X Terra 705

Anybody using the 705 for beach work? Is it any good compared to A Sov.
There are a few posts here but not many answers ?
Just curious because I can get one for 350 dollars AU or would I be better off putting a CCTV system in my house & driveway for the same price.

If it's in good condition thats a good buy ... And from what I've heard they are good on beaches. I had a 305 it was a great on the beach

Thanks for the reply.
It is fitted with a 9.5 inch concentric and being single frequency I thought it might not be so flash on salt beaches??

Haven't used the 705 on the beach nor did I ever run the SOV on the beach, but would assume that the DD coil would be best (even in parks on coins etc I do not use the concentric coil), the 705 has a beach mode and for that price it is a steal.

adrian ss wrote:Anybody using the 705 for beach work? Is it any good compared to A Sov.
There are a few posts here but not many answers ?
Just curious because I can get one for 350 dollars AU or would I be better off putting a CCTV system in my house & driveway for the same price.

Mate, I reckon go for the CCTV system and become a security freak............ 

Someone else got the 705 and paid 499.......That's what i get for procrastinating although I probably would not have been happy with the 705s beach performance so it is no loss.
The CCTV security syst is looking good.

Today Thursday:

Got an as new  705 for 380 AUD.
I know it is early days yet but So far I am not impressed and rate it about the same as an old Garrett GTA 1500.
My Spectrum XLT is streets ahead of it in performance and programability.
Anyway I may change my mind after giving it a longer tryout and have used it at the beach.

Just a few minutes ago:
The 705 in any of the preset disc patterns cannot find the one, two dollar , 5 cents and 10 cents in my test patch at  between 5 and 6 inches deep. This a bit tragic. The 20 cent and fifty cent is iffy in that the  ID numbers jump around a lot.
Air testing in Disc mode is OK but nothing to write home about.
No probs in All Metal. This mode is excellent..... Pity there is no TID in this mode.

Looks like there are not many 705 operators out there and I am beginning to see why.
The machine is nothing flash.
The only way I can get it to signal on 1 & 2 dollar coins in my test patch is to use All Metal mode or to set the disc pattern icons all on to accept and then the 1 and 2 dollar coins signal in the low iron range first two segments.
This seems to be due to the fixed GB in disc mode and the disc display being messed up by iron minerals in the ground. My test patch is light  iron mineralisation.
The detector surprised me a bit by being able to hit on quite small bits of gold and light gold chain in both All metal GB Mode and Fixed GB Disc Mode

.

Went to the beach today with the Infinium, Whites Vsat and the XTerra 705
Obviously the Infinium was great. The Vsat was much more usable than I thought it would be and found the only coins for the day. The XTerra peed me off something cronic but I will reserve judgment until I have got a better grip of how to use this detector and how it is supposed to work......First impression was that it would make an interesting walking stick.

Took the 705 to the beach yesterday and gave the Ground balance Beach Mode a Good try out.
The detector was very good in the dry and slightly damp sand with excellent Sensitivity and depth on all targets large or small but the 705 is no good over the wet sand and cannot GB the wet sand in the Beach Mode.
Do not know where this detector sits in the grand scheme of things.

If you want to search the dry sand for gold chains, rings n similar items then the 705 is great. If you want to search all areas of the beach with one detector then get a Gold Bug (Digital) Sand Shark Sovereign, Infinium, Sea Hunter, TDI or any BBS or FBS metal detector, or a BHID, AT Pro,

Just an opinion.

After frequency search.
I use prospecting (pick) mode and Beach (umbrella) mode together on the wet sand............... Auto GB then manual fine tune.......adjust sens, to condition.
Now GB in all metal mode as in Pick mode with Umbrella on... adjust sens, for that mode also ..........the settings required for these two modes are usually not the same.
I search in the Pick mode and switch over to AM mode to get a quick ID number, then back to pick mode for pinpointing.


If above fail get a Makro Racer it will GB in 4-5 coil pumps on water line then up the sens. to 98 in beach mode........... and hear nothing before you tuch coil on the wet sand or go over a target.
Videos on another friendly forum.



ivanll

Hi Ivanll.
Thanks for the set up info.
I think I tried most of what you have mentioned with the exception of Manual GB.
     On the wet sand the Auto GB was driving to max (For salt conditions) and so I did not use manual GB. The detector was just too noisy over the wet sand.
In Disc Mode the detector was blanking/Overloading a few inches above the sand even at Min Sens.
I am not sure if I will keep the 705 although I am impressed with the small gold sensitivity and depth over the dry sand.

I  consider the Gold Bug to be much better in All Metal Mode than the  705 on the beach because it had no probs with the wet sand, but my gold Bug was nicked. Have thought about a Racer but cannot justify the expense

Have though about a Racer but cannot justify the expense

The expense is taken care of in the finds these other units have trying to GB the problematic area.

The detectors that I mentioned except the 705 have no problemss on salt beaches.
I am disappointed with the 705 because it has a specific beach ground balance mode and it is not good at all. Even the Garrett AT Pro which is not brilliant on salt beaches, is far better than the 705.
The Racer is, from all of the reports I have read, a very good metal detector on and off the beaches, but I will not spend more than 350 to 400 dollars for tecta these days which is why I buy second hand only.
The Gold bug with 11 inch DD that I had, all but replaced the Infinium on the beach and now I use the Infinium and Sand Shark for In Water detecting only

there is nothing wrong with the 705 over wet sand, i get mine to run silently with sensitivity set between 20-25, but i like to push boundaries and use 30 (max).

like ivanll suggests and i highly recommend, almost always detect in prospecting mode first (regardless of location) and then switch to coin mode for target id.

to properly set up the 705 for beach mode, select either prospecting or coin mode, press and hold GB until the umbrella appears then exit GB. i say exit because you cant set beach mode and auto ground balance simultaneously. you must set beach mode first, exit, and then ground balance the machine. you must do this over wet sand. gb is usually high, around 70.

whatever you do, dont let the coil touch wet sand in beach mode, not because it will destroy your coil (it wont), but youll hear alot of falsing.

on dry sand, always turn off beach mode, set sensitivity to max (30), and ground balance (usually low, around 20).

Thanks for that info.
I have parted company from the X-Terra 705.

The Sov, XLT, Infinium and Sand Shark are satisfying my beach detecting needs and if the ATX was not such a ham fisted klutz of a machine I would have one of those also. The TDI Pro is also high on my list of Wish I Had One Detectors. The TDI can, in my opinion punch deeper in wet beach sand than the ATX on coin and ring size items.

adrian ss wrote:Thanks for that info.
I have parted company from the X-Terra 705.

The Sov, XLT, Infinium and Sand Shark are satisfying my beach detecting needs and if the ATX was not such a ham fisted klutz of a machine I would have one of those also. The TDI Pro is also high on my list of Wish I Had One Detectors. The TDI can, in my opinion punch deeper in wet beach sand than the ATX on coin and ring size items.

although i havent used one, why wouldnt you go for the 3030 instead of the sov, xlt, infinium and sand shark? surely the combined cost of all four would be more than the 3030 (around $2695 at the time of writing).

one of my prospecting buddies had an atx and sold it recently. i tried to convince him not to. my other prospecting buddy though, is keeping his. its a good machine, versatile and simple to use. however, the cost of additional coils is ridiculous. he has the standard 12" DD.

if you want depth, surely you cant go past the gpx series. i use my 4500 with the 11" DD (sometimes the 15x12) on the beach at low tide. it punches so deep ive had to buy my 3rd shovel because the other two couldnt cut it. its a wide mouth and i usually dig at depths of around 450mm for targets.

i only use the 4500 on wet sand and at low tide.

I've used the TDI PRO OZ series on the beach in wet and dry sand.
Performs well on both and you can use an array of coils which are cheap to buy now since the release of the gpz.

UNCLE BOB wrote:I've used the TDI PRO OZ series on the beach in wet and dry sand.
Performs well on both and you can use an array of coils which are cheap to buy now since the release of the gpz.

being a PI though, it must get annoying digging up bobby pin after bobby pin, tent peg after tent peg, bottle top after bottle top. i very very rarely use the 4500 on dry sand, theres just way too much rubbish to deal with, hence why i use the 705, for target id.

JohnnyTheGreek wrote:

adrian ss wrote:Thanks for that info.
I have parted company from the X-Terra 705.

The Sov, XLT, Infinium and Sand Shark are satisfying my beach detecting needs and if the ATX was not such a ham fisted klutz of a machine I would have one of those also. The TDI Pro is also high on my list of Wish I Had One Detectors. The TDI can, in my opinion punch deeper in wet beach sand than the ATX on coin and ring size items.

although i havent used one, why wouldnt you go for the 3030 instead of the sov, xlt, infinium and sand shark?  surely the combined cost of all four would be more than the 3030 (around $2695 at the time of writing).

one of my prospecting buddies had an atx and sold it recently.  i tried to convince him not to.  my other prospecting buddy though, is keeping his.  its a good machine, versatile and simple to use. however, the cost of additional coils is ridiculous.  he has the standard 12" DD.

if you want depth, surely you cant go past the gpx series.  i use my 4500 with the 11" DD (sometimes the 15x12) on the beach at low tide.  it punches so deep ive had to buy my 3rd shovel because the other two couldnt cut it.  its a wide mouth and i usually dig at depths of around 450mm for targets.

i only use the 4500 on wet sand and at low tide.

The Sov, XLT, Infinium and sand Shark were purchased over a long period of time and all were second hand.
I do not and never will have enough cash on hand to purchase a new 3030 and it is debatable as to whether it can do a better job than the Sov over wet salt beaches. As for the Infinium and the sand Shark, well they are very capable metal detectors and I see no reason to part with either of them.
The XLT is an amazing machine and is capable of all but the most demanding metal detecting. If you want to work under water or hunt in extreme iron mineralisation then chose something suitable to that purpose.Finding targets ate around the 450 mm mark in wet salt beaches is common with the Infinium, Sand Shark and Sov and for a lot less than the cost of a 4500

X-Terra with a NEL Hunter DD coil work really well on a salt water beach, but better on the dry than on the wet.

Red Racer with a Tiger coil in my hands is definitely superior and easier to use, both on the dry and wet.

Had a Sovereign GT with a number of coils including a 15" WOT, swopped it for a Fisher CZ-3D ..... Absolutely No Regret.

Picked up another 705 today. Sucker for punishment I guess. The price was right and still has 2 years warranty remaining and is not listed anywhere as stolen.  
But you have to wonder about a tecta that takes 50 A4 pages of operator manual just to explain how to set Disc, Volume, Mode n sensitivity.

Anyway the tecta seems to be working fine and as I mentioned earlier in ref to the other 705 that I had; The Am Prospecting mode is very sensitive to small nuggs but cannot handle really tough iron ground.  If you keep the coil approx 4 inches above bad ground (ground that will cause an overload signal when coil is within an inch of the surface) and sensitivity at around 50 to 70 percent of max you will still hear 4g nuggs and up depending on depth.
The disc mode sensitivity needs to be adjusted a bit to bring up the detection depth in this mode over wet beach sand, Other than that the machine is fine.

My knee op is on the improve and I will play with this tecta for a short while and then it will be for sale...Very cheap.  if anyone is interested and I will keep you in mind when I am ready to sell this little beastie. Has two coils DD elip and round concentric. No HPs