dewcon
Quality Control Expert
I just got my Xcal II back from Joe (ole Beech Nut) with some mods which included his Skullies with the tube speakers. He took off the slimline 10 and added the 8" Sov coil i provided. He also did a PPer and Skullies with both having the CTX connectors for quicker removal. He is also using a more flexible gray cable on the PPer.... and gave me a new longer battery cable. Me like.
Hit the beach today for about 4 hours. It was a little choppy which produced a bit of a current. My current 10" set up has the pods back about 4" from the cuff for great balance and keeps the pods out of the water most of the time. However with the 8" and that current it was a learning process because the stick was a little more top heavy and the CF was lighter..... so it was wanting to float a bit more than i liked. The machine ran absolutely great and those headphone really keep out the noise. That little coil is really pretty hot and i was picking up stuff in PP i might have passed up with the larger coil. Not nearly the threshold noise from the 8" so i was catching weaker signals much easier. Little more patience since you cant cover as much sand. I never got a lot of targets at depth.... but that may just be what was there. What i did notice is the smaller coil nulled much better over iron.....it could really ID it.
The Skullies are just a outstanding pair of phones. The newest ones do give you a bit of a tunnel sound but it doesnt take long to recognize the tones.... but in PP these phones are just bad rssss. You dont get nearly the threshold noise so you find yourself hitting on those very tiny targets that others just walk right over. Baby are they loud without a lot of distortion.
I was curious when i got home so i set all my detectors on 6 sensitivity and could hit a dime at 8 1/2" in disc and 11 in PP even with the 8" coil. So im not loosing much depth i dont think once i run them at peek. But i did gain some good target id especially on iron. I know the machines in the water act differently.... the ones with the GGA PP and disc depth is about the same. The Skullies I is much deeper than disc. Ill have to hunt with the Skullies ii for awhile to see how the depth is with the. I may have to put them on the GGA machine and see if anything changes.
I think i made a very good decission to swap out the coil to an 8" one, especially since the machine was just setting in a box. It was do these mods or sell it since im not a real fan of the Xcal II. I wanted to have the coil swapping ability but we decided to hold off and let Joe do more testing. All N all ...... if you dont have an 8" and you have an extra machine this could really be a nice nitch machine for smaller gold. Those Sov coils IMO is the way to go. Just seem to be solid and good coils.
Hit the beach today for about 4 hours. It was a little choppy which produced a bit of a current. My current 10" set up has the pods back about 4" from the cuff for great balance and keeps the pods out of the water most of the time. However with the 8" and that current it was a learning process because the stick was a little more top heavy and the CF was lighter..... so it was wanting to float a bit more than i liked. The machine ran absolutely great and those headphone really keep out the noise. That little coil is really pretty hot and i was picking up stuff in PP i might have passed up with the larger coil. Not nearly the threshold noise from the 8" so i was catching weaker signals much easier. Little more patience since you cant cover as much sand. I never got a lot of targets at depth.... but that may just be what was there. What i did notice is the smaller coil nulled much better over iron.....it could really ID it.
The Skullies are just a outstanding pair of phones. The newest ones do give you a bit of a tunnel sound but it doesnt take long to recognize the tones.... but in PP these phones are just bad rssss. You dont get nearly the threshold noise so you find yourself hitting on those very tiny targets that others just walk right over. Baby are they loud without a lot of distortion.
I was curious when i got home so i set all my detectors on 6 sensitivity and could hit a dime at 8 1/2" in disc and 11 in PP even with the 8" coil. So im not loosing much depth i dont think once i run them at peek. But i did gain some good target id especially on iron. I know the machines in the water act differently.... the ones with the GGA PP and disc depth is about the same. The Skullies I is much deeper than disc. Ill have to hunt with the Skullies ii for awhile to see how the depth is with the. I may have to put them on the GGA machine and see if anything changes.
I think i made a very good decission to swap out the coil to an 8" one, especially since the machine was just setting in a box. It was do these mods or sell it since im not a real fan of the Xcal II. I wanted to have the coil swapping ability but we decided to hold off and let Joe do more testing. All N all ...... if you dont have an 8" and you have an extra machine this could really be a nice nitch machine for smaller gold. Those Sov coils IMO is the way to go. Just seem to be solid and good coils.