...and I am amazed!
You guys know I've been swinging the Compadre over a year now and have owned several other detectors (and sold them all), but it is possible, just possible mind you, that I may have finally found the Compadre's replacement for my regular use. Shocking, but true.
I know, its normal to gush over a new detector, but I really think the Golden deserves it. I was debating between it and the AT Pro and had a chance to play around with both. Now that I have had a chance to really work with it at home, I'm glad I bought the Golden (not knocking the ATP at all, it came in a close second!).
This notching discrimination is incredible and my compliments to the Tesoro design team that came out with it.
Before I attached the coil to the shaft, I set it on my desk propped up with a couple of towels and got a bunch of targets I keep for air testing.
This included clad and silver coins of most denominations, a Chuck-e-Cheeze token, costume jewelry, a silver charm (3.2 grams), a small 14k band (2.4 grams), a mens 10k ring (5.8 grams), a large 14k ring (7.3 grams), a Tungsten Carbide ring (11.4 grams), and an assortment of pull tabs, screw caps, and bottle caps, and of course, a rusty nail.
I spent a couple of hours playing with the notching and trying to get used to the tones. The low and high tones are easy enough, but the two middle ones are very similar and I can't tell them apart yet. But it doesn't matter really. Once you set your notching, you will dig every repeatable signal regardless.
I was impressed with the Golden's range when air testing and am anxious to try it in the ground. And like most Tesoro's, it's so light weight its ridiculous (and runs on just one 9 volt battery). I think I'll be adding the Clean Sweep coil and a small coil very soon!
Just to give you idea of what this machine is capable of, I believe I have found my sweet spot for the notch setting, at least for now. This is with the factory recommended discrimination in place (at the arrow mark) and a Sensitivity setting of about 8.
With its present setting, the rusty nail is gone (that was easiest). The costume jewelry is gone. The zinc pennies are gone (that was one thing I didn't want to lose, but so be it). Incredibly, the Tungsten Carbide ring is also gone.
The pull tab is gone. Completely. Amazing. But the beaver tail pull tab still rings out loud and clear. There is no way to get rid of those things unless you really crank up the discrimination, and I don't want to do that. Bottle caps have been reduced to an easily recognized chirpy, broken tone. Most screw caps have been eliminated, though a couple, depending on their metal composition, ring out loud and true. So the only junk still coming through on these air tests were the beaver tails and some of the screw caps with the bottle caps being easily recognized by their lousy signal. Wow!
And what remains in? Copper pennies, clad and silver nickels, clad and silver dimes, clad and silver quarters, and clad and silver half dollars (don't have any dollar pieces to test right now). What also remained is the silver charm and all, yes, all of the gold rings in my test, from 2.4 to 7.3 grams! Even the small gold band rings loud and clear. And the pull tabs don't make a sound, mind you.
Incredibly, I'm told the Golden is Tesoro's weakest selling model. I cannot imagine why.
Don't let the notch discrimination worry you, it is simple to grasp once you play with it a bit!
I'll let you know how the field tests go. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited to try it out.
You guys know I've been swinging the Compadre over a year now and have owned several other detectors (and sold them all), but it is possible, just possible mind you, that I may have finally found the Compadre's replacement for my regular use. Shocking, but true.
I know, its normal to gush over a new detector, but I really think the Golden deserves it. I was debating between it and the AT Pro and had a chance to play around with both. Now that I have had a chance to really work with it at home, I'm glad I bought the Golden (not knocking the ATP at all, it came in a close second!).
This notching discrimination is incredible and my compliments to the Tesoro design team that came out with it.
Before I attached the coil to the shaft, I set it on my desk propped up with a couple of towels and got a bunch of targets I keep for air testing.
This included clad and silver coins of most denominations, a Chuck-e-Cheeze token, costume jewelry, a silver charm (3.2 grams), a small 14k band (2.4 grams), a mens 10k ring (5.8 grams), a large 14k ring (7.3 grams), a Tungsten Carbide ring (11.4 grams), and an assortment of pull tabs, screw caps, and bottle caps, and of course, a rusty nail.
I spent a couple of hours playing with the notching and trying to get used to the tones. The low and high tones are easy enough, but the two middle ones are very similar and I can't tell them apart yet. But it doesn't matter really. Once you set your notching, you will dig every repeatable signal regardless.
I was impressed with the Golden's range when air testing and am anxious to try it in the ground. And like most Tesoro's, it's so light weight its ridiculous (and runs on just one 9 volt battery). I think I'll be adding the Clean Sweep coil and a small coil very soon!
Just to give you idea of what this machine is capable of, I believe I have found my sweet spot for the notch setting, at least for now. This is with the factory recommended discrimination in place (at the arrow mark) and a Sensitivity setting of about 8.
With its present setting, the rusty nail is gone (that was easiest). The costume jewelry is gone. The zinc pennies are gone (that was one thing I didn't want to lose, but so be it). Incredibly, the Tungsten Carbide ring is also gone.
The pull tab is gone. Completely. Amazing. But the beaver tail pull tab still rings out loud and clear. There is no way to get rid of those things unless you really crank up the discrimination, and I don't want to do that. Bottle caps have been reduced to an easily recognized chirpy, broken tone. Most screw caps have been eliminated, though a couple, depending on their metal composition, ring out loud and true. So the only junk still coming through on these air tests were the beaver tails and some of the screw caps with the bottle caps being easily recognized by their lousy signal. Wow!
And what remains in? Copper pennies, clad and silver nickels, clad and silver dimes, clad and silver quarters, and clad and silver half dollars (don't have any dollar pieces to test right now). What also remained is the silver charm and all, yes, all of the gold rings in my test, from 2.4 to 7.3 grams! Even the small gold band rings loud and clear. And the pull tabs don't make a sound, mind you.
Incredibly, I'm told the Golden is Tesoro's weakest selling model. I cannot imagine why.
Don't let the notch discrimination worry you, it is simple to grasp once you play with it a bit!
I'll let you know how the field tests go. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited to try it out.
