Help with Minelab buying decision...

[TreasureHawk]

Thinking seriously about buying a Minelab detector.

Looking at Safari, Explorer SE Pro or E-Trac. Maybe a X-Terra 705.

Any thoughts/reviews both positive and negative would be appreciated.

I was concerned about the recovery speed. Any thoughts about recovery speed.

Would you buy Minelab again?

I have been using a Whites Eagle Spectrum since 1992.

Thanks.

Robert

 

[BarberDan]

I've got a little experience with the Safari, SE Pro and a lot of experience with the E-Trac. That being said I'd take the E-Trac over any of them if money isn't an issue. The SE Pro comes in a close second. I would absolutely buy an E-Trac again....it's the best silver machine out there right now. I doubt you'll find anyone here that will tell you different. If you look at the number of posts on the forums, most of the finds posts are posted here in the E-Trac section.....because we just find so dang much
The only negative about the E-Trac is that it is heavy!! I can run mine 10 + hrs a day, but I feel it the next day. Just be prepared for the heftiness......

 

[E-TREC-Virginia]

I've got a little experience with the Safari, SE Pro and a lot of experience with the E-Trac. That being said I'd take the E-Trac over any of them if money isn't an issue. The SE Pro comes in a close second. I would absolutely buy an E-Trac again....it's the best silver machine out there right now. I doubt you'll find anyone here that will tell you different. If you look at the number of posts on the forums, most of the finds posts are posted here in the E-Trac section.....because we just find so dang much
The only negative about the E-Trac is that it is heavy!! I can run mine 10 + hrs a day, but I feel it the next day. Just be prepared for the heftiness......

Everything that BarberDan said and more. Because you can customize your modes and disc patterns, it is very user friendly for all kinds of conditions and target selection (Coin, Relic, Beach, etc..) I use the Swingy Thingy to help with the weight issue and can hunt all day with it. One thing that you can do to help with the compare is to go to the Kellyco web site and do side by side by side comparisons. It's a little more expensive, but well worth it IMHO. Good luck with your choice.

 

[UncleTom]

Go for the E TRAC you won't be sorry!

 

[dannygene]

If you like to find the older deeper coins you will not go wrong with the Etac.If you find one just be prepaired to spend some time leanring it.Now I'm not saying it is hard to learn but it is so much different than the whites that I use to use,{Spectrum XLT}But if you give it time you will come to love it as much as every one else on here.

 

[Bell-Two]

Go with the E-Trac, the learning curve is not as difficult as many think. I went from Ace 250 to E-Trac and was finding silver in first two weeks and have done very well with it. My wife went from the Ace to a X-Terra 705 took to it right away and so I got her an E-Trac....one week later she got a SLQ and the next week a Merc and a Large Cent....you will not regret it, just take your time and do not worry about learning curve.

 

[Nuke em]

Buy the E.Trac, it will be hard to beat , when you are searching an area and not finding anything for a while then your arms will ache but when you are finding stuff you stop swinging and you recover and you will also stop thinking about weight or in this case balance.
I have both the ET and the Terra 705 but the ET is by far and away the most capable although without a prospecting mode but dont think that stops it finding gold ,silver or any other metal because it will and mine has many times.
I have searched a local beach to me twice in the last 3 days and both days i used the ET , these pictures are of what i found .
Day 1 = 17th April 2012, no Jems but plenty of cash.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

I had a Safari for two months - then I upgraded top an E-Trac - the smartest thing I've done in years !

 

[BH_Landstar_]

I got the E-Trac and the X-Terra 705.

My X-Terra has not seen any action since November last year !

I've kept the X-Terra 705 as it's a great detector for some places and because it's not as heavy as the E-Trac.

 

[Prep1957]

I will be the first to disagree with everyone above.I had Etrac and kept Safari lighter easier to use and less playing around with the programs.Either way you will get a great machine to hunt with.What a lot of Minelab users forget to tell every new buyer is they work better with after market coils then the Pro Coil so there is some extra cost.Before you buy any Etrac you may want to look at XP Deus it is about same cost of ETrac.A friend of mine that hunts almost every day bought one and has not touched his Etrac in 5 weeks and he is hunting the same spots that he has hunted with Etrac hard.

 

[E-TREC-Virginia]

I will be the first to disagree with everyone above.I had Etrac and kept Safari lighter easier to use and less playing around with the programs.Either way you will get a great machine to hunt with.What a lot of Minelab users forget to tell every new buyer is they work better with after market coils then the Pro Coil so there is some extra cost.Before you buy any Etrac you may want to look at XP Deus it is about same cost of ETrac.A friend of mine that hunts almost every day bought one and has not touched his Etrac in 5 weeks and he is hunting the same spots that he has hunted with Etrac hard.

I have both machines (E-Trac and XP Deus) and use both. I bring both them with me on every hunt and make the choice of which one to use once I make a determination of what the conditions are. If I'm faced with a site that has a lot of trash/iron, I'll use the Deus. For cleaners sites or sites with deeper targets, I'll pull out the E-Trac. A lot of hunts, I'll start out with the E-Trac and switch to the Deus when the E-Trac starts to get heavy.

Robert (TreasureHawk) - Where do you live? I would be happy to let you use my E-Trac and Deus, so you can get a feel for both, if you think you may be interested in looking at the XP Deus. You may want to check and see if anyone lives close to you and would be willing to let you test drive the E-Trac. I know you would be impressed.

 

[JamesBondaka]

You cant go wrong with an Etrac.....Ive had an SE....its good but the Etrac is much smoother and quieter....not a much bouncing. Recovery speed is very quick maybe not as fast as some but its so sable that I think the trade off is worth it....if you look at it that way.

Granted,,,,it takes a small amount of time to learn the Etrac "lingo" but after you do.....Its one of the best there is....to say the least!

 

[Nuke em]

DEUS no. Dont !, the E.Trac is deeper and if set up right then brilliant on iron, most of the coinage i found on the beach in the earlier post on this thread was amongst iron nails and stuff.
The ET is heavier that the Deus , well what isn't LOL but the tones ,sounds , and numbers on the ET are far better than the Deus and much more accurate at depth. I have had the Deus a few times and have to say that apart from lightness its not worth the cost, all your paying for is the Technology and the fact that they or XP are out to make a killing for the Research and Development of it.
It wont be long before a new Minelab is out FAMOUS LAST WORDS well thats what i think and then you will see a lot of Deus's on the market going cheap.
If you want a good programme for the ET then i will help you when you get one, as for the Safari, it is a good machine but as said it does not have all or a lot of the extra's you get on the ET which is alright to a certain extent but what if you need them? i have seen that going head to head with one on the earlier said beach when i keep finding stuff he has missed.

As for after market coils , there are a few but even the Deus has a large coil which is a after market coil and is a pile of $%&* , not much deeper , less well balanced and not as sensitive. I would say to buy a coil of a certain type but cant on here ! as for the Pro coil on the ET ,it works fine and i find tons with it and dont have any other coil for my ET, dont need one .

 

[E-TREC-Virginia]

DEUS no. Dont !, the E.Trac is deeper and if set up right then brilliant on iron, most of the coinage i found on the beach in the earlier post on this thread was amongst iron nails and stuff.
The ET is heavier that the Deus , well what isn't LOL but the tones ,sounds , and numbers on the ET are far better than the Deus and much more accurate at depth. I have had the Deus a few times and have to say that apart from lightness its not worth the cost, all your paying for is the Technology and the fact that they or XP are out to make a killing for the Research and Development of it.
It wont be long before a new Minelab is out FAMOUS LAST WORDS well thats what i think and then you will see a lot of Deus's on the market going cheap.
If you want a good programme for the ET then i will help you when you get one, as for the Safari, it is a good machine but as said it does not have all or a lot of the extra's you get on the ET which is alright to a certain extent but what if you need them? i have seen that going head to head with one on the earlier said beach when i keep finding stuff he has missed.

As for after market coils , there are a few but even the Deus has a large coil which is a after market coil and is a pile of $%&* , not much deeper , less well balanced and not as sensitive. I would say to buy a coil of a certain type but cant on here ! as for the Pro coil on the ET ,it works fine and i find tons with it and dont have any other coil for my ET, dont need one .

Why do people have to trash another detector while trying to make another look good? The XP Deus has it's niche just like the E-Trac. I'm very pleased with the performance of my Deus and have found the large coil very capable in the situations that it was designed for. I am not pushing the Deus or saying that it is any better then the E-Trac. Just offering it up as an another option. I am lucky enough that I can afford to have both and really enjoy using each of them. As far as needing an aftermarket coil for the E-Trac, that really depends on the conditions that you hunt in. The Pro Coil is one of the best all around coils and performs well in moderate trash and has great depth. If you are planning on hunting in heavy trash, then you may want to look into buying a small aftermarket coil. The Pro Coil will work in heavy trash, but you'll have to go slow and low and really listen for the good target hits and check your targets from different angles.

 

[Nuke em]

I dont trash a detector, i have tried it 3 times ! and found it to be not suitable to me and i wont recomend it to someone if i think its not suitable. The ET is suitable to most if not all sites . The Deus is pretty much a screen version of the Goldmaxx Power with a ability to have settings like a few other detectors of the same make. The Deus is supposed to have a beach mode but if it is anything like the Goldmaxx Power then its not right for salt wet, the Goldmaxx isn't. The ET is salt wet capable to the hilt and you could if set up right for the worst of land conditions that the ET is able to do go straight from that straight into the wet salt water and out again with out any adjustments at all. You could never do that with a Deus or a F75 or Whites V3i or T2 or X.Terra or near enough any other detector except maybe some P.I. machines and the Explorer or Sovereign.
I have had many detectors including all of the above and many others but only the E.Trac and Explorer do all and very well when set up right. The Deus is a very novel idea and very up to date, light and is capable if you have the right sites but it is not very deep like the ET , if you get a target that is very deep it is very quiet on the Deus and you could miss the target, the ET sounds are better almost all the way to its max depth.I think that the Deus is set up for speed of recovery in iron and not depth. The one other thing i dont like about the Deus is the inability in dealing with Coke or hot rocks which is most likely to do with the fact that its not a proper salt wet machine but just a make do.
On land i have seen plenty of people find hammered coins and other stuff with the Deus and Goldmaxx and all machines but the ET is far better.
In the end you have to be at one with the machine you are using and it helps having the right sounds and tones as well as the FE and CO numbers of the ET or Explorer which at depth the Deus gets arratic and very inacurate. As for the price of the Deus , here in U.K. it is around

 

[earthmansurfer]

Steve and Nuke em, Nice exchange. I like to see these comparisons. Clearly how we use machines and our conditions are really a big influence on the machine we choose to use. But I would say (Nuke em) that a machine is a very subjective thing to judge. Comparison videos with a variety of conditions are better ways of communicating but take a lot of time and work. (Oh, do I know ;-) eheeh )

I really just love the E-Trac but it is a bit heavy for my back and I get around with my bike usually, so being able to put a detector in my back pack like a Deus (and it being light) are very attractive to me. I also love the E-Tracs 2D screen and sounds but I am not sure the E-Trac does that well in iron - at least it seems the Deus is better there but that is what it is designed for (and I am in Europe, so the iron here is often really heavy). I might order a Deus just to try it out, they are holding their resale value better than any detector I have seen for the last 2 years here in Europe. You can easily sell them and get around 90% back. So the risk is small, unlike my V3i which I took a 40% hit on for 6 months of use! I rarely see them on ebay for sale.

I wouldn't get the Deus with the backphones, so 1200 here in Germany (300 less) isn't that bad at all for 4 frequencies, though it doesn't appear the Deus is really that well tuned for the 4.6kHz. After all, hard to get one coil "hot" on 4 frequencies.

I am not a relic hunter at all, so am only interested in using the Deus on coins. And it is a bit said the VID doesn't work beyond 8" or so. But that is still good depth and perhaps as Steve said, a combo of the Deus and E-Trac is a damn good one. An expensive one, but if you are only going to have two machines, then these two might click well together.

I am really looking forward to a light new E-Trac that also folds up and is faster. Man, imagine an E-Trac in a Deus like presentation?

Thx,
Albert

 

[Nuke em]

I have my ET set up so iron is easy to know , even when you are in iron and have trouble just look at the number and go very slow . If there is a coin next to iron then it will show.
As i said i sold my Deus but that was also to do with money issues as anything but as i do beaches mostly then the Deus just does not fit well and i think its like having USS Nimitz in the dockyard , declaring war on Russia and taking the WW2 USS Enterprise to sea to meet them.
May be an exageration but thats just me.
I say roll on ET 2 , Minelab get a bloody move on please.

 

[E-TREC-Virginia]

I dont trash a detector, i have tried it 3 times ! and found it to be not suitable to me and i wont recomend it to someone if i think its not suitable. The ET is suitable to most if not all sites . The Deus is pretty much a screen version of the Goldmaxx Power with a ability to have settings like a few other detectors of the same make. The Deus is supposed to have a beach mode but if it is anything like the Goldmaxx Power then its not right for salt wet, the Goldmaxx isn't. The ET is salt wet capable to the hilt and you could if set up right for the worst of land conditions that the ET is able to do go straight from that straight into the wet salt water and out again with out any adjustments at all. You could never do that with a Deus or a F75 or Whites V3i or T2 or X.Terra or near enough any other detector except maybe some P.I. machines and the Explorer or Sovereign.
I have had many detectors including all of the above and many others but only the E.Trac and Explorer do all and very well when set up right. The Deus is a very novel idea and very up to date, light and is capable if you have the right sites but it is not very deep like the ET , if you get a target that is very deep it is very quiet on the Deus and you could miss the target, the ET sounds are better almost all the way to its max depth.I think that the Deus is set up for speed of recovery in iron and not depth. The one other thing i dont like about the Deus is the inability in dealing with Coke or hot rocks which is most likely to do with the fact that its not a proper salt wet machine but just a make do.
On land i have seen plenty of people find hammered coins and other stuff with the Deus and Goldmaxx and all machines but the ET is far better.
In the end you have to be at one with the machine you are using and it helps having the right sounds and tones as well as the FE and CO numbers of the ET or Explorer which at depth the Deus gets arratic and very inacurate. As for the price of the Deus , here in U.K. it is around

 

[Ken in Georgia]

Still, the Trac and the Safari are both good beepers and FBS is FBS and the best at coin and relic I have seen in a Long , Long while.... I hope this helps !!!!

 

[Dig EM]

I have been using a White's DFX for several years now and just went for the E-trac. After reading many reviews and comparing web sites and reading many, many fourm posts I decided on the E-trac. Should be delivered tomarrow and I can't wait!!