Definitely something different on the Non Camo Fisher F19

Been doing a lot of hunting as of late...And yes it's burning hot down here in the south..But I have free reign of the woods this time of year.!!

I was lucky enough to chance across a Non Camo F19 for a song ..The first thing I noticed was the audio on the Non Camo is way louder than the camo F19/G2+ counterparts I tested it against..

This is a 16 year build date..and my camos are 14's..

That's was the thing that got to me on the Camos was the lack of audio LOUDNESS..I was always wanting the F19 to be how should I say AMPED up!!Well the Non-Camo audio is quite amped..its as loud as say a T2 or f75...With killer-b style phones you would be hard pressed to run it with headphones on max volume and unit on max volume...Without headphones its still plenty loud from speaker to use and even hear the whispers...

Yes the whisper hits are now more pronounced...that soft sweet deep signal of say a 8-10 inch three ringer really stands out..Im even finding small deep stuff to have a good strong fuzzy sound....and the surface stuff has a good hard in your face slap..Couple more things I notice and it may be the audio being more pronounced but tin has a splatter to it and big iron is just extremely flat sounding even though it may be reading a say 80 hit..It doesn't have that crisp tight 80 hit like a coin or even larger brass hits ..the iron will have a solid lick but down in the audio there's some underlying irregularities to the report..The Visual ID also seems to be more exact compared to camo...even the large iron will not stay locked at say 80 it will move around and I would say a good 70% percent of the iron likes to hit but lock up and not move at 39 ID when I have the tone break at 32 DEAD GIVE AWAY for large iron..but a good target just locks or stay's within a point or two even on co locates..

Im able to hunt in mixed use sites very effectively with the F19 N/C and do very well with it even in dreaded tin that my camos gave me fits in...

thought I would pass along what I'm seeing with the unit..Seems its slipped under the radar..The camo's are great units for sure but the Non camos are more in your face audio ..the nuances are easier to pick out..

I talked with another Gentleman who has a non camo and a camo and he did a quick comparison and came back and said yes your right the non camo is louder.

Heres pic of a tin infested site keepers..The heartbreaker is tha piece next to the clock gear...its a two piece eagle buckle ..All small center section of tongue is all that is left



Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Good report Keith! Always did like the G2+/F19 platform.

FYI the camo's were made up to 12/17 so plenty of newer camos and regulars since the camo's you tested. Just wanted to make that clear before any false non-camo's are better rumors start. lol

Good info...Was the 12/17 camos louder than the 14 camos??

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

I wonder if their were diffrent versions of the F19 / G2+ ??? One thing I disliked about the T2 was their were so many versions that it was hard to compare with others also having the T2. The digital Gold Bug was another version fiasco. Does First Texas announce changes when they produce a newer version of the same model ?? Personally like the layout of the F19.......reminds me of a digital version of my Gold Mountain King Cobra (analog). Back in day, 80% of my good finds (in thick iron) was found with the King Cobra.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2018 12:02AM by Arkansas.

The soft volume on my Camo F19 was one of the reasons I left and went with the Racer, Racer 2, Impact, and Multi Kruzer. Each just kept getting better and better for the hunting I do.

I have no actual hard info on any of this, but I have the strong impression that a lot of the engineering talent at FT in El Paso is tasked with keeping the thousands of (OK - maybe a dozen) different models in their three brands “producible”. This likely means that, Among other things, as component supplies change, as customer problems arise, they “tweak” the details of hardware and software to make things stay as good as they ought to be - or maybe a bit better.

Car companies do the same thing. When my elderly 2009 Civic had a problem with tire wear, the dealer had to run the VIN # to find our if that particular car of the “09’s had this or the other particular part in the rear suspension - they had changed parts mid production year run.

Again, nobody in the mother ship told me this, but based on bits and pieces posted in the past by some of their folks, it is my conclusion.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2018 12:19AM by lytle78.

Rick, I think you are probably correct. Finding what version one may have is often easy to find, but then would be nice to know which is the "good-version". Some companies new changes don't always equal to a better product.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2018 12:18AM by Arkansas.

Arkansas, I also used the King Cobra quite a bit when hunting old logging camps and ghost town sites back in the day. It was a good detector in the iron. I had 2 of them and this one was a barely used backup.

Tom Slick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The soft volume on my Camo F19 was one of the reas
> ons I left and went with the Racer, Racer 2, Impac
> t, and Multi Kruzer. Each just kept getting better
> and better for the hunting I do.


Ain't that the truth?

I've had a couple of the F19's (the 1st release unit) and one a couple yrs later

but

I also had a Racer, and was an Impact Field Tester and now have the Multi Kruzer (which I like the most of all 3) and I also had the Fors Relic, Fors Gold+, the Makro CF77 as a test unit and the Fors Core for a season to relic hunt with.

Having said all of that = I have always loved the F19 for it's outstanding ability to hit brass/buttons in nasty iron where most other machines fail to even hit on it/them but --- the audio was always weak on the camo units (as was depth) when compared to the others mentioned above (as well as other units by other manufactures). That is UNless you had the 13" ultimate coil installed to which then you were on par with other units/manufacturers with stock coils installed.

So if what Keith says is true (and I'm sure it is) about the NON camo units being more pronounced audio wise --- (I will add this) --- what I have always liked about the F19 (predecessor = Gold Bug Pro) is their pronounced in your face audio when sifting thru iron and hitting a non ferrous target (especially brass) to a certain degree/depth and so now (based on Keith's report) it sounds like we have a unit that will compete on all fronts with just a stock coil and more so with it's unmistaken audio that flat out slaps in your face VS many of the other units mentioned here (as well as many others not mentioned).

It's hard to beat an F19 for iron sifting but it was always the slightly weak audio/depth issue (compared to other units) which made me sell mine and opt for other units.

Sounds like this has changed??

Nice photos Mike. I also had the GM 1650 with the Stryker 8 coil and sniper 4 coil. Very fun.

So does that mean that the new non-camo F19 has the same abilities as yours Keith. Not a bad price either at $ 499.00.

Rick

Any info on the volume of the Tek G2+ ?

Well,
Just how many non camo F19s have been tested/compared?

I wouldn't put a lot of stock in an isolated instance with one model of anything connected with First Texas.

So seems we may have come upon a "Proper F19" .
We have heard this term used before, right?

Where are the Proper Racers, Impacts, Kruzers, and Deus units? Lol

Or maybe better asked, where are the Improper Racers, Impacts, Kruzers and Deus units?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2018 07:29PM by tnsharpshooter.

Volume is directly related to ohm value of your headphones... as a long time F19 user, I can guarantee with a 32 ohm headphone you'd need to be nearly deaf to not have enough volume with the 14 camo model (I believe I run at 7 volume, and it's loud). But, if you're using something like 250 ohm or even 600 ohm headphones, your volume would be quite low, too low... I suspect they boosted the amp chip or circuit to better suit the normal detector type headphones. I use modified audio headphones, so they also sound great... I suspect the drivers in virtually all detector headphones basically suck. Do I know about headphones?... my credentials www.headphile.com :-)

A partial shot of my museum in garage of finds mostly with camo F19...

Assuming that First Texas did change components to boost the audio, it is merely an example of what I posted above. There is plenty of evidence that the folks in El Paso don’t just sit on their laurels after the launch of a new model. Subtitle improvements are often made during the course of production.

And only because somebody brought it up, I don’t know what the policies and practices of our Turkish friends and Mr. Loubet at XP are.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2018 08:46PM by lytle78.

I always felt that calling a unit a "proper" or "hot" one was just to make a particular detector standout from the crowd when trying to sell it, to make it more desirable. There is a pretty consistent pattern of it. Nothing wrong with it but what I find interesting is that most everyone will say they have had units that were hotter than some of the others. Which means at some point, they sold the "not as hot" unit or units to someone. I wonder if they told the potential buyers that it wasn't as hot as some of the other units? Haha I'm betting on "no".

Supplier and material changes do happen in manufacturing though. The company I work for requires us to document stuff during what we call ME changes....machine, man, method, material, etc. We have to document any of those changes to keep track of it in case anything comes up down the road, so we can have the point to go back to, to get our arms wrapped around any suspect bad parts. It can be a pain in the rear some times when you are crawled up inside of a 4 ton injection molding machine, focused on trying to get it running, and your management team is more worried/concerned about whether you filled out the 5ME paperwork instead of whether the machine is fixed and running good parts.

I think Keith's use of the term"Proper" is His Way of assisting folks in THEIR search for a "Proper" detector. He sets the benchmark for what he considers to be a "Proper" detector and thus allows others to understand What to look for in a particular detector.

I don't think it has Anything to do with him trying to "Hype" a detector that he wants to sell----others may use Hyping to sell their Unwanted stuff to the unsuspecting.

Nothing encourages product improvement more than competition. For years we wanted a waterproof pinpointer (pro-pointer)......now just about every manufacturer is making them.

There all good versions...I notice my date code is 16 so two years old...but it's definitely louder...Yet the older pre F19/G2+ gold bug's and G2's was never that loud either..So it may very well be date code Vs the dress code..

Never figured out why they were soft volume when the Omega was always louder.

I thought maybe they had the gain cranked up and maybe they saved some battery juice on the audio amp side...???

BUT as time moves on there are things that happens to all electronics..like better power consumption from same same components from suppliers....and it may not be that say in this instance FTP does anything different..but the guys making the say audio amps etc improve there product and the part number etc stays the same.

If you didnt have two machines sitting side by side you would probably never notice ..Or most would never blink and eye either way...

I know there was something done to Xterra 70s about end of run cycle..I don't think it was advertised but you could tell it in thick iron if you had two side by side.Slight but it was different..

That's why in warranty disclosures on metal detectors there's reservations stated..


Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Exactly - they all reserve the right to make changes and/or improvements within the general scope of the original item.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Talk about beating your head on a wall. I have a flat forehead because of FT audio and design engineer deafness to feedback.

Basically all you can do is try multiple headphones until you find something that makes the modulated audio livable, and if you can't you move on. The 50 ohm Whites ProStars were recommended to me and I bought a pair and they make a BIG difference between liking and hating a FT detector's modulated audio response. So before you dump a FT unit over the modulated audio issue, try a pair of the ProStars.

HH
Mike

Edited. The White Prostars are 50 ohms, not 60 as I originally stated. Correction made.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2018 05:58PM by Mike Hillis.

If you are interested in an F19 or its Teknetics twin, the G2+, First Texas is having a blowout special on them right now. Contact your favorite dealer - ends 30 April.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Rick - Looks like the blow out special is no longer, if it's June 18 and the deal ends on April 30.

It's still going in. F19 and G2+ $449

We’ve been on the road since mid-March - I’m not even sure what year it is! Lol

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

The sale started around Christmas.......longest blow-out ever....lol

First texas ended distributor distrobution couple months ago. Has moved to factory direct or factory to dealer model. They have and will be passing this this distribution savings on to dealers and consumers with agressive pricing. I suspect they will always have a promo on a model or two.

they will have to because niche beach pi machine market probably wont even pay one engineer for a year.

My guess - 300 units per year (world wide) will pay for one engineer man year. My sales estimate - no idea.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

lytle78 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My guess - 300 units per year (world wide) will pa
> y for one engineer man year. My sales estimate -
> no idea.


so you saying they are gonna charge too much or pay too little? no way