With an 8" coil on the Tesoro Sand Shark, you can get the same depth as an Excalibur running a 15" coil in "All Metal." There is a HUGE difference.
Hi Terry, first of all just let me say, now i recognized u well from your teaching videos on YouTube, One of the best teachers I've seen so far, u know ur stuffs very good.
what i have in mind right now will probably be long to put it together and explain what i think, but plz bare with me.
I worked for Rogers, cellphone company for over 3-4 years, and am very aware of marketing strategies and the in and out of the business. what i see so far, is that Minelab looks to me like Motorola. Always have the most hi-end technology, Most expensive gear, but they are poor on testing their products before hand and had the most defects and comebacks for reparations I've ever witnessed. i honestly hate that, ur paying big bucks on what is supposed to be top notch quality, but in reality a simple motherboard, a couple of plastic tubes, I don't know what their shafts are made of, but seen Anderson offering a light model with fiber carbon and more suitable also for diving. the headphones is something acknowledged by most reviews I've seen to be total garbage, and if you wanna change the inline headphones connectors, a small plastic cover with a connector, an o-ring and 2 wires MOD costs 70-80$ usd not including shipping from UK. A spare lithium battery not bigger than 2 x 18650 rechargable battery cost 160-210$ (depending of your area). Knobs also seem to be a big problem as they tend to brake. Now while also taking in consideration the regular Don Joe usage and how much maintenance and care one puts into it, it comes at a really expensive price on the long run. And i cannot emphasize on how much i hate any company who act like such. Why not just selling the main unit compartment and let people buy the rest ?! I have no idea how much Mods cost, but in all, in 2-3 years of service, wish most of the time your rubber cables and headphones, knobs, etc.....haven't yet broken under UV light the first year, this thing could litteraly cost 3000$ +.
Unless you into luxury resorts area or a good spot so to speak, good luck making your money back. And i also find it very sad that the market is heading this ways and customers don't stand their ground to demand better or at least a reasonable warranty and/or product quality to what they paid for.
I Am also tempted by the FBS/BBS technology as i believe it will lead me to more targets, and especially if I can discriminate them, I don't care how much deep i goes as much as how much ground i can cover, and discriminating iron is a major plus.
What made me hesitate about the Tesoro Sand Shark are 3 primary things.
1- the lifetime warranty is not interchangeable in case of a secondary owner, the base unit cable itself is not under warranty from tears, wish is one of the most sensitive areas where cable will flex and be under use.
2- In my area, we don't have much of a towel line, people usually hangs in a restaurant on top of the dry sand, with tables etc....so i have like 80% of dry sand to cover compared to the wet sand area. Also our beaches are not flat, even with a high tide, it's like at a 30% degree angle, water don't go up much, as the government made sure to fill it with a lot of sand to protect properties on the other side of the beach, so I'm worried about the performance of the tesoro on dry sand.
3- The SS battery compartment has the pcb board and wires exposed compared to the Garrett Sea hunter, a single drop of water in there, and your doomed.
With that being said, i do feel kinda forced to buy and excal because I think it's performance will be "overall" better for the environment I'm in.
i just gotta make sure i daily treat it like a baby. on our mexican style ebay called "mercadolibre", they sell silicone in grease, liquid and spray form 1,2,4.4 pounds. A 2Kg (4.4lbs) cost about 100$, don't know about the other formats.
I'm slowly starting to head toward the Excalibur 2, with the special earphones connection mod to start with, (make sure i don't get stuck with a useless unit coz the earphones won't work later, would cost less then repairing it) if it's still available, coz minelab also don't hold old inventory pieces/stock unfortunately to start with, eventually if i make some finds and money, I'll slowly upgrade it and buy and extra battery, custom shafts, etc.....
What's your thoughts about it plz ? I also do appreciate all your feedbacks and help, I'm just trying to do what seems best for me as a long term solution.
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