MX Sport 1st impression & More

I will say that it came at a very bad time for me. I've been battling a stubborn kidney stone for about 3 weeks now and have been sent home from work 2x so far vomiting and practically laying in the floor. At any rate, the most recent episode was the night before the Sport arrived. All I have felt like doing thus far is opening the box, assembling it, and air testing a few items.

1. Whites done a great job at the layout of this machine. The menu is easy to navigate and settings are pretty much straight forward. If you have ever hunted with a Spectrum, DFX, or V3i, then you will know that Whites has been notorious for perhaps putting too many options in a menu, with pages and pages, and sub pages to go through to find everything...and therefore you get lost in the settings and are always wondering if you have it set right or not. The MX Sport is not like that. You don't have as many options as you would with a V3i or DFX, but from what I see, you have everything you need to handle most situations you are going to run into in the field; and it doesn't take 10 minutes to scroll through a menu to find what you wanna change. So thumbs up on that part of things.

2. The detector is a bit on the hefty side as far as weight goes. It is nothing like an Explorer or eTrac in weight but it's not a Tesoro either. It actually reminds me a lot of the Minelab CTX from the grip angle and design and menu functions. It should be perfect for water hunting but not a bear to swing on dry land either.

3. I like the tones! The videos I had watched of it made me question this. It seems that the Whites videos when they were using it, they were using it with 1 tone. The 8 tone and 20 tone options are a bit busy for my liking but the 2 and 4 tone modes are great. They spaced the tones out pretty good in 2 tone mode so there is no second guessing what you heard. The 4 tones are the same way. This one has the updated firmware so there is no long drag out on the tones.

4. It air tests decent in disc mode. It's not the best machine I've air tested but it's no slouch either. More importantly, I took it out to my new test garden and ran it over some things out there. Nothing has been in the ground long as this is at my new house. Most impressive to me was it could properly ID things down to almost 8 inches in my soil IN DISC MODE. And the all metal side of it is even better as far as detection depth.

CONS:

Two things stand out right out of the gate.

1. Pig tail adapter for using normal headphones. I don't like it one bit.
2. The arm cuff is made out of very thin and flimsy plastic. I can see them being broken fairly easy. Other than being on the hefty side...the overall feel of the machine can be summed up with two words: cheap feeling. Yeah. I guess it is all the molded plastic that this machine has but it is for sure not what I'm used to when I pick up a Whites machine. I come back to the Minelab machines...with all the plastic and such, this machine reminds me of that more than anything.

Hopefully I will be able to get it out and put it in some real world hunts with it and revisit this thread as I go. Until this stone goes bye bye, I don't see my doing much hunting though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2016 06:20AM by Daniel Tn.

Is this the updated version detector you received Daniel???



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2016 05:29PM by tnsharpshooter.

The stones suck as have had a couple myself. Good review so far, maybe it will be good in that Ole' Hot Ground you got. LOL! Get Well.

Very sorry to hear about your health. get better soon!

My dad had a kidney stone one time back in the 60s,,went to the doctor,,doctor asked him if he drank beer,,My father yeah,,,Doc told him to go buy a 6 pack and drink them as fast as he could.

Stone passed.

Daniel Tn, I feel for you, just passed this stone this morning....

Flomax (Tamsulosin generic name) If you are not using it, it can really help pass a stubborn stone, doctors prescription is required.

TNSS -- Yes it is the updated firmware version. I don't drink beer but they told me to either drink beer or a lot of cranberry juice. I had never even tasted beer before but I wanted this sucker out of here so I bought a 6 pack and drank up. That stuff is NASTY I don't see how people willingly drink it for fun. Still no stone passage. I've drank approx 6 gallons of cranberry juice too. Along with every other home remedy I have read or heard about...lemon juice, meadowsweet herb, etc.

Cadman -- I just got back from seeing a urologist. They gave me a prescription of that flowmaxx stuff. I kinda laughed at the name cause it sounds like something I'd put in my truck to clean the fuel injectors lol They took a scan of mine and told me it was a 6mm size and a smaller one too that they thought might have broken off the bigger one. They said it I hadn't passed it in 30 days that they wanted to do some kind of outpatient laser surgery. I didn't like it when he described how they do it so I hope to pass the God forsaken thing before then!!

The stone that I passed this morning is about 4mm to 5mm, it took me about 4 weeks to pass it.

The best thing to do is just drink water, lots of it... Remember the old saying "This Too Shall Pass" but, it may feel like it is taking its sweet ass time though....lol

You guys need to stop eating those rock. My dad had one and said he knew how a woman felt when having a baby. Hope you-all get better and get out to detect some.

I am very interested in hearing how it goes with you Daniel. Your in ground tests almost always match mine to a tee.

I really disliked the headphone connection location. It should have been next to battery door. If it has to be on backside of pod, they should have included wireless headphone capability for dry land hunters, and left the hardware connection for the underwater headphones. You either have to let the pig tail hang or loop it back and attach on arm cuff.

Four AA batteries, lighter coil, max weight no more than 3.5 lbs (instead of 4.23 lbs), correct headphone jack location, would have been awesome. The ability to use existing coils via a short hardware adapter (not pigtail) would have been a home run. As it is they left a lot of people with existing coil collections out in the cold.

Kidney stones sound just horrible - my sympathies for sure!





Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2016 09:16PM by Steve Herschbach.

Want me to come down? Yelling at a Liberal will make you feel better!><

I do hope you feel better. I never had one, but the people that I have seen that did were in a lot of pain.

Good news on the stone...it is out and gone now. Final measurement was 5.96 mm long and about 4 mm wide.

Onto the MX Sport now. I was feeling a LOT better today and took the Sport and Relic outside to my yard to do some playing. I know these are polar opposite machines but I thought it would be fun to see how they react to different targets. My home sits on a site where an 1850s house sat that was bulldozed down. Actually the spot my house sits, is where the barn to that house used to sit...they tore it down and then burned it where it fell. So there are lots of debris and melted aluminum and metal everywhere.

Here is where it gets fun.

The Relic obviously works faster than the MX Sport. It reports a lot more iron in the ground than the Sport does too. BUT...it is not as confident in its ID abilities as the Sport is. The ID on the Relic will jump around a lot. I am one of those guys that will circle a target before I dig it and see how it reacts from different angles. The Relic may give a good steady 80s number one way, and then drop all the way to the 30s or 40s from another angle. In 3 tone mode, I hear a lot of high tones coming in that will vanish when I change angles and report as a midtone. If I dug them all, it would look like moles have invaded the place. Even on a buried good target in my test garden, it will do that. I've got a minie buried at 7 inches out there right now that if I wanted to, I could make the Relic look really good OR really bad in a video...all pending on what angle I hit it from. For relic hunting I guess it really doesn't matter as long as it tells you iron from non iron. For coin hunting though...the Sport is going to have a rather large edge on hunting in parks and such when it comes to modern trash.

One of the items that I run into a lot is where the barn sat...I find a lot of molten aluminum chunks. They ring out good; especially on the Relic. When signal checking them with the Sport, it had a way of jumping on them in the foil to tab range which made me start to be pretty confident in passing them up. When it is a coin though...different story. The Relic was able to get a high tone signal on both of these Wheat cents but as noted before...with a change of direction, I could make them drop all the way down into the lower numbers. In which most people might walk on past. The Sport would ID them both as C.Penny and or Dime and would not let go of that ID...no matter the angle I came in from. As a result...I was able to put a 1949 and 1951 wheat cent in my pocket for about an hour of playing in my yard.

On to work now for 60 hours this week and then hopefully will find time to get out and stretch the Sports legs in some relic sites. I'm going to give it a good chance...there is a lot of potential with this machine that some overlooked or couldn't see due to having blinders on.

Sounds good Daniel. Settings?

The Racer 2 also has that TID variability on coins. Where it locks on better is the smaller lower conductors like brass rivets and such. I'd bet Buttons would also.

Tom

good read, I have both machines to the Sport i just got the 5x10 coil to try, but it is hard to put the FR down. Im going to try the sport this weekend in Nags Head. Glad your stone has passed seen my wife turn crazy from them..

Good to hear Daniel... Getting rid of that stone. I bet you are relieved.....

Steve -- I've only been playing with it in the yard thus far. And have only ran it in factory preset modes with just slight changes to some of the settings like tones. Coin & Jewelry mode in 2 and 4 tone is a pretty good setup. The 8 and 20 tone is way too busy for my liking. Relic mode comes stock in 2 tone mixed mode but I have never really been a fan of mixed mode. Some loved it on the MXT but I never really liked it. So I have deviated from that with my settings. I will say that the machine is 110% digital sounds. For those that have more years under their belt with analog audio, you probably aren't going to take to the digital sounds very well. It is a whole different world. Luckily I am adaptable and not set in my ways on that sort of stuff.

Until I get more time on it, that is about all I can really say without just 100% speculation and arm chair typing.

The three weeks mine spent going to White's and back could have been better spent learning more about the machine, and now I have too much else going on. The MX Sport obviously has a lot of raw power if you can harness it for your conditions and style of hunting. Old California (Paul) was very impressed with the machine in prospecting mode which has the iron grunt feature and is in effect a mixed mode. He was running Prospect Mode, VCO Off, SAT 4-5 (5-6 in later versions) and reporting great results. A couple other knowledgeable hunters I keep in contact with are also reporting positive results. I am still keeping an eye on the MXS just in case I decide to give a later version a try some day, so appreciate your thoughts. Kind of difficult right now as we have no way of knowing exactly how many firmware versions there are and who is running what.

There are three major revisions I am aware of, and I am fairly sure more than that in minor ways. The following is based on reports so far, but obviously is just best guess on my part lacking official information from White's.

Version 1 Firmware - if three coins on top of the ground 3" to 4" apart read as a single target in coin mode, you have Version 1 firmware. A good detector should be able to separate coins 2" or less apart. This inability to separate widely spaced targets has been referred to as tone smearing but is just an exceptionally slow recovery speed.

Version 2 Firmware - according to Paul Version 2 fixed the main problem in Version 1. It also changed the max SAT setting from 6 to 8. However, there is a bug that when modulation is turned on (1=on 0=off) "running at 1 slows down the recovery and creates some tone smearing". This is the version a few people are needing to return a second time to get fixed.

Version 3 Firmware - if the SAT can be set to max 8 instead of max 6, and if the problems noted above do not exist, you have version 3.

My machine was a version 1 and was a hot mess. In retrospect I have bad ground like you, and I think the machine may also have been exhibiting minor falsing due to ground issues, sensitivity settings, or EMI. The problem is these transient signals, that would be just chatter on another machine, were due to the "grab and hang on" nature of the firmware turning into full blown false signals.

There is a theory the machine was tuned for max depth on a clear target, and so ultra slow recovery with zero modulation gave it an edge for that situation, but of course was an issue anywhere targets were closer together than around 4" - 5". There may be an attendant slight depth loss in later versions in attempting to tighten up target responses and recovery. As you know almost everything you do to a metal detector involves trade offs.

Anyway, good, luck, and glad you are feeling better.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2016 04:14PM by Steve Herschbach.

I do agree the MX sport seems to have good power.. Great screen... Good overall feel as far as balance. Wish they would get away from the 8 battery idea.. The plastic handle flexed some, no big deal id just put wrap on it.. BUT the most important part needs severe work (electronics) and a way for us the customers to have the ability to see which version we have.. Once a version is deemed perfect I need to feel confident in knowing I have the latest best version.. How do we know? Mine had no depth in pinpoint but other areas were better from reports of the first ones..

basstrackerman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I do agree the MX sport seems to have good power..
> Great screen... Good overall feel as far as
> balance. Wish they would get away from the 8
> battery idea.. The plastic handle flexed some, no
> big deal id just put wrap on it.. BUT the most
> important part needs severe work (electronics) and
> a way for us the customers to have the ability to
> see which version we have.. Once a version is
> deemed perfect I need to feel confident in knowing
> I have the latest best version.. How do we know?
> Mine had no depth in pinpoint but other areas were
> better from reports of the first ones..

"What happened to your post on the other forum?
Says Topic has been moved.
Did it ruffle feathers?

I was reviewing my video test footage today and it wasn't that bad at all.
Think I had ' a good bad software ' tester???

Well I'm getting mine back today, hopefully some of that potential that was poking through will shine. Good to hear that the newest software update is doing well.

I appreciate the side comments on the Relic and Racer 2. From what I have seen the Euro style machines excel at separating ferrous from non-ferrous but are not so hot at locking on VDI numbers. The US style machines tend to excel at cherry picking certain VDI numbers, but seem to lack the edge the Euro machines are finding in the thick ferrous. Makes sense for the two different scenarios, open fields versus groomed parks and yards, and the fact that with over 2000 years of history in the ground the Europeans can't afford to cherry pick. I think there is an underlying difference in how the machines work due to this inherent difference in user end goals.

The US style manufacturers are trying to get better at hunting thick ferrous, and the Euro manufacturers are trying to improve VDI numbers.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2016 05:05PM by Steve Herschbach.

My post was moved to feedback forum on FM.

I saw a thread where some people were comparing notes on the Nokta Relic with air tests and decided while I had everything set up, that I would also do the MX Sport. I was curious as to what it would do anyway, and if there was a difference between the modes I was interested in....Coin, Relic, and All Metal.

I was able to run gain all the way up to max.

I air tested a silver dime, silver quarter, copper penny, nickel, and a .58 minie.


COIN & JEWL mode. Factory settings except sens...ran at max.

Quarter - 12.5"
Nickel - 13"
Dime - 11"
C. Penny 11"
Minie Ball 12"

RELIC MODE....no difference in depth; just tone differences and a different discrimination pattern, and it says BULLET and BUTTON instead of coins on the ID.

All Metal Mode:

Quarter - 14.5"
Nickel - 14.5"
Dime - 12"
C. Penny - 12.5"
Minie Ball - 14.5"

So it does have a little bit of umph to it. That's all for today. Just a few more 12 hr shifts and I am back at it in the real world hunting and stretching this things legs.

My air test aren't that good, but I just tried it indoors with heavy emi. I was surprised I could set it on boost at all, most machines can't handle the emi. Night and day difference compared to pre update as far as stability and recovery!

Be careful with tracking on during air tests. Mine seemed overly aggressive so you may want to get a proper ground balance then turn tracking off before air testing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2016 05:43PM by Steve Herschbach.

I didn't have time to proper air test so the ground reading was off. Still I got respectable numbers for inside. Comparable to pre update. Two more weeks of 12hr shifts for me then I'll put it thru it's paces.

Fusion crust,chondrules?

------------"Cz's still bad to the bone".------------
Living on a big ass Astroid.
The woman that got my rib,I want it back.

Steve Herschbach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Be careful with tracking on during air tests. Mine
> seemed overly aggressive so you may want to get a
> proper ground balance then turn tracking off
> before air testing.

That was the first feature to get "locked" on mine. I am not a fan of auto tracking on any machine. I use it as a ground grab button when needed and then back to lock. For just getting an idea of what it would do in the air, I left it locked and then did my test. It just kind of gives me a base line to work with for notes and such. Mine was done outside with little to no EMI. Very quiet. I can run my GPX around my house with a very steady threshold and no warbling...which says a lot.

For what it's worth, I just ordered the 6x10 coil for the MX Sport. My favorite coil for the MXT was the Ultimate 13" coil, with the 6x10 coming in 2nd. I would HOPEFULLY like to see one of those Ultimate coils for the MX Sport.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2016 02:20PM by Daniel Tn.

As an update to this thread, I must say I have been hunting with it quite a bit now that I get every other weekend off work.

Since the day I got the 6x10 coil, it has been attached to the detector full time. I really like the coil in trash and it does a good job in iron. Overall, the depth with the 6x10 is about 3 inches less on coin sized objects vs the stock 10 inch coil. Example...the stock coil on a US Quarter is 12.5 inches and with the 6x10 coil it is 9 inches. This holds true for everything I had previously tested with the stock coil.

I personally think the 6x10 will be the better coil for water hunting vs the larger 10 inch round.

I don't know if they have plans to make a smaller coil for the Sport but they are missing out if they do not. The machine I have is still the 2nd generation firmware as I have not sent it in yet (its hard to want to do so when you are hunting with it and finding stuff).