EMI problems.
Findings....We all know air tests are not where the detector is at in the field.
.69 cal Minnie ball.......12"
Eagle Cuff Button..........8"
Silver Dime.................... 12"
2 tones is very close to the 705. Depth is irrelevant in my test, but from what I can tell, it will match or exceed the 70/705 with a 10.5DD coil
Build quality is superior to any machine in it's price range. Coil ears are thicker than the NOX, so I don't see any problems there.
Ease of set-up and use is no more difficult than the 705 one you learn the icons.
My thoughts, it will fill a need for a machine for beginners and pros alike and yes, from my brief time with the NOX, it is a simpler platform.
When I get a few hunts in with it, I have the Coiltek 5x10 that I'm gonna try in some carpet iron camps.
I think if you want to transition to a lighter, more versatile detector than our beloved 70/705, it will be easy to do.

 

[morelic1955]

Forgot to mention, I was in Field 2. Also 5kHz does seem to be smoother sounding on silver.

 

[Old Longhair]

My Pro was waiting for me when I got home from work today. I put it together, went back over the PDF manual I have, and took it out back to get an initial feel for it.
At this point I can't say I'm overly impressed or disappointed. It lost features that I appreciated with the 705, but gained features the 705 lacked. The language is similar enough that I felt pretty at home with it, running All Metal in Field 2 @ 5kHz w/recovery on 1 & 2 just for test purposes.

The area I hit is around an old cellar hole, and I've hunted it really hard over the years, so I didn't really expect to find much, and I wasn't wrong. It turned up a few pieces of scrap copper, and one hole had some heavy gauge wire that had some tight bends in it that probably made enough of a circle to sound better than it was, but now at least I have a good idea of what I'm working with in terms of the machine. I don't really anticipate finding a whole lot more with the Pro than the 705 would, but the convenience of not needing to swap coils to change frequencies is kind of nice.

One thing that I am temporarily a little bummed about is the headphone jack arrangement. The amount that they recessed the jack makes it impossible for me to use my wireless dongle w/o an extension cable, but I can rectify the issue easily enough, so it's not a deal breaker by any means. I'll just have to dig out a pair of phones that have the small format jack pin and I'll be in business until I track down the female end I need to make an extension for the dongle.

I have it on the charger right now to top it off for tomorrow. I don't have any work scheduled for tomorrow and I have two sites I want to hit. Both are farm fields where no building has stood for over 100 years. One is a place I've hunted before rather thoroughly, but haven been to for several years, so I'm hoping that between the ground being worked several times by tillage and frost heaving the ground around there may be a few new targets visible now that weren't before. The other site is one that nobody has hunted before, so I have high hopes that a few goodies will turn up there. Time will tell.