Famous Trails "The Advanced Metal Detector

Received it today. The two shafts would not fit together, one was not large enough for the other one to slip inside. Made do then I tried follow the set up instructions. One sentence read, "Adjust TUNE controller until you hear a critical sound from the speaker". I have no idea what a critical sound is. Does it mean, adjust until you hear a sound or until the sound becomes loud? The rest of the instructions did not make any sense to me either. Called Famous Trails toll free number for help,,,no one home on a Friday afternoon. Logged onto their web site hoping to find a video to watch, they don't have one. I clicked on the owner's manual on their site,,,don't ask me why. It was different from the one I received with the unit even though it was for the same model. It said the Sensitivity knob turns the unit on/off. Mine turns on with the volume knob. Emailed customer service for help. We'll see if I get any. Wanted to play with it this week end, but that is not going to happen. If you buy one, I hope you can understand their instructions. I couldn't.

This is a very good metal detector for the money. I bought mine at Sports Authority for $169. Yeah, the owners manual is written by someone who's first language is obviously not English, but it's still pretty easy to understand. I don't know if I'd recommend this metal detector for a beginner. It is fairly simple to operate, however, it has a manual ground balance and such, which may indeed be confusing to someone who is just starting out. I've been metal detecting for many years, so it's a real breeze for me and I love it. This machine has excellent iron discrimination and excellent depth. The ID meter is a bit off for US coins, but I just marked on the screen myself where the coins ring up. This metal detector seems to me like a Chinese copy of the Whites XL Pro, which I use to have many years ago. It's not an exact copy, but still similar. The Whites is far superior, really no comparison, but for the money, this metal detector is a great deal and a lot of fun to use.