Minelab Advantage

[D&P-OR]

What's the difference (changes made, other than color) in the "black box" Advantage & the newer "blue box"?--------Thanks, Del

 

[fwcrawford]

I asked this question too a while back and was told that when the musketeer advantage first came out, the boxes were black and when the soveriegn GT was offered, the musketeer boxes were changed to blue like the soveriegn GTs.
No difference in the electronics as far as I know.
Felix

 

[Sven]

That's exactly what Digger Randy told me.
So you have a choice of colors blue or black box.
Might add you pay more for the new blue box unit. Too bad Minelab increased the price point of the Musketeer, sort of killed the demand for it.
Should have left it at the orig. prices, would be one of the hottest single frequency detector out there.
Some one had a blue box for sale in the classified a month or so ago, for around $265.00 a good deal!

 

[crazyman]

I've owned both and as others have said there is no difference in performance. The Musky's/Advantage are the most underrated detectors on the market especially in really bad ground. They are also one of the best single frequency detectors I've used on black sand saltwater beaches. I have two of them. One is mounted on a Whites straight rod and the other on a two piece Minelab straight rod.

 

[bhcarl]

Bought one when i first started detecting, thought i needed a fancy tdi model, so i sold it, wish i had it back, they are super detectors, now the price has doubled.

 

[TURNMASTER]

Lets hear some more.
I've been wondering about them for a while. How do they compare to other machines like the BH Landstar which I hear is way under rated. Makes me think I did not give mine enough time before I bought my Xterra 705.

I had a hard time setting up the disc on the BH and the tone system seemed to encourage me to dig more junk. Do I need new bats and to spend some more time with the machine?

How is the disc, how many tones, how deep?

 

[UK Brian]

Minelab killed the Musketeer off from the moment they developed BBS and started their advertising campaign talking down single frequency and hyping up multi.
To many who were to lazy to experiment themselves swallowed it whole.

We all had years to pick up the Musketeer and Advantage when they were the bargain buy of the detecting scene.

 

[Sven]

I started The Minelab Musketeers group. As there was no forum specially made for us. It is a great group and info storage area on the internet. For all those that missed the boat to Muskydom, they can still hop on and read all about them. Then pick one up for themselves. That is if you can find one. Any one of the models will give you a wonderful hunting experience the Musketeer XS, Advantage as well as the earliest models like the Sterling, Tribune, Musky X and the Colt. If you need to know where we are, PM me for the web address. As my signature to my website I see is no longer viewable in my posts, you'll still see a link to Findmall's forum at my website. I imagine that's because I offer something for sale at my site and not a paying sponsor here.

 

[crazyman]

They both have their place. They make a great pair to have for just about any hunting situation. Where one is weak the other is strong. The Sovereign with it's slow sweep, slow recovery high bias for iron is complimented by the Musky/Advantage fast sweep, fast recovery with less masking in iron. Depth in real bad ground goes to the Musky but depth on the beach goes to the Sovereign. For cherry picking old parks and lawns the Sovereign with it's tone ID, notch or add on meter would be the better pick but in iron infested trashy areas, disturbed ground, relic hunting etc. the Musky win s hands down. I like them both for different hunting areas.

 

[D&P-OR]

Just received the "black box" Advantage from Rick.--MY GOODNESS, does that baby ever go deep in my highly mineralized ground here (and that's with the 8" coil)!!--Thanks Rick-think I'm gonna like it.--Just wish it didn't have such a "love affair" with steel bottle caps but that's a DD coil for ya I guess.---------Del

 

[UK Brian]

I had both and as you say they complimented each other well but why would anyone want to buy a Musketeer when Minelab had glossy ads spread across two pages with arrows showing the depth performance of single, twin and multifrequency detectors and the single frequency arrow went about a quarter of an inch down the illustration, the twin frequency went twice the depth and wouldn't you guess it multifrequency went far deeper again.
In the end the advertising standards authority made them withdraw this type of add as Minelab could not prove their claims. But by this time the damage was done....multifrequency is always two or three times as deep as single and you only have to go on many of the forums to see that people think the more frequencies the more depth.

 

[Sven]

Rick had a wonderful set-up for sure, that you will now enjoy........
Welcome to the Land of the Musketeers.

 

[crazyman]

Brian, you would think Minelab would be shooting themselves in the foot with that comparison when it comes the sales of the Musketeer but Minelab is going to hype their own unique multifreq.technology because that's where the major sales are. Evidently Minelab has seen the the need for single frequency detectors as well with their long history of the Musketeer series. If the sales hadn't been there they wouldn't have continued the model. They also don't raise prices on detectors that don't sell. The only areas I've found multifrequency detectors to have an advantage is on the beach and in mild to moderate mineralization. There is a lot of misconceptions about detector frequencies as they relate to how they hit on certain targets "gold verses silver" and how they perform in different levels of mineralization. Ground mineralization is the deal breaker when it comes high frequency versus low frequency detectors. Many of the areas I hunt are pretty hot and the lower frequency detectors tend to handle the mineralization better with better depth and discrimination. High frequency high gain detectors detectors suffer in my soil. I like both the Sovereign and the Advantage for different reasons. Up here in the Seattle area with our continual winter rains the Sovereign seems to perk up more so than most detectors in the wet saturated conditions and I get pretty good depth. On the salt water beaches the Sovereign is the king but the Advantage with it's single freq. works pretty good also on the same beaches.

 

[MXTerer]

n/t

 

[TURNMASTER]

Do the Muskys not have any type of tone ID?

Jeff

 

[Sven]

Do the Muskys not have any type of tone ID?

Jeff

Single tone, no tone ID. But, it is like any other single tone detector. After a while you will notice slight differences in sound when going over a target so you can guess-estimate
what is below the soil.

 

[UK Brian]

Trouble is people are lazy and want someone else to make the decisions for them. If people just got off their backsides and tried a few basic tests they would save a heap of money and not end up trading in machines every year.