I'm using the stock maroon whites that came with my XLT, and I always use headphones, should I upgrade to a better pair? Because I don't ever hear whisper soft sounds. If I go over a shallow target, that is a target that sounds good that's in my accepted discrimination, it's obviously loud in my headphones, if I pass over something deeper that's repeatable, I get the same sound, it's not whisper quiet, and sometimes if something is really deep and I get a loud good tone, but far from repeatable, I pinpoint it in all metal mode, dig, and most time there's nothing there. Any suggestions? I feel I know my machine well but never hear whisper quiet signals. Always wanted to know what other people consider whisper quiet. Thanks for any info!
Your question leaves a lot of information out that is required to provide a direct answer, so here are some questions for you:
1. do you have silent search 'ON'?
2. if silent search is 'OFF', how loud is your threshold? It should be as low as you can get it and still hear it. It should be a whisper itself.
3. is modulation 'ON'? If it is 'OFF', all targets will have the same volume.
The Royal GT headphones that you are using really aren't that bad. They have an extra long cord, which is nice. The muffs on the ear cups, while not genuine leather, are not the smooth, hard, plastic, or sweat soaked foam that really cheap headphones use. They are soft, supple, and relatively comfortable for long term wear. The speakers are fairly low resistance, which means that they can be very loud (not necessarily a good thing), the ear cups are empty, which gives everything a "hollow" sound (again, not good). The cord sheath is fairly brittle, and will split at the point it enters the headphones, letting the wires inside eventually break. And finally, the volume knobs are pretty inexpensive pots, and will introduce scratchiness pretty quickly.
Keeping in mind that pretty much all metal detecting headphones are built on safety ear muffs, it's easy to see that upgrading the Royal GT headphones is easy, and inexpensive. Simply opening them up and inserting high density foam into the cups will do wonders for the sound quality. And if you can solder at all, high quality 300 or 600 ohm speakers can be had for $5.00 each or less. Finally, the pots (volume knobs) can also be replaced with quality pots for less than $5.00 each as well. So, for $25.00 or less, you can have a set of headphones that are light weight, comfortable, and perform on the level of the Grey Ghosts, Sun Rays, and others.
