Golden Mask 1+ Dual Tone

I thought it was worth writing a short blog about the Golden Mask +1 'dual tone', this machine runs at 18KHZ, obviously most of the points covered are going to be exactly the same as my Golden Mask 4WD. Apart from a few less features they're pretty much the same machine, remember that I'm writing about these machines after using them on the river, not in the fields, for me they're for river use only. 

Cosmetically, apart from a few less dials on the interface the build quality is exactly the same as the 4WD, I've explained before that the build is no thrills, not exactly the best, far from the worst. It feels solid in the hands, it has a nice carbon shaft with tough locking screws, everything else is made from tough plastics. The design itself might be a little rough around the edges but I personally don't care, it's being used on a really messy environment where it's going to get muddy and scratched.

The controls are as minimal as you can get, you have volume, discrimination and sensitivity and you have a fixed dual tone, this means you get a low tone for ferrous and a high tone nonferrous. These can't be adjusted or switched around, unlike the 4WD where you have a disc/single tone option. Like I've explained in a previous blog about the GM audio, to get the best clarity of tone in your headphones, turn the volume on the headphones up to their maximum and then have the volume of the machine set around 9' o'clock. Another point to make, each machine comes with an option to use wireless headphones and this needs to be selected when you put your order in, wireless headphones don't come as standard.

The main reason I got the +1 model was for the fixed ground balance, I'm using it on the foreshore and I can't ground balance on that terrain to a satisfactory level. The 4WD has a manual ground balance and even though it performed brilliantly, I was always in the positive so false signals were occurring. It became very clear straight away that the +1 was far more stable and the machine was a lot quieter. Obviously depth is lost with a fixed ground balance but I not interested in depth on the river, it's all about speed, isolation and unmasking. It's within these three areas that the Golden Mask machines excel. 

As expected the unit is really fast and the audio is nice a punchy, on my first trip out to the river I dug over 50 non ferrous targets within a few hours. Obviously my ears are tuned in to the audio due to using the 4WD, volume wise, the two tones are balanced nicely, neither are louder than the other. It's easy to tell when you have a potential masked target due to how the audio reacts and good non ferrous targets jump out at you. To get proficient I suggest you spend some time messing around with both ferrous and non ferrous targets so you understand exactly what the machine is telling you. Remember apart from the super cheap machines, a metal detector is only as good as the operator. If you haven't learnt what your machine is telling you it doesn't matter what you're swinging.

So to conclude, the Golden Mask +1 dual tone exhibits everything you'd expect from a Golden Mask detector, it's simple, fast and effective, you can't really go wrong with this machine. Don't be fooled by its appearance and lack of pointless features, it's a killer detector. I've written many times that in a world full of pointless shit less usually turns out to be more, I think this is something that's really important when it comes to metal detectors. I have the +1 mono tone coming in a few weeks so it will be interesting to see how that performs as well. 

NOTE - For unmasking to work correctly don't go above 4 on the discrimination setting.