Clash of the Titans

Sorry to hear you've been sick Detector.

From the picture it looks like two different coil sizes are being used for the test. Have you figured out a way to handycap the detectors?

Of course there will be a coil advantage but they are all the factory coils. It should give a good idea as what one could expect from a factory stock detector. I have my DFX out on loan to a hunting buddy but If I can get a hold of him I might add it to the mix. Once I get a good signal, I believe to be worth digging, I will then test it with each detector to see what is the result.

Sounds great Detector will be very interesting to see how the machines compare . It will help anyone that's thinking of purchasing a new detector and will help them decide which one is giving the best performance for there money.
Hope you keep getting better from your illness it seems to happen to lot of us this time of year . Good Luck



Harold

Good luck, sounds like you'll need a caddy to carry all your detectors. I'd volunteer, but it's too far to drive.

I have my eye on a V3, but E-Trac is always in the back of my mind... Glad you are throwing the Tesoro into the mix as well. Not too familiar with Garrett machines but can't wait for the results. Sounds like it is going to be a lot of work and would be nice to have a helper. Hope too many "helpers" don't distract you from your testing. Good luck hitting a variety of targets. Thanks for the shootout!

Actually I am interested in one of these two myself. Kind of leaning more to the V3 lately. I think to be fair, perhaps testing them at default factory settings might be best. Then when you are master of both, test them again using optimum custom settings. That would probably be the fairest way to do a head to head test.

Well I got skunked today (clad and a pumpkin necklace). Can't wait to see the results of your test. Wish you had access to the 10x12 for the Silver uMax, but I bet it held its own.

Well my day was plagued by technical difficulties, but I expect getting good video will be a learning process all its own. I shot some excellent comparison video, or so I thought, only to get home and find my video disc was full. I did shoot some video describing the location of my first head to head. Wright park is a true test for any detectors depth ability. First let me say both these detectors are truly amazing detectors, but I still find myself in awe at what they can do. Simply incredible depth is all I can say.

My first signal and video was perfect. It was a deep signal well beyond the depth of most detectors. Both the E-Trac and V3 gave good solid signals but a slight edge goes to the E-Trac on signal stability. It could be my lack of experience with the V3, but I felt its ID was a bit jumpy compared to the E-Trac. The signal turned out to be a 1940 mercury dime at about 10". Would have been a beautiful video had it worked. For 3 hours in perfect weather I thought I was filming some excellent comparisons. In an area little more than 20' by 20' I pulled 7 coins all wheats and silver nothing less than 7" deep.

Once I got home and found that none of my comparisons had been recorded I was pretty PO'ed. My buddy called about that time and had just got off work and wanted to hunt. I thought I'd give it another shot. Its all a learning process. We went back to the same spot and I started getting the good signals again. I felt bad because he brought his DFX but only had the 6x10 DD coil. A great coil but nothing we did could get it to hit the targets I was getting. Each and every one was a coin. In one of the videos you can hear him comment about how his DFX didn't see a thing and he was amazed to see a coin. All I could say was welcome to my world.

Anyway, here it is for what its worth. The video leaves much to be desired and little to compare other then the sound. I learned I was not showing the displays as I thought I was. My next should be much better now that I know what I did wrong. I ended up with 9 keepers, 8 wheats and 1 merc, all from a very small area. My conclusion for the day was that I need to keep better tabs on my batteries as the V3 went dead. I hoping for better time tomorrow.

Here is the video about Wright Park



For whats its worth here is a few targets.

aww man
the 2nd video ended too soon at "looks Like"
and i wanted to see what is was
hehe..
please fill us in on what ya found
cheers

Too bad you had video troubles, but what was there was interesting. Hope you have good luck tomorrow!

Seems like the E-trac had an advantage. Be it because of the larger coil, your familiarity with it, or the low battery on the V3, it just seemed to lock on. It is very interesting and I can only imagine how things might change as you use the V3 more. I like the way the V3 feels in my hand compared to the E-trac, but I like the feeling of hitting signals even better! The ground can be like a rock here and target ID is top of the list for me. Thanks for the effort in the field. I will stay tuned for further comparison as I am sure many are.

ps. I would have never put your voice with your face. ...and still waiting on the books...

Yes today was a learning experience. It will get better. Here is a picture of my hunt finds. It is hard for me to say but all of todays coins were out of the reach of my good old DFX. Perhaps with the super 12 or a bigger coil, but not within the ability of my standard hunting setup. As I said, both of these detectors are simply amazing. Both were able to hit all targets, but the E-Trac did seem to be a bit more solid. What I really liked was that all of these coins came from a very hard hit area, which now seems to be fruitful once again. The fact that all these keepers came from roughly a 20' by 20' area makes me very happy.

Great post! Do you suppose the Sovereign might have hit on any of those? I feel the itch to upgrade but the idea of learning all new sounds is unpleasant.

Is the Minelab SE anywhere near the E-trac. I have a buddy who has one. I have a DFX and like what you are reporting on the V3. I'll probably stick with Whites as I have a DX-1. Thanks for the reporting.

What program was running on the V-3?

xlt in MD said:

What program was running on the V-3?

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Right. It would be valuable to know the programs/settings of each machine, in this, and future tests.

I think it is really cool that you are doing this.

Thanks for doing this detector. I'm not routing for the V to win out (I like ML too) but some seem to think the V is not a deep machine and I know better. I just want some respect for the machine.

Knowing the V as well as I do I have no doubt the 10x12 SEF would have cleaned those signals up. But ya, eom for oem I don't think the V will run with the ML.

Thats a great looking park too.

Do you suppose the Sovereign might have hit on any of those?

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My first thought would be yes, but all these hits were probable coins. That is to say I wasn't just digging everything that made a sound. I only dig, at this location, what I believe to be high odds targets. Had I spent more time with the Sovereign GT I might have learned to better distinguish the sounds.

Is the Minelab SE anywhere near the E-trac.

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When it comes to flat out depth the SE is close, but I find the E-Trac to be more stable and hence more accurate on the very deep stuff. Could just be the Pro coil, but the E-Trac is far better when it comes to balance. My main complaint with the SE was it tore my back up. I can run the E-Trac for hours with no fatigue.

What program was running on the V-3?

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I am running the factory Coin & Jewelry program with the discrimination opened more. Both detectors are running pretty stock other than an open pattern. On the E-Trac I run with Auto Sens on with a +3 Accept all CO numbers and reject FE 26 and higher. The V3 is running with the RxGain at 9 Accept +93 down to -20 reject the rest. I have noticed a big gain in depth by bumping up the RxGain just a little. Out of curiosity I turned RxGain up to max(15) on the V3 on a couple of very deep targets. It hit very hard, harder than the E-Trac, but the VDI was very jumpy.

I want to point out that flat out depth is not the only impressive thing I see with these detectors. The ability to see good targets in bad conditions is also important. A few days ago I took both to the old high school field and got a good signal in the hardest hit location. I had John check the signal because it was only 5 1/2" but very solid. He checked it with the DFX and said it was probably iron. To both our surprise I pulled out a 1953 silver dime. The black stains on both sides indicate why it was passed as iron. It didn't fool either the E-Trac or V3.



Well today is another day and as long as the weather holds out I plan to give my head to head another go today. I got all batteries charging over night, it was the V3's battery that died at the end of that one video, and hope it goes well. I think the video will really help those wanting to know the pros and cons. Seeing and hearing the difference on video allows you to judge for yourself.

I still haven't been able to figure out how to turn on the external speaker on the V3. I go into setup and turn on the speaker, but I still hear no external sound. What I've been doing is to put the headphones over the video camara so it can pickup the sounds. This isn't doing justice to how well the V3 sounds on deep targets.

Detector said:

I still haven't been able to figure out how to turn on the external speaker on the V3. I go into setup and turn on the speaker,.

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According to the manual, you should be able to get speaker sound by turning the wireless headphones off manually. It may take 5-10 seconds for this to happen (I don't have the wireless headphones, so I can't test this myself, but I get speaker sound depending on whether I plug wired headphones in).