Need advice on purchase of MD for wife.

[LuvinRetirement]

Hi All,
I am a newbie to this hobby as of February with my purchase of a DFX. My wife now wants her own MD and I am considering the X-Terra 70 with several coils for her. Is that a good choice for the money or should I consider another MD in that price range? We want to do all types of MD-ing (coins, jewelry, relics, prospecting, beach hunting). Please help me with the pros and cons.
Thanks,
-LuvinRetirement

 

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[MrMorph]

I purchased an Xterra70 a month ago and i love it. I can't speak for other brands but I really enjoy mine. I just wish our ground here in Louisiana wasn't so hard (like rock). I know there is lots of stuff there, I just can't get the backhoe in there.

 

[John (Ma)]

I think the White's M6 would be a nice choice and is compatable with the DFX duties and you can stay with the stock coil that will treat you well.

 

[Keppy]

Hi, I like minelab detectors i own one...... to me the hold back on the X-terra detectors for me is why i never got one is....When you want to hunt for something diffrent you have to change coils when i hunt something diffrent i like to just push a button.Minelabs Quattro is a 28 Frequency detector and Minelabs Sovereign is a 17 Frequency detector with out changing coils..........Just call me lazy...........BUT I LIKE THAT GARRETT..ACE 250............

 

[Sandman]

If your wife is really interested in detecting with you or even on her own you should get her a DFX also. This way you can learn from each other while you hunt and she won't feel like she only gets the second best detector. It might mean the difference in the meals she fixes for you too. It will cut the cost on the amount of coils you'll need too.

There are of course other fine detectors for newbies but I will stick with my original idea. The DFX's will work fine on the dry sand and in the wet you can use the salt mode. If you run into black sand in the wet sand, it may act erratic. Beach environments are rough on land detectors and you may wish to use a dedicated water detector for beach hunting and then you can also get the whole thing wet when a wave knocks you over.

 

[LuvinRetirement]

Thanks everyone for your inputs. It is hard to make a decision because there does not seem to be an overall perfect MD. It sounds like each of the detectors is a compromise ... good for some applications and not so good for other applications. I have so little experience at this hobby that I still don't quite know which MD to get my wife. I guess that I just need to keep reading posts on this forum to learn from those with the experience. Thanks again for your thoughts.
-LuvinRetirement

 

[Keppy]

If your wife is really interested in detecting with you or even on her own you should get her a DFX also. This way you can learn from each other while you hunt and she won't feel like she only gets the second best detector. It might mean the difference in the meals she fixes for you too. It will cut the cost on the amount of coils you'll need too.

There are of course other fine detectors for newbies but I will stick with my original idea. The DFX's will work fine on the dry sand and in the wet you can use the salt mode. If you run into black sand in the wet sand, it may act erratic. Beach environments are rough on land detectors and you may wish to use a dedicated water detector for beach hunting and then you can also get the whole thing wet when a wave knocks you over.

That's good Sandman the part about your wife thinking she got the second best detector.....Yes you should get her the same detector you use untill she knows what is what....good..good...

 

[Ron B]

Hello Luvin!
Congrats on retiring; enjoy life!

I'm with the others suggesting you purchase two of the same detectors; doing so makes perfect sense. The DFX is a good choice although I tend to be partial to the Minelab Explorer SE believing it capable of more "all important" depth. I own two and love the identical setups changing only coil sizes.

Detouring from the subject slightly, have you installed SunRay's In-line probe yet? If not, try it; you'll never detect without it (or them if you do buy two DFXs).

GRB

 

[LuvinRetirement]

Hi GRB,

Thanks for the inputs. I am so new at MD-ing that I think that I should learn from those who have been in MD-ing for a while like yourself before I putout more $. My DFX has a lot of options, which can be good or bad. It was confusing at first so I just used the factory programs. Now I am learning a little more about setting the options and am amazed at the capability of the DFX. For instance, it has one option that allows it to "learn" either to accept a particular object or "learn" to reject that object by passing the object under the coil. So if I am encountering a lot of brass nails at a site, I can have the DFX "learn" to reject all of those brass nails without rejecting good targets nearby.

That is a long-winded way of saying that I am considering the advice to simply get another DFX. I don't want my wife to think that I am buying her an inferior machine (and I don't know if an XT70 is an inferior or superior machine to a DFX) because sleeping in the back yard is a little uncomfortable.

Regarding the SunRay's In-line probe, I am not familiar with it. I will have to do some googling on that.

Thanks for your inputs. I am finding this to be a great forum for a newbie to learn MD-ing.

-LuvinRetirement

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

It is hard to make a decision because there does not seem to be an overall perfect MD. It sounds like each of the detectors is a compromise ... good for some applications and not so good for other applications.
-LuvinRetirement

Look at Metal Detecting like golf, fishing, wood working or hunting. Do you use a different club when you golf or do you use the same club all the time? If you go fishing do you use the same rod, reel and tackle for deep sea that you use for fishing in farm ponds? What about wood working, do you use a straight hand saw as the only tool for building say an entertainment center or do you have table saws, circular saws and so on. Do you hunt, would you use the same gun for hunting quail, that you would use for hunting deer, elk, or a mountain goat.?

Detectors are just tools, different tools for different applications.

 

[Doctor Detroit]

Listen to the Sandman. I have a DFX and love it for land hunting. I can't imagine you not wanting your wife to have a top of the line detector like the one your using.

 

[LuvinRetirement]

Thanks for the inputs, Doctor Detroit. I have a feeling that you are right. My only concern is whether the DFX will be a decent gold nugget shooter in Arizona, since we like to snowbird there for the winter. I tried my DFX on the Rich Hill gold fields in February just after I got into this hobby. It didn't work at all in the "Prospecting" mode because it made a constant loud noise as I moved the coil across the ground. I knew nothing about adjusting the DFX at that time. Now I have a little knowledge on the DFX adjustments so I will try it again when we leave Washington State for Arizona.

My wife and I use the DFX here in WA for coins and jewelry. It is a great MD for that.

-LuvinRetirement

 

[rjnail]

get her one that you like to have as a back up, that way if she ends up not wanting to hunt any more, then you have a backup that you like, i get her the excalibur 1000,,, so you can go water hunting later.

 

[BuckleBoy]

Go all out--buy her a NEXUS!!! Deepest machine on the market. Period.

It's pricey, but hell, so is everything that rhymes with it...

like LEXUS

or

HIPPOPOTAMUS

You could go for the trifecta and get her all three



-Buckleboy

 

[midas777gold]

On getting a detector for the wife- do NOT get her a DFX if you use a DFX, cause the "Cross-Talk" is really bad. You can't get within 40 feet of each other without the detectors going haywire. Get her a different detector operating on a different frequency, so you can hunt together.
I talked with a tech at White's, and he said the original DFX design called for a frequency shift control like on the XLT, but it was inadvertently omitted on the production DFX's. I huge oversight in my opinion.

 

[mastereagle22]

Thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth. Why not an Explorer? That way she has a top of the line machine like yours and you will both be working with different frequencies.

My real advice would be to look at Tesoro. They make a great machine. I have a Deleon and I find that it can keep up with anXLT with no problem. It is lightweight, balance is perfect and it is very easy to learn. If she wants to later she can trade up. The Cortes isn't a bad machine either, I just found the display to be a bit small for my tastes.