lorennerol
Tenderfoot
When I was in junior high my parents got me a Compass RM7A. It was like a part of my brain; I could tell with near-certainty from the nature of the audio what I was about to unearth. It's long gone, electronics having perished. A few years back I got a Whites M6 thinking my kids would get into it. I probably used it 20 hours, the kids weren't interested, and when I got it out earlier this year the audio was dead- no speaker, no headset. It must have been right about the time they were shutting down, as the web site was there, but emails to inquire about fixing it bounced.
The M6 never felt sharp to me; the communication I got from it just didn't seem as detailed. Part of this is certainly that I had 10-20x the time with the Compass. And I also kept reaching for dials to fine tune...the ones that existed on the Compass and didn't on the M6, or looking for analog signal needles to see how they were moving over a target.
Now I'd like to replace the dead M6 and rather than figure out what to get on my own, I'm asking the collective wisdom.
Info/preferences:
It's not something I'll use every weekend, so ideally the 'getting used to it' part isn't 200 hours.
For obvious reasons, a manufacturer that seems like they will be around.
We live in the Washington state, near Seattle. It's wet and the ground acidic here. I unearthed zinc pennies with the M6 that were 1/2 gone.
I'd be most likely to use it around the neighborhood, local parks (where allowed), old cabin sites in the mountains, etc.
Reliability, build quality, well designed user interface.
I don't think I need something that has a ton of filtering features- "exclude all but gold" not necessary. I had a ton of fun and didn't dig up much junk with the Compass and its discrimination system (which has to be pretty basic by today's standard).
Basically, I want something I can go find some fun things with (and avoid most trash), that will last, that's reasonably easy to learn to use, and that has good nuance (I realize this is highly subjective).
Cost isn't a significant factor.
Fisher F75?
Garrett AT Max/Pro?
Aim me, please.
Thank you in advance, and glad to be a part of the forum.
The M6 never felt sharp to me; the communication I got from it just didn't seem as detailed. Part of this is certainly that I had 10-20x the time with the Compass. And I also kept reaching for dials to fine tune...the ones that existed on the Compass and didn't on the M6, or looking for analog signal needles to see how they were moving over a target.
Now I'd like to replace the dead M6 and rather than figure out what to get on my own, I'm asking the collective wisdom.
Info/preferences:
It's not something I'll use every weekend, so ideally the 'getting used to it' part isn't 200 hours.
For obvious reasons, a manufacturer that seems like they will be around.
We live in the Washington state, near Seattle. It's wet and the ground acidic here. I unearthed zinc pennies with the M6 that were 1/2 gone.
I'd be most likely to use it around the neighborhood, local parks (where allowed), old cabin sites in the mountains, etc.
Reliability, build quality, well designed user interface.
I don't think I need something that has a ton of filtering features- "exclude all but gold" not necessary. I had a ton of fun and didn't dig up much junk with the Compass and its discrimination system (which has to be pretty basic by today's standard).
Basically, I want something I can go find some fun things with (and avoid most trash), that will last, that's reasonably easy to learn to use, and that has good nuance (I realize this is highly subjective).
Cost isn't a significant factor.
Fisher F75?
Garrett AT Max/Pro?
Aim me, please.
Thank you in advance, and glad to be a part of the forum.
