Clash of the Titans

[Detector]

How would you compare the pinpointing abilities of both machines?

Both detectors pinpoint very well with maybe a slight advantage going to the V3. With the E-Trac I find I need to use the sidestep X pinpointing method every time, whereas the V3 tends to get an accurate pinpoint from just X'ing the coil.

OK so what are you running now?

I am still running the Coin & Jewelry program with an opened discrimination pattern. I did bump up the Discrimination and change filters to 5 per your suggestions. Again I would say I owe some of the success in finding these coins to the E-Trac. Had I not known what to expect from deep targets on the V3, I probably would have never dug these targets. The most valuable tool on the V3 for this site is the live depth reading. With lots of trash you can't really trust the sound or VDI, but the depth seldom lies with the exception of foil.

[rcasi44]

Good post. I really don't care which is better the E Trac or V3. I've got the V so I'm interested in using it better. I wish I had both to do the testing like you are. Keep up the good work.

When I wrote you I was referring to what you said about using the E to teach you how a deep target sounded like on the V. This a great idea . I know your ground is not the same as mine and our success at finding deep coins will be different but you cannot go into too much detail on what to look for on deep coins.

Later we can compare ground readings. But for now keep up the good work. I had a chance to hunt with an SE. Each time he thought he had a possible silver I checked with mine. Each time the SE was wrong so it didn't help much. If I'm ever in Kansas you will have to take me to your park for a lesson. Rob

[Activ8]

I think you are doing a great job with this topic my friend. I have a V3 and I go out with a E-Trac user and we seem to find around the same !! Both machines are doing what we paid good money for !!!

[BillZ]

All this talk just makes me want to spend more money but thanks a bunch for the free comparison info, Detector! I am also very interested in how the Tesoro Silver performs. If you get the chance, could you try using the V or Etrac to see how deep the Silver can go?

[stangthang]

Will you continue this thread next Spring if the ground freezes? What are your winters like there? Thanks for the posts. Good reading.

[Detector]

Yes I will continue this thread. Our winters can range from hunting year round, to frozen solid until March.

[Hotrocks]

Or a hard to hit target comparison.

[Hotrocks]

Is this going to be active or is it continued somewhere else?

[burlbark]

Originally Posted by Hotrocks

Is this going to be active or is it continued somewhere else?

Yeah this is an awesome thread..... The snow is melted will we hear anymore?

I love good customer service

[PhilB]

Looks like you are having fun doing that comparison. I have a question though. Why are you running the E-Trac in Auto sensitivity? I get better audio and depth with manual sensitivity even at lower settings with my E-Trac. I've found the E-Trac and Spectra to be pretty evenly matched in depth. I can sweep faster with the Spectra though. If I sweep too fast with the E-Trac I get too many iron falses and end up having to re-check them to make sure I didn't pass up a coin. I've also noticed the same thing on IDing targets that you pointed out, the Spectra seems to bounce more on deep coins compared to the E-Trac. That doesn't really concern me too much. When I'm hunting old deep coins, I dig any non-ferrous target that pinpoints small. I even dig the better sounding nails.lol Most of the time the detectors are right and I just added to my nail collection but occasionally I get a nice coin. Looking forward to reading more on your testing with the detectors especially if you find an SEF coil to use on the Spectra. I watched a video of someone using a 10x12 on their Spectra and it appeared that the coil affected the VDI numbers making coins read several numbers higher than the White's coils. Thanks for spending your time compaing the E-Trac and Spectra, I'm sure it will be useful to many people considering which one to buy.

[Don]

Thanks for all your feedback from your comparisons. It's been educational.

[CrazySlasher]

Another forum member and I went out today. I had the E-Trac and he had the V3. Pretty comparable with targets, even the iffy ones. We didn't do any comparisons, but as far as I can tell, you can't go wrong with either of them.

[toehead]

Great thread. However the original poster sold his E-Trac earlier this year so I doubt we will see any more comparisons for awhile.

[Detector]

This weekend I resumed my Head-to-Head of the Minelab E-Trac and the White's V3i and I must say I was impressed with the V3i. I'm not sure if it was the new updated software or my old Vision was flawed, but I could see a difference right away.

I wanted to go back to Wright Park where I had been doing my testing on very deep coins, but Dodge City Days had it blocked off. I went to Central school where I had pulled a few Indians and V-nickles in the past. Unfortunately my trusty old DFX seems to have done a very good job at this site as targets were few and far between. I've found that so far only our city park has deep enough coins to warrant the E-Trac or V3i. All my other sites seem to have been cleaned very well with my DFX.

As I got a signal, first with the E-Trac, I'd check it with the V3i and then the DFX and recover to see which was right. Several of the signals were not detected by the DFX but called good by both the E-Trac and the V3i, but only one turned out to be good. Both the E-Trac and the V3i indicated a coin at 7" and it turned out to be a 1917 wheat. One signal that the E-Trac called a good coins and the V3i a bit more iffy but still a possibility turned out to be a piece of junk.

Next I plan to start with the V3i and see if it finds any targets, good or bad, that the E-Trac fails on. So far I have been very impressed with the V3i. While the old Vision found the same targets the E-Trac did, some were not near as solid as they were on the E-Trac. This time the V3i was every bit as solid as the E-Trac on all signals.

[Kansas Dave]

Thanks, Detector!

[burlbark]

Thank you for posting this, I look forward to this continuing test.

[Detector]

I've moved these post into the Clash of the Titans thread since this is a continuance of of the same thread.

As far as settings go I'm trying to leave both the E-Trac and V3i on factory Coin & Jewelry programs. I realize this probably gives a slight advantage to the E-Trac, but I think it gives a good report on what to expect out-of-the-box since most people shouldn't start messing with any settings until they have a fair number of hours on the detector. The DFX is tweaked as best I can tweak it. I have 7 years with the DFX so I know how to get the best out of it in my area.

Dodge City Days is now over so I'm hoping to get back to the park where deep is a requirement to find anything old. On my last tests I had never gotten to leading with the V3i and testing with the E-Trac. I'm looking forward to the results.

One of these detector will go unless I can justify owning both.

[toehead]

Thanks for continuing the thread. Looking forward to reading your results. I know your info will help many members on the fence of which one to buy. I will definitely follow this thread!

[Detector]

Made a quick trip to Wright Park yesterday after work for about an hour. It was still 103º so I stayed in the shadows of the trees which dictated where I could hunt. I did manage to pull 3 wheats from the depths during that time. I pulled 2 1920's and 1 1941. I used the E-Trac to initially find the targets and then tested the V3i on the targets. One of the targets was a bit iffy on the E-Trac, but seemed a little more solid on the V3i. Both had jumpy VDI readings, but left little doubt, other than the one, that they were coins. All were a good 8" or more deep.

I'm still finding the E-Trac to be a little easier to identify a very deep coin, but the V3i has no problem hitting them once found. The V3i seems to give a bit more falsing, I'm assuming on the deep iron, than the E-Trac. This makes hunting a little more tedious but a few swings and the false tends to clear up and go away. Could possibly be a simple adjustment to fix. Still I'm finding that either detector can get the depth without a doubt.

I'm hoping to get back out tonight, and with my video camera, and lead with the V3i. So far I've been leading with the E-Trac because I've got more time in on it and knew I could find deep targets to see if the V3i can match the E-Trac. Now it's time to see if the E-Trac can match the V3i.

Now for the $10,000 question: If I could only choose one, which one would I pick? At this point I still couldn't make that call. When I was testing the older Vision and the E-Trac I was leaning toward the E-Trac, but the V3i seems to be a lot closer race.

The goods

[burlbark]

Originally Posted by Detector

Made a quick trip to Wright Park yesterday after work for about an hour. It was still 103º so I stayed in the shadows of the trees which dictated where I could hunt. I did manage to pull 3 wheats from the depths during that time. I pulled 2 1920's and 1 1941. I used the E-Trac to initially find the targets and then tested the V3i on the targets. One of the targets was a bit iffy on the E-Trac, but seemed a little more solid on the V3i. Both had jumpy VDI readings, but left little doubt, other than the one, that they were coins. All were a good 8" or more deep.

I'm still finding the E-Trac to be a little easier to identify a very deep coin, but the V3i has no problem hitting them once found. The V3i seems to give a bit more falsing, I'm assuming on the deep iron, than the E-Trac. This makes hunting a little more tedious but a few swings and the false tends to clear up and go away. Could possibly be a simple adjustment to fix. Still I'm finding that either detector can get the depth without a doubt.

I'm hoping to get back out tonight, and with my video camera, and lead with the V3i. So far I've been leading with the E-Trac because I've got more time in on it and knew I could find deep targets to see if the V3i can match the E-Trac. Now it's time to see if the E-Trac can match the V3i.

Now for the $10,000 question: If I could only choose one, which one would I pick? At this point I still couldn't make that call. When I was testing the older Vision and the E-Trac I was leaning toward the E-Trac, but the V3i seems to be a lot closer race.

The goods

Good thread, but I would like to see them both optimized. I own a v3i and I know how much better it behaves from tweaking the settings around even a little. The stock coin and jewelery was a good starting place but after getting to know my machine and tweaking it a little I was able to recover well over 40 coins from a patch that I thought was hunted out. Including silver from 8".

Have you changed the recovery delay or experimented with the span settings?

Have you changed it to discriminate by vdi?

And the best one is search audio, please use discriminate, the other tones will let you hear the iron and the good targets but I found that I lose 2" of depth on my buried silver dollar if I use anything other than discriminate. I also lose repeatability.

You gain a ton of separation by using discriminate in the audio channel.