White's Customer Appreciation and the M6

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

White's Electronics, Inc.
Attn: Customer Appreciation Shopper Redemption
1011 Pleasant Valley Rd.
Sweet Home, OR 97386

Just happened to have one to send in myself.

Hope I was able to help. What MD did you buy. I got a MXT and just got a shooter coil which I REALLY like for parks. Next is the 6x10 DD for me.

HH

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Thanks for the info. Got a M6, plan on getting the 5.3 coil.

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

I just wanted to let you all know I sent my "Whites" customer appreciation form a week ago monday. The form said allow 4 to 6 weeks for shipping.
The Company reserves the right to send a different item if they run out.
This is what I got today.....exactly what I ordered and in just 10 days.
How about that!...................... ..........Gil

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Jerster..
I see you have an M6. I just got mine recently and havn't gotten a chance to do some serious work yet. But I have tested her a bit playing around and I gotta say this: I like it alot so far. The 7 tone I.D. is awesome and I like the PP and depth feature.
I was thinking about getting the Prizm V cause it is less exspensive and I can't remember who told me this but, somone said the Prizm V and the M6 are about the same. I had a Prizm ll and just plain didn't care for it. Didn't like it at all, so I was about to get the MXT instead but changed my mind when I looked into the M6. I'm so glad I did.
What do you think about it? Like comparing it to the Prizm V? Like, they have simular features but I wouldn't say they are the same like this person that told me they are. Heck, the price differance is all I need to see that they aren't the same.
One more thing: The M6 , can other coils be used? Thanks friend- Dave G

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Hey Dave-
I, too, am liking the M6 so far. I've only been out a few limited times for a couple hours each, but each time have come away with some goodies. Its definately more chattery than the Prizm V (I only have the standard coil on each) - that should improve as I change coil options for the M6 and learn the settings a little better.

The M6 is an upgrade on the Prizm V, though by how much I'm not sure quite yet. I know the M6 is stable as heck on dry sand, as I've tested that out a bit. I think I got a pretty good deal on the M6, if you count the $100 credit I'm getting from Whites I actually paid less for it than I did for my Prizm V, and I got a discount on the Prizm V too.

My daughter will continue to use the Prizm V, and if she ever tires of it, it will be a great backup for me. I've noticed that even though they are at different frequencies, there is some interference if we are both hunting and we get too close to one another.

I really like the Prizm V, I think its an underrated detector. I have found several pieces of silver and a couple rings and a multitude of clad with it in the short time I've had it. Its very simple to use and light. I like the fact that both detectors I have have multi tone ability.

One of the best things about the M6 is that there are several coil options available. I just ordered the Eclipse 5.3 which should perform really well in the trashy sites around here.

I thought about the MXT, but liked the stableness of the M6 and really don't relic or nugget hunt, so I felt the jewelry and coin hunting I would be doing with the M6 would satisfy my needs.

I like the depth and sensitivity of the M6, even with the standard coil and in trashy sites. I found some gold plated cufflink like pieces in between a bunch of trash signals and the things were around 7" or so. I dug a target that read a dime at 8" which ended up being a dime sized lining to I think some type of bottle - which isn't the best of finds but shows a little of what it was capable of. I have been digging all coin sized targets that indicate 6" or deeper and have found a few wheaties and other things.

The VDI of 18 to 20 indicating a nickel is pretty accurate. Zinc penny VDI's have 90+% produced the coin correctly. Quarter sized targets have been going bing bing bing and been correct more times than not. Pennies and dimes have been accurate too. I just need to hunt some older sites to see it pick out some silver. Pinpointing is spot on, just like the Prizm V.

Good luck with your M6, I'm sure you will enjoy it. I know I am!

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Jerster,
I agree, the PP is really dead on. When I took it out for a quick test, everything was dead on and 100% correct. If the VDI said quarter the tone was a high pitch and it was a quarter. I was getting another reading for either a dime or penny, but the tone was low blah blah, and also it wasn't a full bar on the I.D. I don't know, I just personally like it alot better than when I had the prizm ll. Ive had too many hits that were wrong pretty much 60% of the time although the ID read quarter and the high tone was there. Who knows, maybe it was me, I was very green then. Well, I have a positive feeling for this detector. When I get some extra $$ I too want to get one of those smaller coils for high trash areas.
Yeah, I see there are quit a few coil options for the M6. I wasn't sure at first if there were but I checked out Kellyco ( Is that the correct name?) and saw the differant options. Cool.
Well, thanks for answering my questions bud. Keep me posted on anything you might find useful/ tip wise while using it and I'll do same.
HH, be safe and good luck jerster- Dave

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

I would like to read the M6's owners manual. Does anyone know where to get one??

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Minelab Eureka Gold
VibroProbe 560
Gray Ghost Orig.

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

What Whites Customer Appreciation ? They don't run anything in the U.K.

Brian

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

brian

they dont need to as service is always quick and with a smile,in 1996 my xlt wouldnt power up only 2 months old,i took it to the factory told george the problem,he said leave it with us and come back in 2 hours,cars exhaust fell off on way up so got that fixed to kill time,2hours 45 minutes later my brakes were screwed aswell,went back to factory every things perfect,even got discount when i purchased a new probe,

also a few others bought 2 new plastic screens £2.50 each sent a cheque,screens arrived before cheque was cashed,also sent an xlt for a test,sent on monday back on wednesday.perfect.

i only live 108 miles from whites factory but its a 2 and a half hour drive.

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

I have an MXT. And am thinking of getting a M6 for my wife.

But I read the following about the M6:

This machine seems to have problems "locking on" to targets below 4". VDI readings below this level seem unreliable and the machine seems to have trouble with verfication.

Have you guys noticed any of this to be true?

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Steeler - I read that too (about locking on to targets deeper than 4"), but I figure that occurs at least some of the time with a lot of machines. Since the M6 is based off of the MXT, I've also read that depth is not really an issue. Tons of folks swear by their MXT, so the technology has got to be there.

I can tell you that with my limited times out, I really haven't noticed or experienced that lack of locking too much. I've gotten some strong, repeatable signals on 6-8" deep coins. My M6 had no problem telling me that there was a penny down there, which ended up being a wheatie.

Even on small targets that indicated 6", like a small piece of jewelry that I found, the M6 bing bing binged the VDI number in a pretty tight band.

I dug some junk, just to see how that was recording on the VDI. It would break up a lot more than the coins did, and bounce around much more. BTW, the 38 caliber bullet I found in a schoolyard (disturbing enough) was around 5" and strong in the mid 30 range on the VDI, just like my wedding ring was when I tested that.

Dig away!!

Jerry

PS - Brian - the customer appreciation special allows $100-200 credit based on buying a new machine from your local dealer. You can check out the Whites website for more info.

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

whites M6 UK FIELD TEST.

Recently Whites released the M6 onto the UK market, my first impressions reading the spec was its a “Tamed” MXT, did whites release this machine in response to inexperienced detectorists calling the mxt noisy, well I’ve no idea if this is the case, but the M6 if set up properly ran smooth as silk while I tested it out on my sites.

The M6 has just one mode (coin & jewellery) compared to the mxt’s three, and just two control knobs and two switches, the two knobs are for sensitivity and discrimination, and the switch on the control box is for the ground tracking with three positions, “beach”, “autotrac on”, and “autotrac off/lock”, the M6 weighs in around 3 ounces lighter than the mxt and has a completely re-designed 9.5 coil stock coil, and a large easy to read meter, the stem system is similar to the one used on the prizm series rather than the more usual style of the xlt/dfx/mxt, a three position trigger switch below the meter finishes off the machine nicely, this trigger in the forward position switches the machine into seven tone id mode, centre position is the normal search mode with just the one tone, as with other whites models pulling the trigger engages the pinpoint mode and depth reading, it has no threshold adjustment as it’s a silent search machine.

I’m pretty certain that several detectorists will pass over this machine thinking it’s a low end jobby because of the few controls available to play with, but old hands at this game are well aware that the addition of bells and whistles does not mean more finds in your bag, in fact farting about checking bouncing cursors, flashing lights, or even numeric displays slow you down and give no more info than the audio is already telling you through the headphones, the human ear/brain (even mine lol) is far superior to any gimmicky readouts a lot of machines have, so why many people think a machine which is laden down with gadgetry is better than a simple bare bones mid-range machine I’ll never know.

The first site I tried this machine on had some overhead power cables, the machine was stable with the sens set on 100, moving the control above the 100 mark into the shaded area like the plus numbers on the mxt will also boost the audio, although the machine is “silent search” I could hear a very faint hum in the background, good thing really as it told me the machine was working as it performed very smoothly with only the odd spit and crack while going over the larger iron, the discrim was set just below the preset (1) mark which eliminates small/medium iron, the trac was set to the ON position, not enough iron around to switch it to OFF (lock) position after balancing, I was using the trigger in the centre position (single tone) and although the signals sounded a bit “tinny” after using the mxt they were quite pleasant on the ears and not the blaster signals I’ve become used to on the mxt, switching to tone id (trigger forward) to check signals the audio was more defined and cleaner to my ears, if using in the tone id mode and you have the discrim set to reject iron you won’t hear the lowest tone for iron, to get a true tone id including the iron low tone you need to turn the discrim to 0, I personally was much happier having the discrim set to reject iron, that way any tone heard was indicating a good target, the pitch of the tone indicating the conductivity of the target, for instance a low conductive target such as hammered coins would give a tone I can only describe as a “wet fart” lol, larger higher conductive targets obviously gave the usual high whistle, but as always any two way signal should be dug, only ignoring the lowest tone if the discrim is set to 0.

As on the mxt the C/J mode needs the sensitivity set carefully to avoid unnecessary background noise, raising the sens until noise is generated then backing off slightly as with most detectors will soon have things running smoothly, the M6 was very pleasant to use with just the odd click and spit as the coil passed over the near surface iron, now personally I never see the point in getting too scientific when doing these tests on new machines, all machines I’ve used (around 150 on the last count) have been run over the same sites which I know like the back of my hand as they say, and I can tell within a few hours usage of a machine on these sites if it will do the business or not, obviously I couldn’t guarantee the same results on sites in different parts of the country, but an overall picture of how the machine performed in general, rather than just a list of finds and at what depths they were found is in my opinion far more helpful in deciding which machine to purchase, as always its more than just the depth capabilities of a given machine that makes me decide whether to keep it or not, if using a machine for a long session of detecting the weight/balance is very important, as is the tone of the audio response, the ease of making adjustments in the field and the build quality also play a big part in deciding the merits of a given machine.

I found the sensitivity of the M6 to small finds just as good as the MXT, some of the targets were tiny, some people think a .177 air rifle pellet is a small find but the M6/mxt will find much smaller than that, in fact I’ve never found another machine yet to equal the sensitivity to small finds as the whites mxt/dfx/M6, which is why the mxt holds the record number of “cut” hammered found by myself over the last forty years, the cut hammered especially cut quarters are for me the benchmark for a genuinely sensitive machine, and I mean finding them consistently and not just one every now and again.
On the second site I visited with the M6 I was able to get the sensitivity halfway into the shaded area due to moving away from the power lines, the machine ran smoothly again with just the odd click here and there, plenty of non-ferrous bits and pieces came out some at good depths, and a couple of flattened coke cans had me digging deep holes expecting to find large iron as the target, you know the ones, plough shear’s or large horseshoe’s.

This machine will take all the accessory coils that fit the dfx/mxt so there’s a very wide range to choose from, the coil choice for a given machine is another important consideration when buying a new machine, personally I stick with the makers coils as I’ve been let down several times on many different machines by third party coils that promise the world and deliver nothing.
On the next site I gave the machine a run over I decided to fit the 10” X 5” elliptical DD coil, the DD’s handle the ground much better than the concentric ones, although at a slight loss of depth, surprisingly I could get the sens to max with only some slight chatter, with the sens maxed out any depth loss over the stock concentric coil would have been minimal, I enjoyed several hours detecting as the machine worked smoothly with only the occasional chatter as I hit the iron laden patches on this site, as an afterthought I reckon the 14 inch DD would have been a better choice as the field had been ploughed, and the extra depth given by the large coil would have counteracted the fluffy soil full of air pockets, nevertheless the smaller DD did a very good job winkling out more non ferrous finds, a short cross cut half hammered was the only notable find, but the amount of non ferrous at the end of the day did show this machine is on a par with my mxt, I couldn’t say that about too many of the machines I’ve given a run out lately.

The M6 with only the vital controls fitted that are needed for some serious detecting, would in my humble opinion be a good choice for a novice as well as the experienced detectorist, a novice certainly wouldn’t outgrow this machine in a hurry, it would also suite the people who liked the mxt but found it noisy, the mxt is a serious piece of kit for searching those ancient iron littered sites in the UK, which is why I’ve used it for the last two and a half years with great success, and the M6 although being a stripped down version of its illustrious brother certainly matches it performance wise, and does it in a smoother fashion if set up carefully, the auto track is another reason this machine would suite an inexperienced detectorist, its very quick and accurate and would leave a novice to get on with detecting without worrying whether a manual balance system was set up correctly, all in all a very decent machine with the famous whites build quality, sensitivity, and after sales service.
Would I recommend changing to this machine from the MXT, no definitely not unless of course you’re one of the faint hearted that thinks the mxt is to noisy, the mxt likes plenty of power down and shouts at you lol, this one is more refined and whispers.

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Brian here is a link to the customer appreciation page.
http://www.whiteselectronics.com/shopperdollar.php

and JoeHill3 here is a link to the M6 manual
http://www.whiteselectronics.com/manuals/2005_Models/M6_manual.pdf

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Thanks Vespaman. That was a nice read, and I learned something about my MXT.

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Hi Vespaman
You must be talking about the good old days when George was in charge, not Angela. Under George I had machines repaired for free that were out of warranty, under the new regime I had a new DFX with a warped coil (so bad the coil cover would not stay on) and they didn't want to replace it as it worked. It did but not to well ! When I kicked up a fuss they replaced it but then tried to reduce the warranty from two years to one on the rest of the machine.

Re: White's Customer Appreciation Special

Well....that was quick! I rec'd my new 5.3 eclipse coil for my M6 today (around a 10 day turnaround from receipt), just in time to use it over the holiday weekend. Plus the weather is suppose to be tops here in Mich.

Gotta give it a whirl!