Blinded By The Numbers, Consumed By The Tech

With both the release of the XP Deus 2 and the Nokta Makro Legend I started to critically think about both metal detecting and the current wave of metal detectors that have been coming onto the market over recent years. Technology has been leaking into every area of our lives for a long time now, in some respects that's a good thing but there's part of me that thinks it's actually making us lazy and stupid. That might sound like a harsh assessment but I'll try and explain myself in the best way possible. The way I see it, technology, in all aspects of our existence, creates a form of convenience and can bypass the 'learning aspect' of most subjects and activities. Lets give a very basic example, 'spell-check', why bother picking a dictionary up when you can press a button and all your spelling mistakes are corrected. Before spell-check you had to physically look through the dictionary, learn to spell the word and understand the meaning of the word you were using. Now that whole process is pretty much a thing of the past, you don't even have to know how to spell, just click a button and all the hard work is done for you, and within this process you are none the wiser. 

Technology Is Overriding Basic Human Interaction

You can move the above example into pretty much every area of our lives, what's the point in learning how to read a map when you can just follow a 'Sat-Nav'? having been a carp angler for well over 30 years I've seen the infiltration of technology effect the actual "art" of angling. With the invention of bait boats, what's the point in learning to cast correctly?, why bother learning how to feature find in the water in front of you when you can simply cast a sonar out that beams pictures directly to your phone of what's underneath the surface? The list of examples go on, I think you get the point. Now lets move over into the realms of metal detecting, it's clear that in the last 30 years metal detectors have come a long way and with companies such as Minelab, XP and Nokta Makro, competition is crazy. This might be great for us consumers but are we getting sold a convenience or actual 'top of the line metal detectors', this is where I get a little sceptical.

Bells & Whistles

I grew up using an analogue machine, the Fisher 1265x, it was a series of knobs and switches, for its time it was a fantastic detector and you could pretty much fine tune it to most terrains. But to be able to tune it correctly you had to understand every thing about it and have a very clear picture in your mind of what each knob and switch did, you didn't just press a button and start swinging. Before you jump in, talking about target separation, depth, ergonomics etc, I'm not saying this specific machine outperforms modern day detectors, my point here is - you had to understand the machine and become one with it's language, there was no button to press to bypass any of this. The technology hadn't evolved enough to make it accessible for everyone, if you wanted to learn to metal detect correctly you really had to want to learn how to do it. Even finding any metal detecting literature was hard, I had to send a self address envelope to every brand that existed at the time so I could get their catalogs.

 What Do I mean By Metal Detecting Correctly?

Found At 10 Inches Under Iron & Bent Nails "Non-Repeatable" 

For me metal detecting is an art form, it’s a multifaceted activity, stemming from our understanding of the machine to the way we dig our plugs to researching our finds, it’s all as important as each other. The way I see it is, anyone can buy a modern detector, switch it on and swing, keeping a close eye on the VDI numbers until they hear a solid repeatable signal from all directions with a number flashing on the screen that represents what they want to dig up. But it takes a completely different frame of mind to be able to hear and understand those signals on the edge of detection or buried beneath or within the iron and trash. A lot of times these signals sound grotty and don’t always repeat in more than one direction, also in these specific situations the numbers are meaningless. To master this specific approach you have to put serious hours in the field and you have to be prepared to dig everything, no amount of YouTube videos is going to make you master your machine, you can get pointers but there's no substitute for time swinging and digging. 

The more you dig, the more you understand, there are no short cuts, if you are going by the numbers on the screen and a clear repeatable tone then you are going to be walking over good targets. This is where my point of both “technology” and “convenience” comes back into play. I don’t care how much a machine costs, none of them can let you know what you’re digging, it can only give a ball park representation in the form of a number and, depending on the machine, a tone. The latest and greatest detector is a waste of money if you're not prepared to learn it's language, the machine alone doesn't find the treasure, the detectorist married to his machine does.

Perspective

When I look at a vast majority of the new detectors on the market today, the companies are pushing features such as 'unrivalled target I.D' and 'new advanced discrimination abilities', 'simultaneous multi-frequency'  turn on and go etc .. etc. To be honest that already counts me out because I dig on tones alone and search in all metal mode 99.9% of the time, to me all the slogans above are just 'buzz terms' to catch your attention.  Regarding  'simultaneous multi-frequency', apart from on the beach, does it really make that much of a difference, look at all the treasures and hoards that have been found over the decades with single frequency detectors - these finds speak for themselves. The latest technically ground-breaking item isn't always the best, let's look at music for a moment, does music recorded directly into digital pro-tools sound as good as on analogue tape? no it doesn't but it's convenient, when recording in pro-tools people don't even have to be able to play particularly well, it can all be edited and overdubbed at a touch of a button. Do profiled and sampled amps and pedals sound better than their analogue counterparts ...... no they don't but they're convenient and when you're touring heavily they rarely go wrong. 

My Next Machine

So taking all the above into consideration I started to look at some of the independent "fringe" type detecting companies out there, mainly in Eastern Europe who appear to be producing some fantastic analogue machines. After extensive research and some long distance phone calls, it became apparent that a number of these 'non-fashionable' detectors where more than capable, it's just the companies lacked the marketing budget to alert people of their presence. All their money was going into the machines performance, not into a multi-million pound advertising campaigns with cool looking guys and girls swinging the latest tech on the edge of a 1500ft cliff.  Also because these "fringe" detectors don't look super cool and sleek with endless features most look upon them as ancient dinosaurs, and frankly, pieces of garbage. To operate these specific machines you need to learn and understand how to both operate and fine-tune them, a button to do all this for you isn't available, so going back to my original point - you've really got to want to learn metal detecting if you are looking to purchase a high-end analogue machine. - remember, all that glitters ain't gold!

Treasure Isn't Always Buried

To put it bluntly a clock and a flashlight on the console is not adding to the machines performance and it's not going to personally find me anymore objects in the ground, neither is a "no cable machine" completely wireless machine. These aspects are just gimmicks to me, don't get me wrong, I love all machines, I still have my old Fisher 1265x, a Fisher F19 and an Equinox 800 - 'purchased three years after release, I knew nothing of the hype', I love swinging all these detectors but I just have a very distinct 'niggling' feeling that the mainstream companies are pulling the wool over our eyes with "gadget machines" rather than out and out "RAW" metal detectors. For me personally I don't need half the options on the EQX 800, people rant and rave about it but I feel it has many limitations, there is no one machine that can do it all, despite what the companies might be telling you.

So to conclude, technology has clearly enabled us to swing some fantastic machines and millions of amazing finds from around the world prove that the leading brands are doing something right. But let's not forget, the most important aspect of metal detecting as a hobby is enjoyment, the machine you use is secondary to getting out there in the fresh air and enjoying the world around you. Don't feel pressured into having to have "THE BEST", in my mind "THE BEST" is a detector that you can afford that gives you the opportunity to get out and find a few treasures for yourself. I get the impression that a lot of guys out there spend more time testing, comparing and arguing online about which machine is the best than actually getting out there and digging.

In The Words Of Chuck D From Public Enemy 

"Don't Believe The Hype"