Show me the evidence that the V3 is as good as the E-Track!

[Romeo7]

Thanks everybody for the constructive input

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a new V3 two days ago. I went out last night for a little over two hours at a local park that we all pounded this summer and landed me my first piece of silver - a 1900 Barber Dime in the post above.

For now, I still think the E-Track is a better machine until I prove myself wrong.

So, the burning question is why did I get the V3 over the E-Track? For a few reasons:

1. Competition: There are four new E-Track users in these parts that I know of. I figured that if all the machines may miss some good targets I may be able to find. No two detectors will find everything.
2. Appeal: I actually like complicated machines. I am a geek at heart and don't mind tweaking a detector to get working "right"
3. Price: It would cost me about $600 more to be outfitted with similar equipment that I used on my MXT.
4. Service: I am familiar with White's outstanding service. Not to say anything bad about Minelab.
5. Resell: Hey, if I am wrong, I can always sell it!!!

There you have it.

HH!

 

[CyberSage]

Your the MAN! Romeo, now get out there and knock'em dead.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

 

[Romeo7]

By V3, Hello Etrac

Well, my buddy Big John suggested I update this thread.

I am sorry to say with all the loyalty I had with Whites and the V3, I finally got fed up and defected to Minelab. The EMI finally got the best of me. John and I were on several hunts together. Him with his Etrac and me with my V3. On several occasions, John was popping silver out of the ground when I was fighting an unstable V3 with EMI. No matter what I did, I could not escape it.

John took pity and brokered a deal with my MD dealer - Gerry's Metal Detectors (plug) to trade in my V3 for a barely used ETrac straight accross. Well, that was shortly after Christmas.

I have not been posting my finds the last two months because I am traveling a lot with my new job and decided to cut the ritual out. I can honestly report that I am VERY happy with the Etrac. I have had several 5 and 6 silver coin days from the same hunted out parks that I was striking out with the V3.

The attached picture is my best day ever this Sunday from a park that I have been hitting over the last year. I used my Etrac with the 8" coil around some trees and the silver was leaping out of the ground into my pouch. I totaled 9 silver coins and a silver pendant in a three hour hunt. I had to leave to catch a flight or it could have been a 12 or 13 silver day, I believe. That was a record for me. I also landed my first Barber Quarter that I have been waiting for. It was on-edge at about eight inches.

Anyway, I thought I owed it to the MD community to let everybody know where I have been and where I stand.

Happy Hunting.

-Mark

 

[Jason in Enid]

Awesome hunt! Glad to see you are doing so well with your E-Trac. I think everyone would own one if the price wasn't so high. But then again, I don't need any more competition!!! LOL

 

[RacerX]

I have both machines (V3 and eTrac) and I'm NOT seeing a huge improvement with the ET - even in places where I can run the ET wide open.

I do think the ET is better on average with EMI but I also have a park that I frequent that the V is stable in and the ET has to be turned onto auto to run it. Run in auto at this park and you won't get deep enough for keepers.

Here's the thing. The ET is easier to use for the novice with very few easy to manage tweaks. It's nice to get out of the truck and just detect without second guessing your settings.

The V3 (in my soil) can be complicated and seems to need more adjustment from place to place and I haven't begun to scratch the surface of REALLY understanding those adjustments or how to set them perfectly for a given spot and get optimal performance from it. When I do it will not surprise me if I find the V a far superior machine.

I will say this.....I've dug very few REALLY deep (12" range) coins with the V but I have dug some. I've yet to see anywhere near that performance from the ET. Granted I only have about 10 hunts with the ET now but it's certainly not the magic wand I was expecting it would be from all the posts on various forums.

Get into a park demo or similar (where keeper coins are shallow and the ground matrix recently shifted) and the V will hand a Explorer/ET user his a$$. period. We proved that.

Both machines have their place and it's fun to own both.

 

[Lightningjack]

Great hunt, Congrats on the finds & your new machine...

 

[Mtnmn]

Difference:

Suspect that the wisest thing most White's and Minelab detectorists could do when undecided about whether to buy either a Vision or E-trac is to go with the brand they are already most familiar with. A Vision if having already owned a White's detector and a E-trac if already familiar with Miinelab detectors. Know that is what I'm going to do, hopefully that way there will be somewhat less of a learning curve.

 

[BountyHunter]

What an awesome post Romeo

That post should be part of a book, a compilation of "The Best Times in a Metal Detectorists' Life"

Awesome !

Keep them coming

 

[Jack Flynn]

I have both machines (V3 and eTrac) and I'm NOT seeing a huge improvement with the ET - even in places where I can run the ET wide open.

I do think the ET is better on average with EMI but I also have a park that I frequent that the V is stable in and the ET has to be turned onto auto to run it. Run in auto at this park and you won't get deep enough for keepers.

Here's the thing. The ET is easier to use for the novice with very few easy to manage tweaks. It's nice to get out of the truck and just detect without second guessing your settings.

The V3 (in my soil) can be complicated and seems to need more adjustment from place to place and I haven't begun to scratch the surface of REALLY understanding those adjustments or how to set them perfectly for a given spot and get optimal performance from it. When I do it will not surprise me if I find the V a far superior machine.

I will say this.....I've dug very few REALLY deep (12" range) coins with the V but I have dug some. I've yet to see anywhere near that performance from the ET. Granted I only have about 10 hunts with the ET now but it's certainly not the magic wand I was expecting it would be from all the posts on various forums.

Get into a park demo or similar (where keeper coins are shallow and the ground matrix recently shifted) and the V will hand a Explorer/ET user his a$$. period. We proved that.

Both machines have their place and it's fun to own both.

Well one day you'll learn to use the E Trac. Turn that baby up to 28 or so in manual and listen to the music. It's tough to do without pictures of targets that are in the ground to decide to dig maybe, I understand

 

[Romeo7]

Suspect that the wisest thing most White's and Minelab detectorists could do when undecided about whether to buy either a Vision or E-trac is to go with the brand they are already most familiar with. A Vision if having already owned a White's detector and a E-trac if already familiar with Miinelab detectors. Know that is what I'm going to do, hopefully that way there will be somewhat less of a learning curve.

Yeah, that was me. I mastered the MXT and thought the V3 was the next logical step....

BTW, All the finds in the picture above were made on "Auto". I am starting to believe that the Etrac is smart enough to turn itself down to avoid loosing good targets in iron halos. I have dug a few silvers now that had a piece of iron in the same hole. I enven have a Merc with an iron stain on it from touching a nail.

 

[RWJR13]

We all have our favorites....I've used other brands but still stay with White's....It doesn't matter what brand we use and prefer, as long as your happy with what you have, how you learn it, and your find's..

 

[BobVA]

Thanks everyone. I, for one, have learned a lot from following this thread. Great group of posters and the moderators have done a great job with their "gentle" reminders maintaining the decorum.

 

[Michigan Badger]

Man, this thread is really hot!

Don't have time to read all the posts.

I haven't used the E-Trac yet. It's out of my budget range by a little ($1000).

But I have used the Explorer XS, and II. One thing for sure, even from the beginning the Explorer has been a coin gettin machine.

Buy even an old XS, put it in learner mode--and you'll dig coins like crazy.

It takes experience to get the difficult masked targets but 90% of the good finds are like shooting ducks in a barrel.

I don't wish to offend but I'd take a Minelab Explorer or GT any day over these new popular "super fast" machines. I owned one so I speak from experience.

My first trip out with the Explorer XS (several years ago) I went to a site that was worthless. It had been hunted so many times one would do the happy dance if one dug a mem. Within 45 minutes I dug about 7 or 8 clad dimes from an area about 10x20 feet or so. Explorers kill dimes because many brands miss them if they're much more than 4 inches deep.

Never have tried the V3. I'll bet it's great too.

Badger

 

[Jack Flynn]

Yeah, that was me. I mastered the MXT and thought the V3 was the next logical step....

BTW, All the finds in the picture above were made on "Auto". I am starting to believe that the Etrac is smart enough to turn itself down to avoid loosing good targets in iron halos. I have dug a few silvers now that had a piece of iron in the same hole. I enven have a Merc with an iron stain on it from touching a nail.

Turn that thing up to 27 or 28 sensitivity and learn the halo characteristics. Most all will not be repeatable 360 around them. Also they will when you pinpoint them will be off to one side from where you are getting the signal for location in the ground. If my mental pinpoint doesn't match the machines and it's obvious, I don't dig. But let me get a 42-46 on the CO and it repeats from several angles it is a coin in there with some iron or a nail. The secret to all of this working is if a good coin is there and other metals too they will be at different depth on the scale more than likely. Watch that too. The machine is so superb at seperating you can see 3 or more pieces of metal at different depths inside of a real slow coil movement back and forth and seperate a good target. One things for sure is in auto you will miss some coins not unless you are hunting in a very non trashy site. Exactly where is that park now...........................BTW what 8 inch coil are you using?

 

[cliff490]

Turn that thing up to 27 or 28 sensitivity

Are saying auto or manual sensitivity?

 

[Jack Flynn]

Are saying auto or manual sensitivity?

Manual, it will hardly ever run that high in auto, especially in trashy sites. My finds soared when I stopped running in auto after 4 months of doing so. I noticed in my trash filled spots it would back itself down and stay there as long as it was hitting many objects on every swing of the coil. When I put a smaller coil, 8" on, it would run up to 25 or so in auto, with a 5" coil it would in auto run on up to 30 in auto and stay there per it was seeing less objects at a time. You can run it at 30 in manual but you'll put up with a little extra noise. Try it you will like it!

 

[cliff490]

Thanks for the info. I just received the e Trac yesterday and the way the weather pattern has been it's going to be quite a while before I can get out, so I am taking this time to study up and ask questions.
I have a lot of time on an SE also have 8'' & 5'' and Pro coils so hopefully my learning curve will be short

I hear the et works well with discrimination and conductive tones.
So the hardest part may be breaking my "all metal ferrous sounds" habit

 

[Jaybird]

I've only been out a few times with my ET but already see a big find improvements. I have already found 2 silver Roosies and 3 Wheaties this year. I had my best day yet with 62 coins in 4 hours only 4 zinc pennies on Feb 11th. I can't hunt very close to my friend's DFX or the wife's MXT becsause of the EMI on their machines but it doesn't bother mine as much. I haven't hunted close to a V3 yet but will soon as many in club have them. I just wanted to try something different for a while but I am basically a Whites man. We will see when summer comes and it thaws in the ghost towns up high. Cant wait. Good job on the forum, all. Keep it rollin'

 

[JCMO]

I don't own either a V3 or an E-Trac....yet, but I have been shopping. I started out wanting an E-Trac until I really looked into the V3.

This is what I have seen:

E-trac:
-coil is bigger...bigger means deeper supposedly
-uses 28 frequencies compared to 3 for the V3 (is this good?)
-haven't heard of anyone sending one back for a firmware upgrade
-Whites has policies about it's products prices on the internet
-you can hook it up to a computer (let down, the software isn't as cool as I first thought)

V3:
-A yummy color screen
-Wireless headphones
-The operations video made me want this machine with it's three screen modes with graphs
-US company


What I don't see that I want:
-Bluetooth
-GPS
-Decent software that I can pull data back to my computer

 

[Jason in Enid]

What data are you wanting to pull back from the detector?