Myers Depot Metal Detectors

Minelab vs Whites

Mine Lab

I own 3 machines the Whites Mxt, The Mine Lab Excalibur, and The Mine Lab Etrac. I am happy with all my machines. However , I must say the Mine Labs are worth there weight in gold. These machines perform very well in all kinds of soil conditions. They are multi frequency. They have excellent target seperation. If I was going to by a machine I would get the best Mine lab that you can afford.Good luck
 
You need to decide where you are going to focus your hunting. If it is the beach then the wet sand will limit our choices. It takes a special breed of detector to hunt wet sand. If you want to dig the dirt more then you need something with a meter. If you want a detector that can do both then you are talking an upper end detector like a V3X or at least a Safari. Neither one is waterproof. I would hate to soak an expensive detector. If I had to choose I would pick SE Pro. And I would hunt down to ankle deep and that would be that.
 
I have owned a f75, a whites mxt, tesoro deleon. I alaso owned a minelab 305 and an etrac. The minelabs are the best of the bunch. I hated the mxt, and the f75 was a chatterbox. The deleon had no depth(due to no adj ground balance) The minelabs have many tones and great depth.
 
I have an XLT and an MXT. I like the simplicity of the MXT. It is a multi function machine. I don't do relic hunting but have read here on Friendly that it is a favored machine for that purpose.

Ken
 
If I could only take one MD with on a trip cross country, it would be my MXT. I have other machines that do certain things better, but the MXT can hold its own in most situations.

Dusty
 
I can only tell you what I would be considering and how it falls out:

1. Weight: Sovereign is the heaviest, M6 is in the middle at 4 lbs, and the X-Terras are the lightest.

2. Recovery time: White's wins that contest. Minelabs are a bit slow on the recovery in my experience.

3. Service: White's wins that contest completely. Rarely a complaint about about White's repair service. Minelab's complaints are legendary.

4. Coils: Minelab actually offers the fewest. The smallest coil made by Minelab for the Sovereign I could fins is 8". The X-Terras have a good variety of coils to change the frequency, but price those coils first. Man, they are expensive. White's has a good selection of coils that are better priced with more after-market coils also if you feel comfortable with those.

5. Ease of use:They are all pretty equal on this I think.

So take them all together and I'll admit, I'd lean towards the White's. But what you ought to do is make a list of your most important features and see which one comes closest. That's the best way you can judge what works for you! Good luck!
 
If I'm going to the city park to hunt extremely deep old coins give me the Minelab, for everything else, I'll take the White's.
 
If you choose an MXT be sure to buy the 5.3 eclipse and use it for most of your detecting, this coil will simplify the use of the MXT a bunch, it seperates targets better, goes deep, pinpoints well, Id's better on the screen, the larger coils that come on the MXT pick up too many targets per swing and confuse a new user with all the input on the screen and target sounds from the speaker. DD coils are great for high mineralized areas, but generally are harder to pinpoint with for general use. The 4x6 DD shooter is great for gold nugget hunting in high mineral areas. Just takes practice to pinpoint well.
 
So what did you end up going for back then? What do you think now?
hoser said:
Opinions on different machines vary like sand pebbles on the beach. I have had the DFX, used the MXT, tried the ML 705, and now own the Etrac. All are great machines, and given the proper time to master will do just what you want it to. One thing I did just before buying the Etrac was I went to Kellyco, ckicked on the unit I was most interested in and just above the pic of the md there is a blue bar saying"compare this machine"
Here is an example for you to get started with. These are all the tech specs for you to mull over that may help in your decision making.http://www.kellycodetectors.com/whites/whites-eseries-MXT.htm
This GREATLY helped me decide thats for sure. That along with replies from the good people here on the forum should aid you a lot. Good luck on your quest.
Click to expand...
 
Minelab service: Recently I had a malfunctioning Profind25 . They paid for me to ship it, and had a new one to me in less than 10 days from my mailing. Pretty good in my opinion.
Minelab Coils: I have 4 after market coils and there are many more.
Xterra coils: they are all different frequencies.
Smudge said:
I can only tell you what I would be considering and how it falls out:

1. Weight: Sovereign is the heaviest, M6 is in the middle at 4 lbs, and the X-Terras are the lightest.

2. Recovery time: White's wins that contest. Minelabs are a bit slow on the recovery in my experience.

3. Service: White's wins that contest completely. Rarely a complaint about about White's repair service. Minelab's complaints are legendary.

4. Coils: Minelab actually offers the fewest. The smallest coil made by Minelab for the Sovereign I could fins is 8". The X-Terras have a good variety of coils to change the frequency, but price those coils first. Man, they are expensive. White's has a good selection of coils that are better priced with more after-market coils also if you feel comfortable with those.

5. Ease of use:They are all pretty equal on this I think.

So take them all together and I'll admit, I'd lean towards the White's. But what you ought to do is make a list of your most important features and see which one comes closest. That's the best way you can judge what works for you! Good luck!
Click to expand...
 
I don't which is "the best". What is best? What are your primary targets? What kind of hunting conditions are you going to have? What kind of ground conditions ? It's pretty hard to find gold jewelry, if that is a primary target, with a machine operating at 2 Khz. What kind of results are you looking for? Certainly whatever the primary targets YOU are looking to find, others with these machines have found and posted, right? Look through those posts. It's pretty easy to see which machine has had the most success. You might as well start before you decide which one to purchase to "know your machine." That final decision will be yours and yours alone. Get the facts, not opinions. Good Luck.
 
hmmmmmm

Haywire said:
There are 3 of us here. I have a M6- my husband a MXT and our friend has a DFX. ( ALL Whites ) We are all currently switching over to Minelab. We have 2 Kevin has so far 7 hunts and 11 pieces of silver with a minelab explorer II vs lots of trash and hard to use Whites DFX. NO contest!!
Click to expand...

something doesnt sound rite here???
 
:)

also on another note. I have been with a few guys that YES own minelabs and seem to like them. However they absloutly HATE and I strongly use the word HATE minelabs customer service. I have heard numerous situations about not willing to help, forgets orders, slow speed on recovery time on getting your item back to just plain snotty. I have yet to hear anyone complain about whites customer service. I like minelab, garrett, fisher, whites etc etc. However if today im gonna go to hyundai or ford "just a example here people" id go with the 10 year 100,000 mile warranty no BS involved service.

Remember reviews reviews and reviews. I like to get my reviews not from metal detecting forums or metal detector sales/distributors. In most case they favour a specific machine for money wise or the one they think is good because there buddy uses one and found a bullet or whatever. I just google online reviews and compare the diffrent detectors based on what ive read. Also doesnt hurt to go play with a few. :)
 
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