I definitely do not think ICES-PEMF is perfect. But I can assure you, I have tried everything I can think of to make it better. Some day, hopefully, someone smarter than I am will come along and make something much better.
The rest of this gets kind of technical, because the questions you are asking are fundamentally technical.
Using 2x2 coils with the M1 is not such a great Idea mostly because of the limitation of the camcorder battery. Here is why:
- The 2x2 coils are wound as a parallel pair of the standard single coils.
- This means their electrical load is double that of a standard pair of coils
- Therefore, at any particular setting, they will draw double the current
- DLI88 camcorder batteries have advantages and limitations
- they are standard, inexpensive, commonly available, and very light weight
- But they do not contain a lot of energy, and they have limited ability to generate current
- Therefore, they are very good for low-load portable applications, but not as good for high-load applications with much larger power sources
At double the load (with 2x2 coils), the camcorder battery in the M1 simply can not supply enough power to fully energize the double load, so you end up getting less power to each coil, so for some applications it will not work as well.
This is a necessary trade-off: some people need low weight and portability, others need more power but can do with less portability.
All practical things in life have this limitation: there are trade-offs. For example, you can design a vehicle to be a dump truck, or design it to be a sports car, but you can’t design it to be both at the same time. Everything in the real world is like this.
Unlike the model M1, the models C5 and B5 use different power sources. Either they are plugged in to a USB charger port, or they are using a much larger battery pack than the M1. This allows them to deliver full power to all of the coils in a 2x2 coil array. So, if you need to use a 2x2 coil array, then I suggest a model C5 or a B5, not an M1. There is another option though…
The Model A9 uses a 9V battery, which operates at a higher voltage than the DLI88 camcorder battery in an M1, and it is able to deliver more peak power, so it can handle a 2x2 coil array better than an M1. So, if you need portability and the use of a 2x2 coil array, I suggest using the model A9 instead of an M1.
Are more coils advantageous? That depends on the nature of your injury. Some injuries are deep and focal, and the best arrangement is usually stacked or opposite side coils. But some injuries respond best to side-by-side coil placement. And larger, very superficial injuries (such as large skin or rib cage injuries, for example) respond better to a larger array of coils (2x2), with less penetration. But the rules for this are not hard and fast, so for any particular injury you need to use good sense, try different coil types and placements, and observe what works best in any particular case.
ICES generation 5 (model A9) versus generation 6 (models M1, C5, and B5):
The main differences between gen 5 and gen 6 are the electrical circuit architecture. Generation 6 is more electrically efficient and more reliable (will probably last longer), and it is more flexible and programmable, with a more advanced internal microcontroller chip.
All of these improvements make the generation 6 devices better electronically, but that does not mean that they have better biological effects than a generation 5 product, such as the A9. As far as I can tell, their biological effects are essentially identical. But the improved circuitry of the generation 6 allows more programs to be stored and more pulse patterns to be selected, allows the use of OLED displays, and overall is about 15% more energy efficient than generation 5, which means that batteries will last longer. This all allows a 25% reduction in size and weight of the model M1 when compared with the model A9. And it allows the synchronization of multiple output channels, as on the models C5 and B5. And the generation 6 circuits work well on 5 volts (USB), whereas the generation 5 devices required 9 volts.