Larwar
Jr. Member
- Jul 23, 2014
- 99
- 77
- Detector(s) used
- A T Pro. Equinox 600
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
How low can you run your sensitivity, and still get depth and signal?
Sensitivity
- Thread starter Larwar
- Start date
adamBomb
Hero Member
- May 30, 2014
- 645
- 551
- Detector(s) used
-
Nox 700;
Past: Nox 600; CTX; CZ21; Excal II; White's DF;
920i Stealth Scoop
- Primary Interest:
- Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
Typically you want to run it as high as you can as depth is affected by sensitivity. So how low can you run it and still get depth? Do some tests to see how much depth you lose as you drop it. In beach modes you lose like 5 inches from 25 down to 20
- Jul 19, 2015
- 4,910
- 8,377
- Detector(s) used
- XP Deus with HF/x35 Coils and Mi6 Pinpointer/ML Equinox 600/800/ML Tarsacci MDT 8000 GPX 4800/Garrett ATX/Fisher F75 DST/Tek G2+/Delta/Whites MXT/Nokta Simplex/Garrett Carrot
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Actually, you want to run it only as high as you need to keep it stable, the default of 20 is just fine for most situations, and cranking it up much higher than 23 does not buy you much on depth and can really up the gain on noise. If you can actually run it up to 25 and not amplify ground noise or EMI (have been able to do this only at the beach under certain circumstances), then then go for it. But I really would not get overly obsessed about significant depth loss running it even below the default down to about 15 or 17, if necessary, to mitigate EMI AFTER you have noise cancelled. ML designed the default to be the sweet spot for the detector. The key is getting the machine to run quiet and maximize the ratio of the signal to the noise. I have not experienced the depth loss described above. Not sure you can squeeze that much additional depth above 20, especially if you factor in the fact that you are also raising the noise floor by amplifying both the signal and the noise. ML did a pretty good job with the defaults being optimal settings for 90% of circumstances. That being said, I would not go and unnecessarily lower sensitivity further than necessary to run stable, but sometimes lowering it is the right answer to gain stability and lower interference or to pick relatively shallow keepers out from amongst thick, shallow iron that would otherwise tend to overwhelm the machine (this is called "sifting") and you should not hesitate to do that if necessary. In Beach 1 I was finding nickels down to about 12 to 15 inches in wet sand with sensitivity at between 18 and 20. Sometimes less is more with this machine.
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Yes, run it where it's stable. If I get an "iffy" signal, I then run the sensitivity up temporarily and recheck the target. Almost always I get a much stronger signal and can determine whether I should dig or not. Going from 20 up the 24 really makes a difference on my machine when it comes to signal response on deep targets. YMMV! 
Normsel
Bronze Member
- Sep 10, 2012
- 1,191
- 813
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 1
- Detector(s) used
-
E-Trac
Equinox 800
Equinox 600
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
I have run sensitivity down as low as 15 in a trashy park and it seemed to separate the trash better but sometimes I just think i have hit on something and I would have probably found the same at a higher sensitivity setting. I experiment a lot but more often than not with the exception of discrimination I find the most using factory settings
- Jul 27, 2006
- 48,485
- 54,957
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab_Equinox_ 800 Minelab_CTX-3030 Minelab_Excal_1000 Minelab_Sovereign_GT Minelab_Safari Minelab_ETrac Whites_Beach_Hunter_ID Fisher_1235_X
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Run it as hot as you can AND STILL BE STABLE.
