Going to submersible headphones from land headphones AT Pro ... sound difference?

[flgliderpilot]

Adjusting to the different sound of submersible headphones?

I finally decided to replace my land headphones with the blue Garrett submersible headphones since I've been primarily hunting in the salt water..

The salt killed my land headphones, I ended up bypassing the volume knobs entirely, and sealing the speaker vents with packing tape, and the holes with RTV. They now work great, but the rust was getting pretty bad, and they were not water poof only water resistant (no dunking the head int he water to see whats there).

Now that I have the water headphones I find the sounds of my AT Pro so different I feel like I'm having problems identifying trash that I previously recognized .. for example a bottle cap had a sharp click on each side before the iron sound, and pennies had a sharp "kerplink" sound. Now pennies sound like quarters (I can only here the "plink") and bottle caps sound like solid iron instead of that unique "it's a bottle cap" sound.

I'm not complaining about the quality of the headphones, there are sacrifices that need to be made to make headphones go down to 200ft, but for those of you who made the switch on an AT Pro, did you eventually get used to the difference in sound?

Interestingly I don't find them uncomfortably loud. Maybe I'm already deaf!

 

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[ron lord]

what kind of headphones did you get ??

 

[flgliderpilot]

Hey Ron,

decided to replace my land headphones with the blue Garrett submersible headphones

I did some more experimenting today, and I think I can adjust... I think it was the frequency of the tones that threw me more than anything. They are all shifted up. The iron low tone sounds more like a buzz than a low grunt... just weird at first I guess.

 

[Sandman]

Like all detectors your going to have to learn the sounds again. Personally you couldn't pay me enough $$$ to waste my time using an ATP at a saltwater beach.

 

[flgliderpilot]

Like all detectors your going to have to learn the sounds again. Personally you couldn't pay me enough $$$ to waste my time using an ATP at a saltwater beach.

I respect your experience, but have you hunted a Florida beach with one?

Yeah I could us a PI machine and dig every piece of iron flake from the sunken barge off shore (they are scattered everywhere). My hunting buddy uses a CZ-21 and as far as I can tell we are equal on finds, and depth. We've buried rings to verify max dept in wet sand, and the results were similar. Be both have a need to disc out iron from above mentioned barge.

He sold his PI after the frustration of digging iron flakes.

50 out of 60 hits are iron flakes, which I can identify by the sound they give off on my ATP, so I don't dig them.

I have no problem identifying good targets in the water... yes my max depth is around 10" but that's a simple problem to solve.

There ARE beaches where my ATP won't cooperate, but for now I just avoid those beaches.

 

[Sandman]

I respect your experience, but have you hunted a Florida beach with one?

Yeah I could us a PI machine and dig every piece of iron flake from the sunken barge off shore (they are scattered everywhere). My hunting buddy uses a CZ-21 and as far as I can tell we are equal on finds, and depth. We've buried rings to verify max dept in wet sand, and the results were similar. Be both have a need to disc out iron from above mentioned barge.

He sold his PI after the frustration of digging iron flakes.

50 out of 60 hits are iron flakes, which I can identify by the sound they give off on my ATP, so I don't dig them.

I have no problem identifying good targets in the water... yes my max depth is around 10" but that's a simple problem to solve.

There ARE beaches where my ATP won't cooperate, but for now I just avoid those beaches.

Years ago I hunted them. Most FL beaches have no black sand an are mineral free except for the salt. The first ATP's were to hot and the later ones are toned down.

 

[dewcon4414]

We do get concentrations of sea weed with black sand near the surf and high tide...... but yes for the most part compared to other beaches we have lower mineralization. Ill be corrected if im wrong, but land phones have speakers and the water ones use the piezos and they are surrounded by some sort of epoxy to make them water tight. That affects their movement and muffles the sound. So it can make every pair sound a little different. GGA .... some like um some think they change the tones to much.

 

[fongu]

I've never used the blue headphones, but bought some of the grey ghost or whatever the name is that is submersible an they are louder than the stock headphones with the garrets and are tighter on the ears. Long as I have a hoodie or my wetsuit hood on, it doesn't bother me. Guess it has to fit tighter to be used under water. Haven't used my equipment hardly 8-10 hours this year and forget what all the names are.

 

[flgliderpilot]

Nah... these headphones are just not going to work for the AT pro.

I found it impossible to determine the subtle differences in volume in pro mode. The faint tones and loud tones all sound nearly the same, and the iron and mid tones are very close also. It really all sounds like the same mid range buzzing sound with a high ping thrown in. The frequency range is just too narrow. Maybe I'm going deaf who knows. I can barely get through my test bed and I already know whats there.

If my first experience with the AT Pro had been with underwater headphones I'd have never wanted one that's for sure!

These would be fine for a PI machine though...