golden umax lovers only

[Detector Wars]

Here's the best advice I can give: Learn the tones, not the just the 4 different pitch. Sometimes I wish my Golden was single pitch, other times it's good that it's not!

The other best advice: don't worry about playing around with sensitivity to get depth, adjust the ground balance! For most hunting conditions, turn it all the way to one end (the end that gives more depth), adn leave it. You won't really need to mod an external GB, I keep mine at one end 99% of the time anyway!

The third equal best advice: The stock coil is very poor, hard to use and deal with. Whenever you're getting a detector, think about the coil it comes with, because if you have to get a second coil, that's the real cost. The Golden comes with a coil that you really shouldn't use, replace it. Any round coil or the cleansweep will be much, much better. I reccommend the 5.75" round concentric.

 

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[Hihosilver]

Not sure about your GB advise.

Here's the best advice I can give: Learn the tones, not the just the 4 different pitch. Sometimes I wish my Golden was single pitch, other times it's good that it's not!

The other best advice: don't worry about playing around with sensitivity to get depth, adjust the ground balance! For most hunting conditions, turn it all the way to one end (the end that gives more depth), adn leave it. You won't really need to mod an external GB, I keep mine at one end 99% of the time anyway!

The third equal best advice: The stock coil is very poor, hard to use and deal with. Whenever you're getting a detector, think about the coil it comes with, because if you have to get a second coil, that's the real cost. The Golden comes with a coil that you really shouldn't use, replace it. Any round coil or the cleansweep will be much, much better. I reccommend the 5.75" round concentric.

The golden does not have an external GB adjustment, only an internal pot that is very very sensitive. It is factory set. I would not mess with it unless you were hunting in an area with high mineralization and the factory setting was just not working. It is true that a good GB setting will improve depth, but it is a balance thing and adjusting this setting all the way to the right or left would not necessarily improve depth, unless the ground was so bad in your area that this is what it took to balance the machine. If anything, it will cause the detector to sound off and get chatty on minerals and the tiniest junk... So proceed with extreme caution with messing with the GB pot.

On the golden, you can eek out a little more depth buy doing three things, first, use as much sensitivity as the detector will allow before it becomes too chatty. Second, use as little discrimination as you can stand. With the golden, you get that nice low iron tone, so you could actually use the machine with the disc turned all the way down but that can get a little noisy in trashy, nail infested sites. But I noticed a good inch of more depth with the disc set as low as possible. Third, set your threshold at least to 12:00, for best depth. If you want to hear the deepest signals better, turn the threshold all the way clockwise, this super tunes the machine, but by doing this, even the tiniest signals will sound stronger than usual and you lose depth perception, I.e., all the signals sound the same as far as depth is concerned.

Just basing this on my own experience. Love the golden!

 

[woodknack]

On the golden, you can eek out a little more depth buy doing three things, first, use as much sensitivity as the detector will allow before it becomes too chatty. Second, use as little discrimination as you can stand. With the golden, you get that nice low iron tone, so you could actually use the machine with the disc turned all the way down but that can get a little noisy in trashy, nail infested sites. But I noticed a good inch of more depth with the disc set as low as possible. Third, set your threshold at least to 12:00, for best depth. If you want to hear the deepest signals better, turn the threshold all the way clockwise, this super tunes the machine, but by doing this, even the tiniest signals will sound stronger than usual and you lose depth perception, I.e., all the signals sound the same as far as depth is concerned.

Just basing this on my own experience. Love the golden!

Thats just how I planned on running it, if I find a good deal on one.
Can you tell us of some of your greatest finds with this machine?

 

[Backstrap80]

As stated above wood, 5" coil for me, I haven't put much time on my Golden Umax but own the compadre and love that coil sensitivity and the compadre in general. For me the Umax has become my compadre on steroids. I had the wide scan, and an option of the cleansweep, I chose the stock for the simple fact my local dealer showed me a very very simple beavertail vs gold ring trick, after getting the target under the coil he moved it back, the stock coil allowed the aluminum tab to disappear inches before the coils tip the ring did not. This was a visual demo on a board and quick.
The fella I got the machine from wanted me to buy the cleansweep and said depth is only about 3", while not bad in most soil, 3" wasn't good enough for me. Im hoping to add th 5" and get a tot lot killer. Im gonna go for depth and sensitivity to small items. I wish I could put the compadre coil on it. If it doesn't have increased depth or sensitivity over the compadre, off she goes. Im speaking in a dig everything situation, no scrim. I have another primary machine that finds plenty of gold.

 

[woodknack]

As stated above wood, 5" coil for me, I haven't put much time on my Golden Umax but own the compadre and love that coil sensitivity and the compadre in general. For me the Umax has become my compadre on steroids. I had the wide scan, and an option of the cleansweep, I chose the stock for the simple fact my local dealer showed me a very very simple beavertail vs gold ring trick, after getting the target under the coil he moved it back, the stock coil allowed the aluminum tab to disappear inches before the coils tip the ring did not. This was a visual demo on a board and quick.
The fella I got the machine from wanted me to buy the cleansweep and said depth is only about 3", while not bad in most soil, 3" wasn't good enough for me. Im hoping to add th 5" and get a tot lot killer. Im gonna go for depth and sensitivity to small items. I wish I could put the compadre coil on it. If it doesn't have increased depth or sensitivity over the compadre, off she goes. Im speaking in a dig everything situation, no scrim. I have another primary machine that finds plenty of gold.

keep us posted!

 

[Hihosilver]

So, thought I would resurrect this older thread on the Golden... why not! Has anybody been out with one lately? I recently acquired a 5 3/4 inch concentric coil and I love it on the golden micromax. I mainly use the 7" wides an, but this new concentric is powerful. It is easily one if not two inches deeper than the 7" wides can.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

With the small concentric, I noticed that you can crank the sensitivity full for extra depth and then trim the disc up just until the chatter stops (usually at Iron). My only issue is not having much time to get out this year.

 

[DiggerinVA]

Don't have a Golden, but I do have two of the 5 3/4 concentric coils....one for my Tejon and one for my Bandido 2. I love them for the trashier sites! Hihosilver, what is your thoughts on the 7" WS coil? Been thinking of getting one for my Bandido 2. Thanks.

 

[foiler]

I've had a 'golden' bout 2 years now. I'ts been a jewelry killer for my, particularly gold. It's takes a while to get the hang of it but it oes work if youhave the patience to dial it in. I've had the good fortune of experiencing 3 'goldens' from 2 other users and I've found that each machine is unique to itself in the dial positions to get the best effect. When I got my golden Umax I didn't have a manual. I'ts a pretty straight forward machine as most Tesoro's are but getting the separate tones on pulltabs to gold took a bit or trial and error. Had I own a manual it might of helped. Still wouldn't mind getting a copy. I'm not an expert on this machine but if anyone has questions I'll pass on my experience.

 

[Hihosilver]

Don't have a Golden, but I do have two of the 5 3/4 concentric coils....one for my Tejon and one for my Bandido 2. I love them for the trashier sites! Hihosilver, what is your thoughts on the 7" WS coil? Been thinking of getting one for my Bandido 2. Thanks.

DiggerinVA, I think the 7" wide scan is a great coil for separation in parks and around older homes where there is going to be a mix of junk under the coil. With my golden, I did not like the responses I was getting with the 9 x 8 OOR coil, I think it was because the search field under this coil was picking up more than one or two objects at once, and with a tone ID machine, I was getting a lot of mixed tones... it was confusing. The golden seemed like a totally different machine to me with that 7" WS. That thin blade of field detection under the WS coil enabled better tone ID, the machine ran smoother and the tones became more distinct. This is clearly because this coil does a great job with target separation. So, for a machine like the Outlaw or the Vaq, that is single tone, I think the small WS could would be a great choice in modern trashy sites. I say modern trashy because the widescan does occasionally fool me with rusty iron and bottle caps.

I don't know how the 7" SW will do depth wise on a machine with GB or more power like the Vaq, but I had my golden factory adjusted with my 7" WS, and I can get a quarter at 7" on really good conditions and maybe a dime at 5", just depends.

 

[Hihosilver]

I've had a 'golden' bout 2 years now. I'ts been a jewelry killer for my, particularly gold. It's takes a while to get the hang of it but it oes work if youhave the patience to dial it in. I've had the good fortune of experiencing 3 'goldens' from 2 other users and I've found that each machine is unique to itself in the dial positions to get the best effect. When I got my golden Umax I didn't have a manual. I'ts a pretty straight forward machine as most Tesoro's are but getting the separate tones on pulltabs to gold took a bit or trial and error. Had I own a manual it might of helped. Still wouldn't mind getting a copy. I'm not an expert on this machine but if anyone has questions I'll pass on my experience.

The tone adjust IS the great feature for this machine, as you say. I saved all my pulltabs, keeping one of each kind. Using these, I played with that notch width/tone adjust so that I can notch out almost all the tabs and still detect all the gold rings I own, as well as a filigree cross. These smaller gold items hit on the lower middle tone. I can also still hit a nickel with this setting so I know a medium sized ring might be detected as well.

I think the golden is great picking out the smaller gold items amidst the pulltabs. What I have not been able to do is notch out wadded up or balled up aluminum foil. These sound like nickels. No matter what settings you use, you must dig junk to find gold, but I think the golden helps eliminate a lot of the junk.

 

[doggoneitdignit]

DiggerinVA, I think the 7" wide scan is a great coil for separation in parks and around older homes where there is going to be a mix of junk under the coil. With my golden, I did not like the responses I was getting with the 9 x 8 OOR coil, I think it was because the search field under this coil was picking up more than one or two objects at once, and with a tone ID machine, I was getting a lot of mixed tones... it was confusing. The golden seemed like a totally different machine to me with that 7" WS. That thin blade of field detection under the WS coil enabled better tone ID, the machine ran smoother and the tones became more distinct. This is clearly because this coil does a great job with target separation. So, for a machine like the Outlaw or the Vaq, that is single tone, I think the small WS could would be a great choice in modern trashy sites. I say modern trashy because the widescan does occasionally fool me with rusty iron and bottle caps.

I don't know how the 7" SW will do depth wise on a machine with GB or more power like the Vaq, but I had my golden factory adjusted with my 7" WS, and I can get a quarter at 7" on really good conditions and maybe a dime at 5", just depends.

Hihosilver, great posts here on the Golden. From what you know from experience from your Outlaw single tone compared to your present detector the Golden micro..any regrets purchasing your Outlaw? Or would you say if you were to go back and do it again, what would you have purchase differently from Tesoro knowing your present machine is your go to machine. Not knocking the Outlaw for what it can do in comparison by any means to the Vaquero but what would your next machine be for your style of hunting?

 

[GreenMeanie]

I had the Golden Saber II and it was pretty neat after you got use to it. When you hit Silver you could tell by the warm tone it gave. I would have loved to see if the UMAX did the same thing.

 

[doggoneitdignit]

One going for eBay only 4 days left, 38 Bids already at US $406.00 these units still holding value I see, and expect it to increase.

 

[Hihosilver]

Hihosilver, great posts here on the Golden. From what you know from experience from your Outlaw single tone compared to your present detector the Golden micro..any regrets purchasing your Outlaw? Or would you say if you were to go back and do it again, what would you have purchase differently from Tesoro knowing your present machine is your go to machine. Not knocking the Outlaw for what it can do in comparison by any means to the Vaquero but what would your next machine be for your style of hunting?

Well I did not have a great deal of time on the Outlaw before I sold it. I only sold it because I needed some cash to cover a more important need at home and felt guilty about holding onto two expensive toys.

That being said, the Outlaw has a terrific discriminator that allows one to disc out copper pennies and clad dimes and still detect silver dimes and both clad and silver quarters. You sacrifice depth by setting the disc that high. But even with this feature, I would not by the Outlaw again if I had the chance... using the golden has spoiled me in wanting some form of fast target ID. I was thumbing the disc a lot on my outlaw until I just got tired of doing that and then I just started looking for quarters!

My next machine will be a Tesoro, I just like the analog and the nobs, they are light and just fun to use, and they do a great job of what they are designed to do. Two Tesoro's have my interest right now for a second detector... the Deleon and the Tejon. Both have a way to do some rapid target ID and yet they are single tone machines. There is guy out their on YouTube with an elaborate test garden and he uses a consistent scoring system to rank and compare various machines, both the Deleon and the Tejon rank fairly high on his test system. One would expect this from the Tejon, but the Deleon scores high even with its preset GB.

Unless Tesoro comes out with the rumored Cazador this spring, I will probably acquire one of these two... I am leaning towards the Deleon right now, but that dual disc on the Tejon is pretty cool, basically enabling you to create a "notch" as wide as you want, where you want... at least that is what I gather from what I have read.

I kind of like that Cortez as well, the screen is small, but you can GB in all metal mode and the target ID gives a number still while in all metal on the Cortez (Deleon as well, but with no GB feature).

I would also love to get and use the Pandero. It has the moveable notch with tone break and GB!

 

[doggoneitdignit]

Well I did not have a great deal of time on the Outlaw before I sold it. I only sold it because I needed some cash to cover a more important need at home and felt guilty about holding onto two expensive toys.

That being said, the Outlaw has a terrific discriminator that allows one to disc out copper pennies and clad dimes and still detect silver dimes and both clad and silver quarters. You sacrifice depth by setting the disc that high. But even with this feature, I would not by the Outlaw again if I had the chance... using the golden has spoiled me in wanting some form of fast target ID. I was thumbing the disc a lot on my outlaw until I just got tired of doing that and then I just started looking for quarters!

My next machine will be a Tesoro, I just like the analog and the nobs, they are light and just fun to use, and they do a great job of what they are designed to do. Two Tesoro's have my interest right now for a second detector... the Deleon and the Tejon. Both have a way to do some rapid target ID and yet they are single tone machines. There is guy out their on YouTube with an elaborate test garden and he uses a consistent scoring system to rank and compare various machines, both the Deleon and the Tejon rank fairly high on his test system. One would expect this from the Tejon, but the Deleon scores high even with its preset GB.

Unless Tesoro comes out with the rumored Cazador this spring, I will probably acquire one of these two... I am leaning towards the Deleon right now, but that dual disc on the Tejon is pretty cool, basically enabling you to create a "notch" as wide as you want, where you want... at least that is what I gather from what I have read.

I kind of like that Cortez as well, the screen is small, but you can GB in all metal mode and the target ID gives a number still while in all metal on the Cortez (Deleon as well, but with no GB feature).

I would also love to get and use the Pandero. It has the moveable notch with tone break and GB!

Interesting, I just did a post on the Golden Sabre II you may want to consider as a used model then the Pandera..They have a notch feature BUT the Pandera has the GB where the Golden Sabre II does not and uses a preset, and use the older ED120 circuitry. As far as myself I have a Vaquero Black with 11x8 and a 5.75 concentric, where I am steering towards a Tejon myself and have looked at scannerguy1961 to make my purchase with the Vaquero and I imagine with my 11x8 coil I come out with the same points he had done with the Deleon...with that said I would think about the Deleon as I just saw Terry Solomon point out that this would be the least detector he would go with..not saying it is a bad machine and don't want to steer you wrong but I would consider what you have and where you want to be... with that said the three Tesoro at this time in my arsenal would be the Black Vaq, the Black Tejon and the Compadre 8". I realize the Vaq would be very close to the Tejon and if I got my hands on a used Golden Sabre II or the Golden uMax I would likely have this as a close 4th detecor...now about the Cazador, I have been holding out on these two extra detectors (Tejon or Golden) as I have Garrett Ace 300 right now that is holding me up on my decision on the Tesoro Compadre 8" but will still likely buy this one day..

Never thought of the Tejon double discrimination as a Notch break between the two discrimination points seeting it as far as you like makes sense..good point!

I am caught between a rock and a hard place in choosing what 2 other Tesoro's to have in my arsenal now.

Great to here what you have mentioned in this post could not have come any sooner

 

[doggoneitdignit]

Well I did not have a great deal of time on the Outlaw before I sold it. I only sold it because I needed some cash to cover a more important need at home and felt guilty about holding onto two expensive toys.

That being said, the Outlaw has a terrific discriminator that allows one to disc out copper pennies and clad dimes and still detect silver dimes and both clad and silver quarters. You sacrifice depth by setting the disc that high. But even with this feature, I would not by the Outlaw again if I had the chance... using the golden has spoiled me in wanting some form of fast target ID. I was thumbing the disc a lot on my outlaw until I just got tired of doing that and then I just started looking for quarters!

My next machine will be a Tesoro, I just like the analog and the nobs, they are light and just fun to use, and they do a great job of what they are designed to do. Two Tesoro's have my interest right now for a second detector... the Deleon and the Tejon. Both have a way to do some rapid target ID and yet they are single tone machines. There is guy out their on YouTube with an elaborate test garden and he uses a consistent scoring system to rank and compare various machines, both the Deleon and the Tejon rank fairly high on his test system. One would expect this from the Tejon, but the Deleon scores high even with its preset GB.

Unless Tesoro comes out with the rumored Cazador this spring, I will probably acquire one of these two... I am leaning towards the Deleon right now, but that dual disc on the Tejon is pretty cool, basically enabling you to create a "notch" as wide as you want, where you want... at least that is what I gather from what I have read.

I kind of like that Cortez as well, the screen is small, but you can GB in all metal mode and the target ID gives a number still while in all metal on the Cortez (Deleon as well, but with no GB feature).

I would also love to get and use the Pandero. It has the moveable notch with tone break and GB!

Interesting, I just did a post on the Golden Sabre II you may want to consider as a used model then the Pandera..They have a notch feature BUT the Pandera has the GB where the Golden Sabre II does not and uses a preset, and use the older ED12 circuitry. As far as myself I have a Vaquero Black with 11x8 and a 5.75 concentric, where I am steering towards a Tejon myself and have looked at scannerguy1968 to make my purchase with the Vaquero and I imagine with my 11x8 coil I would come out with the same points he had done with the Deleon...



with that said I would think about the Deleon as I just saw Terry Solomon point out that this would be the least of the Tesoro detectors in ones line up if one where to choose that he would go with most often..not saying it is a bad machine and don't want to steer you wrong but I would consider what you have and where you want to be... with that said the three Tesoro at this time in my arsenal would be the Black Vaq, the Black Tejon and the Compadre 8". I realize the Vaq would be very close to the Tejon and if I got my hands on a used Golden Sabre II or the Golden uMax I would likely have this as a close 4th detecor...now about the Cazador, I have been holding out on these two extra detectors (Tejon or Golden) as I have Garrett Ace 300 right now..

I am caught between a rock and a hard place in choosing what 2 other Tesoro's to have in my arsenal now.

Great to here what you have mentioned in this post could not have come any sooner

 

[Hihosilver]

Yes, thats the video of the test garden I was talking about. Strange about Terry's comments. Rusty highly recommended the Deleon... but we shall see. I read somewhere else that the new Tesoro was coming soon, maybe that means this spring? I cannot imagine it will not have some form of target ID (tones with GB would be awesome!).

I did not menation it before but, one of the really nice things about the Tejon is that it does not seem to lose depth with a high disc setting.

 

[nagant]

I have a golden with a extra 4 inch coil i bought in 2002! Got a compadre to lure some friends to come along. Anyway if i haven't used it for a while it takes a few hours to get it down pat. After that i can guess what I'm digging about 80%. Trashy area's were tough but the little 4 inch helps there. That 7 inch WS sounds interesting. I hunt a lot of old swimming holes so lead sinkers/pull tabs were tough with the ancient detector i had before. My Umax has the original tone settings but never knew anything about the change, no biggie. Was really dismayed about the golden being discontinued, nuff said. The compadre is easy to use, decent depth so i take my grandson now.

 

[GreenMeanie]

They should really bring back the golden UMAX and make it a little hotter on the SENS.
I really think it would sell just as good as the others do now.

 

[Hihosilver]

Time to resurrect this thread with a coil question. I have tried the 8” brown doughnut coil on the Golden, and to be honest, I really don’t like it any better than the 9 x 8 OOR that it came with. I prefer the 7” WS, and it is going back on ASAP. But, kind of wondering, given how well the 7” WS works, how the 8.5 WS would perform? For those who have used both on a fixed GB Tesoro, does the 8.5 detect a little deeper?