Early impressions on Omega 8500

What a long strange trip it's been! Well not all that long, but certainly strange.
Ed Huffman (free publicity, Ed) even emailed me Thursday evening and asked me to call him, which I did Friday morning. I thought, uh oh, somebody wants some more money (because I paid the discounted price for the 8000 and received an 8500).
Strangely, no, that wasn't it. Ed was prompted by Gene Scullion at FTP to contact me to see if I REALLY had received an 8500, or was I just blowing smoke on this forum!!!

I assured Ed that I REALLY did receive an 8500 and offered to send pictures for Gene if it came to that.

I was told that the official release (for sale to the public) was months away, and shortly after that, was told that 8500s were shipping to customers of dealers who used First Texas Products as distributors. Ay Yi Yi! What drama!

I only have about 7 hours on the machine now, over 3 afternoons, at a summer camp that I have pounded with the Racer, F75SE, Deus, and AT Pro.
One location where the EMI is awful, none of the 3 frequencies helped. Neither did D2 or D3 (deep settings) that employed 60 Hz and 50 Hz filters, respectively. Only turning down the gain drastically low affected the EMI chatter.

In areas with lots of iron signals, the audio can become very "poppy" or "spikey" at gain settings in the low 60s and higher. Cleaner areas, I was able to hunt with gain at 99 in relative quiet.

The upper end of the TID scale seems to have good spread that permits silver dimes to read a point or 2 higher than clad dimes which are a point or 2 higher than copper cents. I was able to call nickels, dimes, and cents reasonably well, but some brass bits and aluminum bits rang very sweetly like dimes with steady dime TIDs. Iron falses can be pretty sweet, too, when they are short and repeat when "Xed."

In areas with lots of iron, running in D1 (deep setting ) seemed to steady the audio better than D0.

The sense I have so far is that the 8500 is a deeper detector than the Racer (at least on coins), and perhaps some of my other detectors, here at the camp. The areas I've worked with the 8500 have been pounded already with my other machines so the total finds have been a bit skimpy. So far. But, the finds it has made are older drops that were not detected, for whatever reasons, by previous detectors.

Early on, I set the volume to 6 and the tones to d4 (VCO with medium tone for nickels) as opposed to d5 (no proportional audio and medium tone for nickels) and have kept them there.

I've only run the 8500, so far, with the 10" elliptical DD coil, not the stock 11" DD coil.

I find the ground error readout (bars) to be a helpful reminder to re-ground-balance when necessary.

The second evening I stayed until close to last light, and the lighted display was very helpful.

These are my initial findings with the Omega 8500. I look forward to hearing what others have to say about this detector.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the 8500 ships without headphones. It only has the quarter inch jack (I believe the 8000 had eighth and quarter), and I use my Sun Ray Pro Golds with it.

Wayne

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2015 01:21PM by ncwayne.

Wayne i'd like to hear how the recover in D1 (fast mode) is verses stock D2 and also any depth gains or emi resistance from D3 and D4.

thanks

cant say anything....release is months away yet..

Keith

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

I get where a new model may be released only after the design and testing is final. Then the production line needs to get the warehouse stocked. But it seems like a lot of times over the years new models come out after the Christmas season when people have bills to pay. For marketing I would think a target of October-November would be a positive thing for sales. Or maybe the detector market just doesn't follow traditional marketing strategies.

"It used be early spring for New models!"

Detectors seem to sell best with warmth of spring approaching and tax refunds.

original post now contains some detector review points.

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

Just added note (edit) in top post regarding 8500 and headphones.

Wayne

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

thanks wayne. I have one coming tomorrow. I'm worried after reading a report that it feels like the internals are similar to the F44 (bounty hunter pro). I was told it was still the omega platform at heart many months ago. The the bounty hunter pro platform is fine and great in all metal just weak on nickels and doesn't lock to targets well IMO. If that's the case the 8000's will be a hot commodity.

Hello detectingMO. In my admittedly limited experience, I find it to lock on nickels pretty darn good, and other targets as well. Too good on some iron falses and bits of brass and aluminum, but that's probably just me not having figured out the nuances of audio and adjustment yet. Let me know what you think after you've tried it.

Wayne

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

well that sounds promising wayne. Yeah the omega 8000 locked really good on all coins, even the nickels at depth.

Its got some F44 attributes...but its more in the way the F44 processes not neccesarily in the way it runs ..It runs like a 8000 its jsut got more digital processing going on than ever before...

Yiu can feel its Digital machine..some of the analog feel is gone of the 8000..

Its a Silver coin deep/large brass killer...

The F44 is no slouch on high conductors in iron/Trash at depth by the way ..My F44 I tested pulled some 3 ringers out of a house site at depth that really surprised me...The 8000 would not alert enough for me to investigate in side by side testing..

The 8500 has some of that easier Unlocking at depth in it to..

its still hits lower conductors as well as the 8000..

the 8500 just runs and feels slightly different from a 8000 ...

Raw depth I cant say its deeper than a proper 8000 V4 when the 8500 is in D1 But in the D2/D3 its deeper yet slower and will take time to adjust..

Also it sure does have alot of options if you want to hunt modern trash..

If your an old site hunter the 8000 is nice .. Buyt in my opinion the 8500 is a step up..

Keith

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

Thanks, Keith. I'll know very quickly in testing Friday what's under the hood. Your and Wayne's reports reflect what I expect and not the BH Pro platform at all. Thanks