Aarons vista sprite review

Vista Sprite Review After the coffee interview I truly understood what Gary wanted when designing his signature machine, a simplistic purposeful detector what will find the goods without any hassle or fuss, easy to assemble and packs away in a small bag for those on the move.

Shortly after out chat, I left with confidence knowing I was going to enjoy an interesting machine test due to Deeptech not having a single machine that lacks in performance.

I purchased a Vista Smart around two years ago based on good user reviews and Gary’s field tests. It is still the only machine in my eyes that never let me down and lived up to its reputation as a good all round performer. Was I in for the same experience ?, let’s see.

The first time I saw the early design pictures of the Sprite I knew Gary was heading in the right direction with regards to the simplicity that he was seeking.

The machine was a breeze to assemble and there really is no need to look at the manual providing you have at least owned one detector in the past that you have put together yourself.

With an easy to understand faceplate and your control toggle switch smack bang in the middle everything you need is right there to clearly see, volume – sensitivity – discrimination and ground balance are all on the faceplate along with two forms of ferrous rejection, all metal and the coke button.

The potentiometers are quite tight so you cant accidently knock them out of place. I found it easier to use two fingers to adjust them, rather than just your thumb as this could put extra strain on the potentiometer spindle.

With the ground balance decal having a red dot for the pre set setting you can be up and running right away without having to find a clear patch of ground to balance on when the field is full of signals.

Just place your arrow tip dial to this red dot marker and start detecting with the confidence you are set at a very good even ground balance for most inland UK soil conditions.

You can manually ground balance if you like to either positive or negative to suit how edgy you want to run the machine.

It really is a case of switch the power button on and swing if using the pre-set markers, how simple can a detector get I ask you. The pre set sensitivity marker was a touch on the high side for my fields, you may need to lower this to suit ground conditions on the day.

I really can see Gary’s vision with building a simplistic machine and I can truly say he’s well ticked the box in that department.

If you’ve read a few of my reviews before you will be aware that I test some of the machines Gary has had for review. I carry out various tests, be it a versatile test bed or tricky

tub of soil that catches some machines out. But the one true test is out in the field and finding undisturbed targets.

Getting these initial tests done before hitting a site work well for me, as I get a good genuine feel for a machine by doing quick simple tasks. I’m able to see any potential or weaknesses in the results produced.

After I completed my initial tests I had that feeling of confidence , even on the first outing my trust with the Sprite grew as it produced a pocket full of finds. A mixture of buttons, a few coins and a few other items that still need to be looked into further.

The Vista Sprites audio is the best I have tested to date on a Deeptech machine. It’s based around the Vista Gold with some really good target feedback, deep or small targets are faint, shallow or large targets are loud, the audio is very informative.

You hear a nice clean audio on targets within 90% of the Sprites depth and you will also be able to dictate the quality of targets within a very short time of ownership.

Coke in particular gave a true fizz in the audio and was consistent in field tests I performed and I could call coke and dig coke.

For a backup on heavily contaminated coke sites and when you are really just going for good solid targets then the coke button will be a huge help. If it grunts when you press the coke button then move on, but the coke button really should be used in extreme coke conditions. When digging lots of coke and it’s getting you down the coke button should be used. But in some instances you may miss small targets whilst using the coke button.

If any concerns over missing big silver and gold targets there’s not a chance as the audio stays a solid high tone still with the coke button pushed and held.

Big iron hits heavy on the audio front with a whacking inconsistent high tone that grunts while the edge of the coil picks it up as a low tone. It’s like an audible sign saying “move on and don’t be silly and waste your time” unless you are hunting for every piece of metal within the Sprites reach.

On the speed side of this detector you looking at a high end machine that is rapid, it jumps from target to target in close proximity like it knew the items were placed there in the first place.

Target separation is amazing and I was clearly able to distinguish between a targets, be it ferrous next to ferrous or ferrous next to non-ferrous the audio being sharp and precise allows for it.

All these high end detecting attributes of the Sprite I have missed since selling my Vista Smart and still been chasing to find them in a machine ever since to no avail.

There’s no machine outside the Deeptech camp that I can personally trust more over the Vista Sprite. Bells and

whistles are great and can be fun, but if on a new permission or an invite I wouldn’t want to take anything else in the present generation of detectors over a sprite.

Does the Sprite search deep? Now that has popped up recently and we chatted about the depths that machines are able to achieve over that coffee interview.

It really does come down to ground conditions and mineralisation. But yes the Sprite is a deep machine providing your ground allows it, Gary and myself have seen for our own eyes that it really is the ground that dictates if your digging deep or not with the current generation of machines.

I was digging down on hard ground to around seven to eight inches what may not sound that great but when the audio is still strong you know these more depth left in the bag to grab.

Even if the Sprite stopped at eight inches on a good size coin then I would be happy being accompanied by blistering fast separation speed is a hard match for many machines to follow.

Believe me there are not many machines out there on today’s market that can keep up with the Sprites levels of performance, I lay my hand down to that.

I went out on many occasions with the Sprite on pasture and woodland and the occasional ploughed ground due to time of season with three different coils that consisted of the 11” round the 8x6” and the stock coil that is an 11x8” and all are great at seeking out the goodies.

A few days after Gary gave me the detector to test I asked him if he would like to come up and compare a few signals with a machine of his choice. We searched some paddocks last ploughed fourteen years ago we were finding targets and comparing signals, I was using the 8x6” coil and Gary was scanning the ground with a well-known brand attached to a 10” coil. The Sprite with the small coil was punching well above its weight, the performance was really quite impressive.

This little 8x6” coil is ideal for tight spaces like woodlands or in and out of the stubble.

It was on only a few targets that the small coil had broken audio on due to being on its limits of depth. The rest of the signals came through clean and repeatable, the kind of signals you only would walk away from if you found out your wife sent you a text saying “I’ve put your roman coins in a bucket of bleach as they looked green and horrible”. It really is like night and day between good and bad signals.

I really do feel using the Sprites informative two tone audio is the simplest way to search. You can have your head looking at the scenery while letting the machine do its methodical searching knowing soon as that high tone comes through its game on.

For those who do not favour two tone audio, simply switch the toggle and you are in single tone ID with no iron sound.

The Vista Sprite really is another great detector and will without a doubt in my eyes be a sort after machine no nonsense

performer, it’s traditional looks are very un assuming, but the magic is in the performance.

So the big question, did Gary reach his goal with the Vista Sprite. In my mind, yes he did. A simple machine to setup and understand. Light enough to swing all day and very capable at finding the goods in the ground, what more can I say.

Let’s end this in three words that I feel sums up Gary’s signature machine… FAST DEEP and CAPABLE I would like to thank Gary and Deeptech for giving me the opportunity to test the VISTA SPRITE. It really is a true workhorse of a detector.