Mark of Ohio,
I just purchased a Golden uMax, new with the older tones format. I have only used the machine for about two months so my "expertise" is limited and I am still learning the nuances of this detector. But having said that, I am willing to share some of my experience with this machine. First, I am enjoying this detector very much. I live in Eastern Ohio, along the Ohio River and the ground is fairly mineralized. I needed to make a tiny adjustment to the ground balance pod when the machine arrived, because the factory setting was way too positive for my area. But this was easily done and I think the machine is working just fine with average depth... I have detected a few clad dimes, that came in faint but still with a high tone at six inches, but I would have to say that is the machines limit. I have also detected a few deeper clad dimes that had a mixed high/upper middle tone. I have read many posts on the forum about the golden and this seems to be the consensus regarding IDing deeper objects, the coppers and silvers tend to drop a tone or half a tone. But this has happened only a few times and it could be attributed to other things in the ground nearby. The Golden, like all Tesoros (I hear), LOVES coins! It eats them up, after you have put in a few hours you notice the difference when the machine sounds off on a coin. This is a park and school yard machine and it is very good for these locations.
But your questions are mostly about the notch and so I will share what I have experienced so far. The Notch AND the two middle tones is what makes this machine so unique in my opinion. When I use the notch feature in the "wide" setting, I can avoid almost all pulltabs, screw caps and zincs, but when the notch is set this way, you will also miss some gold as well as some older coins like some of the Indian heads.
But even with the notch on, if you set your disc just above iron, you should still be able to detect a nickel and any gold that is close to the nickel in conductivity. I just found a gold ring this way... Thought I was digging a nickel, turned out to be a gold ring. With the notch off or on, I dig all signals except two... The clear low tone and the clear upper middle tone. The upper middle tones, when clear, not mixed, seem to always be zincs or the two wholes pull tabs or a screw cap.
With the notch off, you can use the the Notch width nob to adjust how the machine sounds off on the middle range targets. On my machine, I can make the nicel sound off with the upper middle tone with the notch width set all the way counter clock wise (wide open), or give it a mixed middle tone sound, or set the nob from about 2 o,clock or narrower and the nickel makes a clearer lower middle tone. I say clearer because I have found that sometimes, depending on depth, the ground, or something else in the ground, the nickel will sound off with a mixed middle tone.
Some have said they can hunt with the notch off and use the notch width control to make a pulltab sound broken or mixed to separate how they sound off from good targets like nickels or gold. To this I would say yes and no. "Yes" because take a particular pulltab and this can be done, "no" because there are too many styles and alloys of pulltabs in the ground and so you simply cannot set the machine to ID all pulltabs from other targets.
I could be wrong about all this, and I still need to learn a lot about this machine, but this is what I have observed thus far. When I first got the golden, I only wanted to hunt with the notch on, but by doing this, I was not giving myself the opportunity to learn the nuances of the middle tones and I still need to learn how to use the notch width adjustment to my fullest advantage.
Get the Golden, you will love it. Again, it is not a depth demon, but for parks and school yards, or sports fields, I think it is hard to beat.
Paul of Ohio
