I was trying to inject a little humor into the subject with my reply since you seemed to be genuinely PO'd at Whites for the MXS rollout. However, I am glad you that you chose to answer my question in a serious manner. I sent my MXS off for the upgrade/fix after having only put a few hours into the machine as it appeared they had gotten a handle on their turnaround issues and further tweaks were not being mentioned. I have not had a chance to get much quality time in with the machine since I got it back from Whites. My perspective on the machine is a little different than yours since I did not have direct MXT experience and therefore had little preconceived notions on performance. I did, however, fall prey to the notion that the MXS was a repackaged MXT All Pro with updated electronics and programming with the added benefit of being a weatherproof/wading machine that could rival the AT Pro. I was impressed with a hunting partner's relic recovery performance using an MXT in challenging soil conditions so I thought I would take a chance on the MXS, which Whites was touting as continuing the MX line legacy (uh, yeah). Besides, I liked the large, readable panel layout vs. the AT Pro and the AM and relic programs. To be honest, I was not that concerned with Depth performance or recovery speed but I also did not find that they were lacking performance attributes even upon initial use with the new, unmodified MXS. If I needed a machine for challenging, trashy conditions or needed extraordinary depth performance, I could always turn to my XP Deus (best all around machine), ATX (depth and PI resilience in bad soil), or F75 (great recovery and coil options for coin shooting vs. the Deus) as the situation warranted. The MXS filled the bill as a good all around machine that was waterproof, VLF, and light (i.e., definitely not an ATX). After some lackluster hunts, I decided to send it in for its upgrade.
I agree with you that it is no MXT based on what I have seen and experienced and am frankly seriously looking at possibly getting an MXT for relic hunting. Since I have the luxury of having specific machines for specific purposes, the MXS lack of performance at the very fringes of detector capability (deep target detection, insane recovery speed) do not disappoint me, but I understand your frustration based on what Whites purported to deliver with the MXS (their constant nods to the MXT legacy in the promotional materials). However, I do find your discussion of how Whites may be overdriving the coil sensitivity gain to be something that I would like to explore further because you may be on to something. Based on your passionate response backed up by first hand experience, significant hours spent on the MXS (vs. those that chose to return the thing after one or two outings) and details spelled out in your posts, I believe you are not out to just bash the MXS but really want Whites to address the issues. However, you may continue to be disappointed by the reviews of those first time Whites users (like me!) or those getting an MXS as their first or second detector as they will not have your perspective with other Whites machines such as the MXT so it is unlikely that they will give it poor reviews since I don't think it was necessarily unusable out of the box even with the first version of firmware. In other words, the "honest" reviews praising the machine may be coming from folks that are truly happy with their MXS experience or do not know what they may be missing because they have not experienced the performance variations that come from using a variety of detectors. Also, there may be some who DO have experience with both the MXT and MXS and enjoy both machines. A prominent TNET poster who likes to link to their poipular You Tube MD videos are avid Whites users and have nothing but good things to say about both machines. So go figure. I do plan to do some air tests to see how the gain adjust drives depth performance to see if it is "plateauing out" starting with mid gain settings. This may indeed be the issue that is causing your machine to not be usable in salt water above Gain=3. Take care and thanks for taking the time to get your first hand experience based info on the MXS out to forum.