An educated ear...

Always remember in my younger days asking experienced detectorists can you tell a gold ring from the junk and was greeted with a smirk and nope both sound the same.

Well over the years have been laughed off forums saying with some units due to audio variances I can surely cut down the odds and sure a key or lead weight or large piece of foil will fool me but just weigh a gold ring and say a tab or piece of foil and a light might go on in your head also as big difference in both.

I know we have bells, whistles, graphs, numbers etc. etc. but learn the audio of your unit thru experimentation and you just might be surprised.

Not saying all units are applicable and forget VCO but all metal pinpointing does have its possibilities.

Care to join the thread be my guest...smile and say this guy has lost it....just remember I will be smiling when putting the gold ring in my pouch that the last guy walked over..

Well thanks for reading and I am outta here as the sun is shing and will be in the 60's today.....

Dan, what are some of the units (new & old) you think allow for theses types of audio nuances? I am interested, as I am sure many others are to.

One of the machines Dans going to name is the Golden Sabre II, and I will agree with him. There is a definite variance between aluminum foil and gold.
That is one nice little machine.

I used to hunt a Tesoro Deepsearch vII and a BountyHunter Red Baron and I could tell just about 90% of the time what the target was, today detectors are a little harder.

Basically older units with Tesoro on the top of my list...Seems like when all the bells and whistles came the audio variances left. Lets face it considering the weight of a gold ring versus the usual junk that mimics a great difference in weight so experiment with your unit as I am sure fellow forum members have there ways to cut down the odds but may shy away from any discussion as tell one guy your favorite trout hole and it will be quickly cleaned out analogy. With todays technology one wonders why major detector manufactures don't focus on this as even cutting down the odds 50 percent would certainly sell detectors.Honestly started this thread with expectations of much more participitation but it seems lots of wallflowers and few dancers and can only speculate reasons for lack of interest.
PS: Garrett made a stab at it with Imaging and understand Whites V3 has some interesting facets so perhaps its a start and lets move on...

Hi, I couldn't agree more an educated ear is a productive ear....Each machine has it's own little nuances and if it's used in the right hands it can out ID the best ID machines especially on deeper targets...I run a single tone machine and can ID targets with quite a degree of accuracy ...Thanks for sharing....JJ

The V3 is a good machine for hunting jewelry especially using the analyze mode, however it just has a hard time in the iron.
Ive found w the Etrac that with regarding audio variances the little peices of foil are gonna bounce around a lot and not hit hard. I've yet to find gold w it and yes I dig a lot of junk and I am not a cherry picker by any means however the many small foil range gold I've test defiantly hit a lot harder.
I remember back in 87 ' I ran into a old woman at a park she was hunting w a old Compass Yukon TR. She was probably in her 60's and was over weight but unbelievably agile moving around quickly, up and down digging. I was impressed as I knew the machine detected all non ferrous stuff. I was done hunting and didnt do that well with my 1265X that day. I decided to approached her and see how she was doing with old dinosaur detector. I introduced myself and asked her how she could hunt with such a antiquated machine. She smiled with a twinkle in her eye and reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of gold rings she had found that year. She proceeded to tell me how she dug EVERYTHING! I don't remember her telling me if she used audio variances however whatever she was doing worked!

That's why I still like and hunt with some non-motion threshold based vintage detectors. I have an easier time telling what the target might be and the depth when out coinshooting.

It's bit tough user modern digital detectors that produce no variances or so slight you can't notice, specially for us older folks. It's more of a guessing game. I have tried multi toned machines,
just can't seem to get used to all the noise. An ID screen with numbers helps if you don't disc out the iron, especially for us up here in Canada. Many of the clad coins on edge fall into the iron range.

DeepTech Vista X with 3 search coils.
Works for me

The all-metal (auto-tune) mode of today's modern metal detectors can be better than yesteryears beep-dig units. A learning curve is needed; yet, these newer generation units are quite good........... and employ minimum (or zero) filters whilst in all-metal mode. And....... they have VDI capabilities whilst in all-metal mode. It certainly does take a skilled/learned 'ear' to use this mode......... but 'productivity' can be quite rewarding.

I find myself hunting more and more in all metal w the LTD SE, in trashy areas the depth volume variance helps a lot.

I hunt with a V3i and do well with it. Dan-Pa talks about same vdi - but different mass targets...foil/gold audio differences...I'm a believer. On V3i stereo mixed mode - all metal/discrimminate simultaneously but seperate sides of the headphones - AM in one ear and Disc in the other can really hear targets well....but the best way to tell gold from foil is with the spectagraph. Set up correctly with consistency and fade rate 2-3...foil builds up much slower and fades much faster than gold....gold will build bars on all three frequencies and hold up(even 2.5 freq - mass)...foil builds bars much slower - especially in 2.5 freq - less mass. Lotsa info available with the spectagraph/frequencies/pp/graphs/bars, etc...

I would have that threshold humming on that old Whites 66TR years ago to hear that sound variation when I would run over those depth targets. You had to have a good hear and I dug most everything.(didn't want to miss anything) Lord we could have used a pinpointer back then!! I found several gold rings. Silver coins were more plentiful in the ground. My father found a beautiful gold crucifix that was 22 kt gold from Italy. It was quite large and old. My father had it appraised at the time by a local jeweler who wanted to buy it on the spot. My dad still has it to this day. Anyways, there was an old man (who was a friend of my dad) that would let me watch him up at the local park. He had a Compass detector and it was a silver slaying machine!! It was a different sounding animal also. Ha! The days...

Tom D......."The all-metal (auto-tune) mode of today's modern metal detectors can be better than yesteryears beep-dig units. A learning curve is needed; yet, these newer generation units are quite good"

Is the Omega a strong contender in the above quote? Actually a list of all units you feel have this capability would be helpful. Also, any tips/how to's regarding auto-tune method gold/trash techniques?


Dan, I sense there is more interest in this topic than you think Thanks for bringing it up on the forum.

What's interesting is............. especially the folks on this forum.................. use ID and Discrimination quite a bit less than most folks. In fact....... I see many more folks using 2-tone (ferrous vs non-ferrous differentiation) ............... or straight monotone all-metal mode more than all the multi-tone/multi-disc pattern/multi-programming. Some serious detectorists here...... of whom KNOW how much can be lost (not dug) by virtue/advent of so-called discrimination. The split-tone adjustability of the G2/GB-SE and a few other units is highly desirable to folks on this forum. There are other units with this feature ... that perform well also.

The T2/F70/F75, CZ, GB-SE/G2 all-metal mode is very good 'raw data'. Very sensitive.............. and can generate exceptional signal-to-hull emitter correlation........ better than yesteryears units........... due to much better (more powerful) sensitivity and dirt handling capabilities.

It would be a LONG write-up if I were to give instructions/lessons as to 'how' and 'when' to use auto-tune mode. I would like to do this....... but time is difficult to find!

"It would be a LONG write-up if I were to give instructions/lessons as to 'how' and 'when' to use auto-tune mode. I would like to do this....... but time is difficult to find!"

That write up would be metal detecting Nirvana! We could all take turns mowing your lawn in order to give you the needed free time. Strangely enough I have found myself using auto-tune much more than I ever thought I would. In extreme EMI areas where I just can't handle the irratic pops, clicks and beeps of the disc mode I have found auto-tune is sometimes the only way I can run the F70 with sens 99 thres +9 and still comprehend what the machine is telling me. In fact I recently took an Explorer SE friend to an older site that as been good to me. Its always been EMI unfriendly to me so I now start out in auto-tune as a habit and never think of using disc mode. After about a half an hour my friend comes up and says he can't get his machine to work properly because he's getting too much interference so he left the area. All this time of working the area I assumed it was just the dreaded Fisher EMI and never dreamed that it was next to impossible for any detector to function there. Now I know why this "virgin" spot had not been pummeled before me. Chalk up one victory over EMI!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2012 12:46PM by limegoldconvertible68.

Very good! VERY correct!

Thanks for the input guys and thats the way we learn by sharing....I certainly use autotune on a CZ in a clean area where it really works to grab a silver or two and to me like putting on a larger coil as the autotune seems to cover a larger area..Autotune to check gold rings versus junk..never tried that....well back to the drawing board as a CZ with VCO never helped but autotune....Hmmm....perhaps the audio variances lurk.....and certainly a good tip for you F series guys....maybe i should have kept my F series models???

Dan...... the CZ pinpoint VCO is a blessing........ if mastered. The 'rise' in audio frequency..... coupled with the 'rise' in audio volume ... are 2 data-point inputs as to sizing/shape of object detected. One of the tricks is: .... brain clock-speed vs coil "approach-into-target" speed .... can/will dictate size/roundness of target............. ESPECIALLY from different directions. This holds true with ALL brands of detectors in the all-metal mode........... some being a bit more pronounced over others; yet, the principle remains the same. The lessor the detectors electronic 'filters' .... the better "more raw" the data.

Example: A bent rusty nail will present different audio 'ramp-up' speed when approached from different directions. Round non-ferrous objects will nearly never do this; rather.......... they will present a very linear audio volume 'ramp-up' speed ..... regardless of approach direction.

(((( with my explanation.....I'm probably about as clear as mud!!! ))))

Tom.....are you saying a detector needs to have threshold adjustment capability to do the auto-tune method? Which would eliminate my Omega.

No..... yet it can help in many applications.

As stated earlier, I'm using the all metal mode on the LTD SE more and more. Thing is you need to constantly watch the vdi for all sounds, though whats really helpful is you have sound variance in depth, which you dont in disc. Has anyone tried or been able to tell the difference between ferrous and non in all metal on the F75?