5 tones or 50 tones in iron? That is the question.

Truth

Gold Member
Apr 13, 2016
14,332
32,145
Abita Springs La....Born in New Orleans
🥇 Banner finds
2
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
1
Detector(s) used
EQUINOX 800
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
I going to my site to look for that small silver in those nails I believe I lucked up last time with I have no problems with. But I used 50 tones today in a field setting semi trashy and I felt I could distinguish better. Will 50 tones work as well in iron?
 

Ok, imagine you're sitting at your computer, staring at the monitor. On the monitor is a photo of a coin which is lying on the sidewalk.

Now would you see that coin better and be able to tell that it is indeed a coin better on a 640 dpi monitor or on a 1080 dpi monitor?

That is the difference.
 

If I am mistaken (which I often am), I hope that someone will take the time to correct me.
 

Lol, ok, well what I was saying is that the higher the resolution of the monitor, the more detail you can see in the picture. Same with metal detectors and their tones as far as i can tell. I know on my Deus it's that way. Full tones tells me so much more than two or three tones.
 

Last edited:
Thinking of monitors, if I have 100 icons on the screen, which btw I do, I find it easier to focus on the screen with fewer items.

It's all going to depend on how your brain is wired. Mine would get confused. I only use either my beep and go or 5 tones. Since I'm looking for relics, I mostly dig it all and let God sort it out. It's worked very well for me. In parks, I think it's going to be a try it to see if you like it scenario.
 

If I am mistaken (which I often am), I hope that someone will take the time to correct me.

No, that was a great analogy. I was going to say something similar, what if the vdi on your detector only had 5 numbers? The thing is with audio you get even more information than the vdi number because the "quality" (not just the pitch) of the audio can tell you a lot about the target. For example bottlecaps can come in with a number and tone pitch similar to nickels (detectors like small round objects regardless of conductivity), but I have found the bottlecap tone to sound more hollow or soft vs. the sharp defined ping sound of a coin. Similarly a bent target may sound more distorted. So that is why audio + vdi. You take that audio target info to the next level when you go 50 tones and that is what laid back is saying. Def 50 tones is the way to go if your head doesn't explode processing the additional audio info.
 

No, that was a great analogy. I was going to say something similar, what if the vdi on your detector only had 5 numbers? The thing is with audio you get even more information than the vdi number because the "quality" (not just the pitch) of the audio can tell you a lot about the target. For example bottlecaps can come in with a number and tone pitch similar to nickels (detectors like small round objects regardless of conductivity), but I have found the bottlecap tone to sound more hollow or soft vs. the sharp defined ping sound of a coin. Similarly a bent target may sound more distorted. So that is why audio + vdi. You take that audio target info to the next level when you go 50 tones and that is what laid back is saying. Def 50 tones is the way to go if your head doesn't explode processing the additional audio info.

Man, I wish I wasn't tone deaf!
HH
dts
 

I use 50 tones, train your ears and the good coins sound sweet. Just found 5 Mercury dimes last Sunday and the sounded sweet. Get use to hearing your target it’s really helps to decide if you should dig it.
 

I been using 50 tones lately and prefer it over 5 tones. I been using it a month and just now starting recognize the individual tones to determine dig or not dig. seems to me each nickel, copper or clad has its own signature in 50 tones and when I hear it I dig it. Been hitting more nickels lately in 50 tones
 

50 tones for me. I decided early on that I should try to understand what the detector was relaying info wise. Tried with my T2, it didn't work for me. It is all I use with my 800.
 

I use 50 tones, train your ears and the good coins sound sweet. Just found 5 Mercury dimes last Sunday and the sounded sweet. Get use to hearing your target it’s really helps to decide if you should dig it.

Thanks for the good advice, timelord. I'm like the amateur golfer who never practices, never takes lessons, plays twice a month and then complains that he can't beak 110. When I get the detector in my hands I'm always heading out to the field. Maybe if I put in a little practice time I'd learn to discriminate the tones. One more thing on my "to do someday" list.
HH
dts
 

I've been using 50 tones on the Safari for some time now, at first it drove me a little crazy, then one day it just "clicked" for me. So.....whenever I may receive the 800, I should be good to go with it. I will compare the two on various targets just to see how much they match up (the sound) and then go from there. It will be two way different machines though, one very slow, and the 800 it would seem very fast. Can pretty much forget about the VDI's, not so swell on the Safari, and that's fine, it "the sound" that gets our attention. Looking forward to it.
 

Only ever used full tones on the the Deus so 50 tones on the nox is a smooth transition
 

Only ever used full tones on the the Deus so 50 tones on the nox is a smooth transition

Full tones on the Deus did have drawbacks (ferrous down averaging of non-ferrous was one, lack of iron tone if you used discrimination, and tone shifting with frequency - these are all remedied with 5 tones but then again, it's five tones - which is not full tones). On the Equinox, however, 50 tones is awesome because their is no ferrous down averaging from what I can tell and if you want to "hear iron" in 50 tones you can instantly cut disc in or out using the horseshoe All Metal button (a feature that I find to be more and more useful every time I use the detector) or you can use the threshold feature (which blanks the threshold tone when the coil goes over any discriminated or notched out target). Once you get used to 50 tones, there is no down side on the Equinox to using it vs. the way XP implemented it on the Deus. So I like 50 tones better than the Deus full tones implementation and agree with you that it was an easy transition from Deus to Equinox in this respect.
 

Last edited:
I've been using 50 tones on the Safari for some time now, at first it drove me a little crazy, then one day it just "clicked" for me. So.....whenever I may receive the 800, I should be good to go with it. I will compare the two on various targets just to see how much they match up (the sound) and then go from there. It will be two way different machines though, one very slow, and the 800 it would seem very fast. Can pretty much forget about the VDI's, not so swell on the Safari, and that's fine, it "the sound" that gets our attention. Looking forward to it.

The tone sound on the Equinox is a little different then the Safari. The Safari sounds are flutie which after you got use to them you could almost tell the shape of the object. At least in my opinion. With the Equinox it’s not like that, your now going to have to listen for the smoothness of the sound. Below is a picture of what the sound would look like if drawn out so imagine the smooth sound looking like that. It will take some time for it to click. Hope this helps.

ImageUploadedByTreasureNet.com1530831465.051356.jpg
 

50 tones isn't bad, but if there is a lot of iron it can be problematic. The problem with 50 tones is that it takes time for the sweep to happen... rather than beeping out a single mid tone, instead it sweeps from low tone to high tone for example. This takes longer than the time it takes to just blast out the mid tone. This means there is a slight delay. When you are hunting somewhere (such as in salt water) where there is a bit of falsing going on, then its bouncing all over the place and it's hard to get a solid meaningful tone.

After getting lots of time in 50 tones hunting the dry and wet sand, I finally did a water hunt and spent about 15 minutes extremely frustrated with my machine. What it was telling me was complete gibberish. I stopped and set up a custom 3 tone mode, and suddenly all was right in the world and the machine was actually saying something meaningful.

So 50 tones, 5 tones, or 3 tones, in the dry sand seems to make little difference, maybe a slight edge to 50 tones. In the salt water, 3 tones or 5 tones is definitely better than 50 tones.

Just my experience.
 

I find 4 tones to be the best... iron, foilish stuff, gold, silver. My high/mid tone break is between 20/21. If I hear a target bouncing between mid/high I know it's a zincoln and I keep moving.
 

I find 4 tones to be the best... iron, foilish stuff, gold, silver. My high/mid tone break is between 20/21. If I hear a target bouncing between mid/high I know it's a zincoln and I keep moving.

I’ll look into it thanks glider
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top