review of the AKA sorex pro

[www.garysdetecting.co.uk]

hodograph looks interesting for accurate ID of finds



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2013 01:01PM by diggers.

There was one for sale on Findmall. Have to go back a few pages to find it. Some good vids too.

I was going to buy it but I had the hardest time trying to sell a new Minelab Explorer SE Pro that I gave up on it.

The only concern I have about these is that you really don't know what you are going to get, feature wise, until you actually have one in your hand. The videos and manuals and model numbers seem to have trouble adding up.

HH
Mike

Yeah I wouldn't buy one what happens if it breaks...

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Wow, that looks like a super machine! Would love to see Keith or Tom do a review/field test on that

Guess the Hodograph is similar to Whites' Spectragraph. Wonder if it's more gimmick or if it actually works. If it DID work, that would be a damn good feature!

Joe

I tried out a model 7282 Sorex. ( I believe that was the model number.) One step below the pro. Last year a fellow had it with all three different frequency coils. The Pro model was not yet with english readout, only in Russian. He had a three year old test bed with various coins and civil war bullets at different depths. We tried several detectors at different settings over his test bed and several objects including a small ladies gold ring that I had brought along. I have to say that the build quality of the machine and balance was very nice. The screen graphics were impressive, and really did a good job of picking out nonferrous coin size objects down to about 12 inches in his soil.Then the graphics would be much harder to tell the ferrous from nonferrous or lose the signal altogether depending on target make up and size. What I did not like was its lack of sensitivity to gold. It was terrible even with the higher frequency coil it could not pick up the small gold ring at 3 inches in the soil test bed that I brought along or in the air. Ok, so not a gold machine. I was a little disappointed in this because I had hoped maybe it could double as a dry sand machine at the beach, but no go on that. So it could still be a great relic machine, right? Well... not exactly in my opinion. Put a nail near a good target that was the same depth or the nonferrous target was several inches deeper and all you could get was a ferrous signal no matter which direction you would swing the coil. Move the nail farther away from the nonferrous target and you would get the same result until the nail was about six inches away from the nonferrous object. It did not matter if it was a civil war brass button, a dime, or a nickle. Always the same result. The lack of iron unmasking ability was what made me decide not to buy that machine. Now I hunt relics in North Carolina and Virginia and we do have some nasty soil in some of of the sites that I hunt, so maybe this machine will do well in your area of the world but it did not work out for me. The owner of the machine seemed to understand this machine and its menus and settings very well, but could not overcome the masking issue. I had spent a couple of days reading and rereading the manual online until I was sure I understood the basics of the machine as well. This machine just did not live up to what I had hoped for although I really do like the platform upon which the graphics are designed. Maybe there are some improvements in this years version of the pro. All of this is just my opinion and impression of this machine. I would like to hear more from other experienced operators...Stuart

They comith and they goith some are nice ideas and some don't cut it. Time for Garrett and Fisher/Tek to set the world right and do it right on a new platform and have us spend our Xmas money on a new idea that will keep us busy for a few years..

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

wait and see how Garys report turns out .

Sounds like the Sorex shares some of the same weaknesses of the E-Trac platform. Weak on thin gold rings and subject to masking near ferrous. Probably the result of the Sorex's low 7khz operating frequency. The hodograph is interesting - but not sure how it would work in the field with multiple targets.

i'm not sure but i think Sorex have some unmasking problems..[www.youtube.com]

manual here
[www.akadetectors.com]

There is a thread on Gary's UK site where they are looking to build a machine for the American market, and are currently collecting ideas. The sorex pro appears to have some good ideas, but I'll personally wait til they get the bugs worked out .
One of the American owners is having problems with the pro sounding off on big silver.

In my last post I mentioned there was a problem with detecting big silver. It was caused by changing coils , and not properly ground balancing with the different coil. I just want to let everyone know it was not something wrong with the machine. Sorex has a new machine coming out in a month. These detectors really looks interesting. Hopefully the American manufactures will step up to the plate with some new technology, or they will be left in the dust.

I got my Sorex Pro two weeks ago and have about 8 hours with it's now. It's really fast in iron and very will built. I haven't found anything deep (past 9 inches) with it yet, but I'm sure it's only because I haven't put my coil over anything deep. I hope to get back out and bury a few deep coins to test the depth. Snow is about to fly, so I may not be able to this year.

I have the 12.5X9.5 7khz eliptical coil and it seems to do great on low conductors. I'm easily digging 8 inch pull tabs and found an 18k gold wedding band at 3 inches. It's pretty easy to learn the menu and settings. It will take some time to learn the nueances. I like runing it in PST mode on the discrimation channel (ST) beause it has tones kind of like the E-Trac. Metal Trash is super fast in iron and pull tabs. The coil is a bit large for trashy parks. I'm going to order the 9X6 14khz.

It's a very sensitive machine and is easily affected my EMI. Pretty much like my V3i was. Pinpointing is kind of painful to the ears on shallow targets 5 inches or less. It really screems so I have to detune it immediatelty to save my ears. It falses once or twice per sweep the way I've been running it (18 sensitivity with full gain), but I like to run as hot as I can stand it. After I get more confident on its depth, maybe I'll run it lower.

Lots still to learn about the machine. The tones and how it sounds over mixed metal trash like bottle caps are what I'm working on now. At first I was trying for deep silver, but since decided to get used to digging clad for a while. I think that's the best way to learn this beast. The Hodograph is a nice feature, but sound is what's going to really let you know what's under the coil. I seriously doubt the Hodograph is useful on deep targets.

I'm looking forward to seeing how well the detector handles iron masking and separation of deeper targets. It's going to take a lot more hours to do this. I needed a light, deep and fast machine with good discrimination and tone ID. I am optomistic that this will be just that.

Good run down Reese...

Too bad the machine does not have the option for a 18-20kHz coil...that would make it more enticing for sleuthy iron work, and take care of most of the EMI problem's..

Do you fill they may have copied a Whites detector in some way's?

Let us Know what the 14kHz does to the platfrom...

Keith

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good run down Reese...
>
> Too bad the machine does not have the option for a
> 18-20kHz coil...that would make it more enticing
> for sleuthy iron work, and take care of most of
> the EMI problem's..
>
> Do you fill they may have copied a Whites detector
> in some way's?
>
> Let us Know what the 14kHz does to the
> platfrom...
>
> Keith

I don't get the impression that the Hodograph is necessarily a copy of Polar Plot, 3 Freq. Analyze or Spectra Graph screens on the V3i but, like the V3i screens, I suspect the Hodograph is worthless at depth or in bad ground. I know that it is in EMI. I do hope, however, that the audio tones will be useful on deep targets. Yeah, higher-frequency coul would really help in iron.

Reese



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2013 01:52AM by Reeseb.

You can have any frequency coil from 1kHz to 30kHz made to order or a 3 frequency in one coil of 3kHz 7kHz 14khz that is changed by a switch

I would like to see a 19Khz coil in action on this platfrom...It seems quick...19khz is the BUTTON FREQ!

Not sure what 30Khz would do..but that would be a curiosity I would like to examine also...

thanks for the info Sanjuro..

and thank's for the reply Reese....I know hte V3i while a great engineering feat, even with the 22 kHz freq selected and the options set for speed it does not do what some other's do in iron...yet it should as it is on paper be awesome in the field...

that's was the reason for the Question ..I was wondering if it was better at unmasking than the V3i... it some how seems akin to it...Maybe not!

Keith

Reeseb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I got my Sorex Pro two weeks ago and have about 8
> hours with it's now. It's really fast in iron and
> very will built. I haven't found anything deep
> (past 9 inches) with it yet, but I'm sure it's
> only because I haven't put my coil over anything
> deep. I hope to get back out and bury a few deep
> coins to test the depth. Snow is about to fly, so
> I may not be able to this year.
>
> I have the 12.5X9.5 7khz eliptical coil and it
> seems to do great on low conductors. I'm easily
> digging 8 inch pull tabs and found an 18k gold
> wedding band at 3 inches. It's pretty easy to
> learn the menu and settings. It will take some
> time to learn the nueances. I like runing it in
> PST mode on the discrimation channel (ST) beause
> it has tones kind of like the E-Trac. Metal Trash
> is super fast in iron and pull tabs. The coil is a
> bit large for trashy parks. I'm going to order
> the 9X6 14khz.
>
> It's a very sensitive machine and is easily
> affected my EMI. Pretty much like my V3i was.
> Pinpointing is kind of painful to the ears on
> shallow targets 5 inches or less. It really
> screems so I have to detune it immediatelty to
> save my ears. It falses once or twice per sweep
> the way I've been running it (18 sensitivity with
> full gain), but I like to run as hot as I can
> stand it. After I get more confident on its
> depth, maybe I'll run it lower.
>
> Lots still to learn about the machine. The tones
> and how it sounds over mixed metal trash like
> bottle caps are what I'm working on now. At first
> I was trying for deep silver, but since decided to
> get used to digging clad for a while. I think
> that's the best way to learn this beast. The
> Hodograph is a nice feature, but sound is what's
> going to really let you know what's under the
> coil. I seriously doubt the Hodograph is useful
> on deep targets.
>
> I'm looking forward to seeing how well the
> detector handles iron masking and separation of
> deeper targets. It's going to take a lot more
> hours to do this. I needed a light, deep and fast
> machine with good discrimination and tone ID. I
> am optomistic that this will be just that.

Thanks for the updates Reese. Congrats on the great machine! Keep us informed. Anything that sounds remotely like an E-Trac, gets depth and is balanced is worth a shot in my book!

Albert