What's the point of iron audio?

ChaseJax

Jr. Member
Nov 28, 2016
38
5
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting

mlutz

Full Member
Dec 20, 2016
167
174
Virginia
Detector(s) used
Garrett AT Pro
Garrett Pro Pinpointer
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
In case you are looking for iron? I was in an area a few weeks ago known to hold a ton of iron so I turned my discrim to 10. That was when we found the axle to a wagon.
I was hoping to find a gun barrel or something though. No joy on that part.
 

maxxkatt

Jr. Member
Jul 16, 2015
38
18
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
eliminating bottle caps

Trying to better understand the at pro and only have YouTube videos to help me maybe y'all can help clear this up for me...

I'm not understanding the point of iron audio. If you can discriminate it where you don't even hear it so you don't have to dig it up, why would you want to hear it?

My understanding from many bottle cap related posts is that you hunt with iron discm at 40 to not hear all the iron. but when you get a beer or coke bottle cap signal on the AT pro you then turn iron audio on and if you hear some iron audio tones it is likely a bottle cap and not a coin. A coin by itself will not give you an iron tone. anyone correct me if I have got this wrong because I don't want to steer someone in the wrong direction.
 

Dr. Witty

Hero Member
Jan 8, 2015
535
809
Upstate NY
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
1
Detector(s) used
Makro Racer 2 and Makro Kruzer
Garrett Carrot pro-pointer AT
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
My understanding from many bottle cap related posts is that you hunt with iron discm at 40 to not hear all the iron. but when you get a beer or coke bottle cap signal on the AT pro you then turn iron audio on and if you hear some iron audio tones it is likely a bottle cap and not a coin. A coin by itself will not give you an iron tone. anyone correct me if I have got this wrong because I don't want to steer someone in the wrong direction.

This is how i generally use the iron audio on/off feature. When I get a signal that i'm not too sure about i can turn the iron audio on to give me more information about the target.
 

mark.orwig

Tenderfoot
Jul 26, 2016
8
3
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
This is how i generally use the iron audio on/off feature. When I get a signal that i'm not too sure about i can turn the iron audio on to give me more information about the target.

yep same here although i generally check every signal with iron audio before i dig because well, i'm getting old and my back hurts too much ;-)
 

Opie

Sr. Member
Aug 27, 2013
274
173
Primary Interest:
Other
Iron Audio, provides you with an opinion from the detector. If the detector has a possible issue with the target id, it will grunt or give a lower pitch to the high pitch. Its the detector saying "Its right for a good target, but the conductivity is a bit off."
Maxx is giving some good information on the basic use, check your area on the discrimination some soils will conduct different. I can tell you from experience don't ignore a target because it sound off, I found a pocket drop of some old coins and right below it was a line of very old barb fencing that had almost rusted to nothing. You could see the rusty soil line in the plugs.
Good luck!!
 

Dug

Bronze Member
Feb 18, 2013
1,138
1,263
SC Lowcountry
Detector(s) used
XP Deus/Sovereign GT.
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
When I go scouting in the deep woods I turn my discrimination all the way down. I want to start finding iron pieces or nails, let's me know I am getting close to an occupied location. Once I'm in the site I roll my discrimination up enough just to cause the detector to have broken signals on the nails. I also like to dig up sheets of metal because you never know what good targets the metal may have been shielding underneath.
 

doggoneitdignit

Hero Member
Oct 2, 2016
747
374
Canada
Detector(s) used
Current: Vaquero,Compadre,T2,300i, ML 440V, and Simplex+
Past:Whites 4000 D Series 3, Radio Shack 3001 Micronta
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Western And Eastern Treasure Magazine March issue has a good report on the 400i and iron audio feature if you like to read up on this, to me with the 300i, not worried if I should have gone the 400i route I am happy with mine, but if it comes to bottle caps there is a good read on that for why you may want this...:occasion14:
 

Gilthorn

Newbie
Feb 16, 2017
3
0
Detector(s) used
Garrett AT PRO
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I just got my first detector so am obviously very new to it. Not positive if this is the right place to post, but I have an audio question as well - 2 actually.

1. Even with my iron discrim turned to 35 or so, I still feel like I get a lot of iron beeps that are reading, 15, 20, 22, etc. Am I just seeing the low readings pop up with no sound and confusing the sound for some other junk hits of 40 or something?

2. Why does the detector so often give pings of 85, 90, 99 over quick passes, but then back down to 50-60 or lower on the slow passes? Is that just the way it works that if you go too fast over bad targets it will give lots of different and false reading?

Thanks
 

Gilthorn

Newbie
Feb 16, 2017
3
0
Detector(s) used
Garrett AT PRO
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I just got my first detector so am obviously very new to it. Not positive if this is the right place to post, but I have an audio question as well - 2 actually.

1. Even with my iron discrim turned to 35 or so, I still feel like I get a lot of iron beeps that are reading, 15, 20, 22, etc. Am I just seeing the low readings pop up with no sound and confusing the sound for some other junk hits of 40 or something?

2. Why does the detector so often give pings of 85, 90, 99 over quick passes, but then back down to 50-60 or lower on the slow passes? Is that just the way it works that if you go too fast over bad targets it will give lots of different and false reading?

Thanks
 

ohiochris

Full Member
May 6, 2009
182
48
Even without iron audio turned on the detector gives an easily recognizable " iron " tone for MOST standard iron objects , so iron audio is NOT needed to find iron. But a certain percentage of iron/steel objects can fool the detector because of size or shape ( like bottle caps ) and give a good sounding high tone. This is what iron audio was designed for , a different discrimination function used for testing possibly misidentified targets for iron content , as the Garrett videos show.
 

Geobound

Hero Member
Feb 21, 2017
614
867
Ontario
Detector(s) used
XP Deus (2019)
Fisher CZ-21 (2019)
CTX 3030 (April 2017)
AT Pro
Garrett Carrot
Pro Pointer
Stavr Scoop Moonstrik 6
Stealth 720i (BNIB)
Home made beach scoop
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I just got my first detector so am obviously very new to it. Not positive if this is the right place to post, but I have an audio question as well - 2 actually.

1. Even with my iron discrim turned to 35 or so, I still feel like I get a lot of iron beeps that are reading, 15, 20, 22, etc. Am I just seeing the low readings pop up with no sound and confusing the sound for some other junk hits of 40 or something?

2. Why does the detector so often give pings of 85, 90, 99 over quick passes, but then back down to 50-60 or lower on the slow passes? Is that just the way it works that if you go too fast over bad targets it will give lots of different and false reading?

Thanks


1) You may have your discrimination set to 35, but if you have the iron audio button turned on then it will still beep.

2) You are probably swinging to fast, or arcing your swing. Slow down and flatten it out.

I would also suggest using the Pro mode and not the standard mode. This will help you find more targets, but also help illuminate that high tone beep that you hear all the time.

I hope that helps?
 

Andy Nunez

Full Member
Nov 19, 2015
190
156
Maryland's Eastern Shore
Detector(s) used
Minelab Vanquish 540 or Garrett Ace 400 with a Cors Cannon coil and Z-lynk, Predator Piranha shovel, White's TRX pinpointer.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I find the iron audio very useful on iffy targets. I have the Ace 400 and I typically set my discrimination to 40 when not hunting where I think tiny gold items will be (like fields). Around old house sites the iron audio will be on almost constantly and drain your battery, so I use it as sort of a "house site detector". When the iron audio becomes frequent or near constant, I switch it off and slow down. If a target reads good in all four directions and sounds small in pinpoint, I usually dig it. If it sounds big or the ID has wild swings on the vdi, I switch on the iron audio, slow down further and let the detector examine things better. This weekend I was at a heavily iron-seeded site, so I slowed down, let the detector talk to me and only dug three pieces of iron that fooled me (typically 8 inches deep or more that sounded small in pinpoint but were really big), plus two nails that were in holes with non-ferrous targets. In return I dug over a dozen "good targets" among the iron, almost all of them lower than typical copper coin signals (7 flat buttons of various sizes including 2 Tombac, two picker check tokens, another item that is so worn that it might be a coin or a token, about the same size, three pieces of horse tack including a plated piece, some costume jewelry and other odd things like brass rivets and copper wire. I am using the Cors Cannon, which is a big coil, but it separated OK. Would have been better if I had the 5 x 8, I guess, but money is funny, so I go with what I got. The iron audio is one of the features (along with the numerical vdi and frequency shifter) that sold me on the 400.
 

fortaleza

Jr. Member
Jun 15, 2013
78
75
Northern Illinois, Fortaleza Brazil
Detector(s) used
Garrett AT Pro, Tesoro Mojave, Garrett Ace 250, 2 Garrett Pro Pointers gotta have a backup
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I use the iron audio down here in Brazil all the coins come up in the 5 up to 30 on the vdi. I use the ATpro on dry,wet,and surf sand with no real problems. I go to the beach a lot and some of the coins are corroded also lots of junk.
 

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