Compass Metal Detectors
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Number of Reviews: 12
on 2 pages.
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Larry in Sweet Home, Oregon -
I wrote a review about comparisons between certain Compass, Fisher, and Minelab detectors.
I wish to clerify a few points;
Recent testing has found me a bit in awe at the depth of detecting of the Compass Scanner detector compared to the Minelab Sovereign Elite detector and the Fisher CZ-70, all which I bought within the last eight or so months.
In moderate-to-highly mineralized soil, the Compass Scanner is now consistently outdoing both other detectors while using the discriminate mode. It normally finds a copper penny at about 8-9 inches in this nasty ground here in Oregon. There are times when the Fisher has not been able to quite match the Compass. At times, the Fisher loses an inch or even two inches, depending on the soil. I have been using detectors since 1975, and the first two that I owned, I built from a schematic and was able to find a quart jar sized lid with either of them and at about 2-3 inches in the ground. I am no stranger to the metal detector world. For a time, I repaired many brands of detectors for a dealer in Salem, Oregon, because oftentimes it took too long for the factor to take care of those problems.
I tried the MInelab Sovereign Elite against the other two, and found that it only outdoes them in the most heavily laden of black sand soils.
There werre times when neither the Minelab nor the Fisher would find an item that the Compass found quite easily. The reason for this is probably because the Compass has a ten-turn ground balance, and both the Fisher and the Minelab have this mode functioning in strickly automatic. Nevertheless, my vote now goes for the Compass for the best of all three for depth and ease of detection. The Minelab still gets my best vote for the beaches here in Oregon, and the Fisher does the best and the deepest in moderate soil, and is the easiest to use for long periods of time. The Fisher still goes deeper than all three in all-metal mode, no matter where it is used. Still, I find more things with the Compass than either other detector during the same time period of use. When I looked for lead weights down by the river, it found roughly 4X as many of them in the same amount of time, than with the other two detectors.
Conclusions
Minelab for the salt water beaches ($600)
Fisher for the parks ($800)
Compass for everything
(including nugget hunting) ($700)
Aug 13, 2005
60 Yes
4 No
Fisher vs Minelab vs Compass
Larry D Gressel in Sweet Home, Oregon -My name is Larry. I live a stone's throw from one of the world's largest metal detector manufacturers home office and plant.
I recently bought a Fisher cz-70 Pro, a Minelab Sovereign Elite, and a Compass Scanner (originally called the "Goldscanner"). I also bought a Garrett Ace 250.
I live in Oregon and I wanted to find the very best machine for beaches, and the best for coin-hunting in highly mineralized soil. I also wanted a nugget hunter.
The Minelab worked beautifully on the beach. It matched the Fisher in discriminate, and was able to detect just as deep, even after the soil was disturbed or dug. The Fisher lost about an inch once the soil was disturbed, and took second place to the Minelab (7" on a dime, compared to 8 for the Minelab) , but the Fisher had a 3 inch + greater depth in all-metal than the Sovereign Elite. The Compass Scanner didn't lose depth once the soil was disturbed either, and had an equal depth in both discriminate and all-metal, at around 8 and 9 inches.
The little Garrett was a joke! It was playing in the wrong ball field. I put it back in it's bag.
In all-metal at the oceanside, the Fisher spanked the Minelab and the Compass equaled the Fisher, but not in all-metal.. The Minelab had the widest search area of all three. The Compass found things so tiny, that neither of the other machines could find them, even if the item was held 2" from the search coil.
Inland, in depth of inches, the Fisher beat the Minelab in the highest mineralized soil while searching in the Oregon parks and schoolyards, both in discriminate and in all metal. It had a 1" advantage over the Minelab in disc and a 3" advantage in all-metal. Everywhere I tried it, the Fisher beat the Sovereign, but the Sovereign ran smoother..
The Compass beat the pants off the Minelab in both disc and all-metal, and matched the Fisher in discriminate.
When I tried searching for something big, like a car body, the Minelab beat the Fisher, and the Fisher beat the Compass.
The cz-70 was difficult to use over highly mineralized soil, unless one got used to running it about 2 " off the ground. It often would not ground-balance completely, but it could still be used well enough to run circles around the Minelab Sovereign Elite. At the beach the Minelab ran the smoothest, with the Compass coming in at a close second. The Minelab ran like a brand new Cadillac!
The Compass had the most accurate discrimination system, with the Fisher coming in at a close second. The minelab discriminated iron better than all of them though.
Conclusion;
I would rather use the Sovereign Elite mostly at the beach, and the Compass at either place, plus the Compass is a very effective small item locator, especially for gold nugget sized objects. The Fisher is a real bonafide race-horse. It has so much raw power, that it takes a real pro to run it, but it will beat anything else on the market in depth. IF, you know how to run it.
The Compass is the best all-around detector if one also wants to search for gold nuggets, Otherwise, the Fisher would be the best choice. The Minelab is the best large object finder, and has a much wider scanning capabilities. It is the detector of choice for beach hunting, and the smoothest operating of all three, no matter where it is used.
Larry
Jun 05, 2005
60 Yes
14 No
Number of pages - | 1 | 2 |