Monte, unfortunately, I already owned a Golden Sabre II. It did not perform up to spec like the Golden Sabre plus, in fact the audio and depth of my Golden Sabre II were so bad that they put me off buying any Tesoro machines for the last 7 years. Would you recommend any of the newer machines? Pantera is ok but is awfully old and hard to find and maintain. It took me three years to find a used Golden Sabre Plus on the internet, now I have the machine but with a bad coil. The Tesoro engineers tell me the brown coil is the same as the old white coil but I have the air depth tests (performed by me personally) to prove otherwise. The brown coil gave usually 1" less depth on dimes and almost 2" less on quarters, nickels about 1" too less. I think the impedance of the brown coil is different than the white. The input terminals of the GS plus are matched to the white coil impedance, not the brown coil impedance. This impedance mismatch is leading to the decreased depth, I believe. So, I need the old white coil, not having luck finding one on ebay though. If pantera uses these old parts that I can't get, I'm in the same boat if I buy it.
How's the Golden Sabre micro max? It has to be at least as good as the Sabre II. How come you didn't recommend it...since it is newer and much lighter. Supposedly, it should theoretically have the same or at least similar design as the GS II, right?
