Need advice on upgrading to Minelab

[FortuneFinder73]

Hello all, Im new to this forum but have detecting about 3 years now with a tesoro cibola and u-max and im wanting to upgrade to a minelab. I have a hard time distinguishing the tones on tesoros and need a detector that will have a visual display and is ALOT better at discriminating out the junk, which I have been digging mostly with the tesoros. Most of my detecting is for coins/jewerly/gold in tennessee soil and about 2 to 3 trips to florida beaches a year. So, my question is out of the e-trac, explorer se, safari, and x-705 gold package which one would fit my needs the best with targeting what i hunt for while having the best discrimination and also would have automatic ground balance? I was hoping there might be some old tesoro users that made the switch to minelab be able to give me some advice. The tesoros are good detectors I just feel that they dont discriminate as well as the minelabs because I end up digging everything.

 

[Digger]

The primary difference between discrimination on the two Tesoro's and the Minelab's you mentioned is the fact that Tesoro uses variable discrimination and the Minelabs use notch discrimination. In other words, if you set your discrimination to a specific level, the detector will reject all targets at and below that level of conductivity. Notch discrimination allows you to reject any notch or group of notches, and accept all others. Regardless of whether they represent targets with conductive values less than or greater than those you set to reject. That fact alone will reduce the amount of trash (or at least increase the amount of goodies) you dig with the Minelabs.

Of the four Minelab's you mentioned, I currently own both the E-TRAC and the X-TERRA 705 for two reasons....... the Explorer and Safari are not as well balanced as the E-TRAC due to the E-TRAC having a 13 degree offset in the grip. As I've gotten older, I find I can hunt much longer with a better balanced detector. Between the Safari and the Explorer...... the Explorer (and E-TRAC) provide both ferrous values and conductive values. Not to put down the Safari, because it is a good detector. But why spend all that money when, for a few hundred more, you could have both ferrous and conductive TID simultaneously? Based on the ergonomics, I chose the E-TRAC over the Explorer. As a side note......if detector balance is an issue (and you will find that the Explorer, Safari and E-TRAC are much heavier than the Tesoro's you're now using) The X-705 is better balanced and lighter weight than the other Minelabs you mentioned.

For the type of hunting you indicated you do, either the Explorer, E-TRAC or X-705 will serve your needs. The slower sweep speed typically associated with the Explorer and E-TRAC, compared to the X-TERRA, will allow you to "cover more ground" in a given period of time, with the X-TERRA. The X-TERRA 705 has a Beach tracking mode and will allow you to maintain optimum ground balance on those Florida beaches you hit each year. For the parks and yards, you can set the GB automatically or put it in tracking. On the other hand, the E-TRAC doesn't require any ground balance at all, as the software takes care of it for you.

Dollar for dollar, there is a big difference in price between the E-TRAC and 705. And if you are like many of us, one coil just don't cut it! Something to consider is to buy the X-705 and use some of the money you saved on an extra coil or two. If you get the Gold pack, you already have an elliptical HF coil for the beach. Just make sure you put some silicon around the coil cover and cable entry point as it is considered water resistant, not waterproof. If you have the opportunity to buy the 705 with your choice of coils, you might consider getting the 10 inch round DD at 18.75 kHz instead of the elliptical that comes in the Gold Pack. I think some dealers refer to that as the Relic pack. It would still be a good idea to silicon it as described above as it too is considered water resistant. Then, depending on your soil conditions, you might want to add either the small DD or the small concentric for better target separation in trashy areas. JMHO HH Randy

 

[Mtnmn]

Can guarantee that you will be digging a lot less junk with any of the above listed Minelabs and ground balancing won't be a problem either. After that things get a little stickier. Believe the XT-705 is the best at finding gold rings and jewelry, when used with the gold package. The other three FBS detectors are supposed to be better beach machines than the XT-705, especially in wet sand. Knowing how good the Etrac is supposed to be at target unmasking, think that you would dig less junk with it, than any of the others. Though I was finding very little junk with my XT-70 after the first few months of use, but after having the Safari for just two days, I'm already digging less junk with it than I was with the XT-70. Believe a lot of that is because like the XT-70, the Safari is a very easy machine to learn how to use. One thing you never mentioned was weight, only the XT-705 is any where near the weight of a Tesoros. Overall the the XT-705 would be a good choice, when everything is figured in. Good luck and happy hunting!

 

[digginLa]

I'm going to chime in on this just because I currently use a Cibola to detect with and used a DeLeon for about 5 yrs before I got the Cibola (as a side note I'm considering a 705 also but more for a possible increase in depth). I traded my DeLeon for my Omega off because I wanted something with tones and a notch feature, which my DeLeon didn't have. If the OP doesnt want to dig so much trash with his current machines all he needs to do is turn the discrimination knob to see where the signal drops out at, have to admit that works much better for coins than it does jewelry tho, but if he's looking for gold he's going to end up digging lots of trash just because of the wide range in which gold falls (high iron readings all the way to zinc), and its even said in the FAQ section that if your using the preset programs on the 705 you'll lose a lot of gold signals along with IH pennies and some of the nickels so unless he has access to a lot of different gold jewelry so he can notch their vids into the machine he's going to miss stuff, I've seen it suggested to use AM but if your going to do that you might as well dig everything anyway or if he hunts in areas like I do there will be so many signals he'll never get any ground covered. Heck my Omega isn't even 100% correct on whats a nickel (56-57 in my ground) and whats a pull tab because I've dug lots of tabs that showed the same VID as the nickels (I get the same tone also). I don't blame the OP for wanting something new but if he's looking for gold he's going to dig lots of trash or possibly miss a good target. Just my 2c's worth HH and good luck with whatever machine you decide on, heck the advice the you get my help me in my decision. Jimmie

 

[goldseeker4000]

Like digger, I have a x-terra 705 and I couldn't be more happy with it. If you decide you want to go with the 705, I am confident you will feel you have made the right choice.Here are some goodies I have found with my 705.

 

[FortuneFinder73]

Thanks for the advice everyone.... I went with the 705 and I am hoping to dig my first treasure with it tomorrow after I read the manual of course.

 

[Daedalus]

I have the X 705 and the older Tesoro Diablo II gold Demon ! The 705 has some settings that make it a lot better for what you are wanting, also it has target stabilization for Hot soils and rocks , this works very well when hunting on a beach that has black sand or even the salts that make it harder to find what you are hunting . With the beach mode and the stabilization it does , this unit does a great job hunting !

And the 705 will go very deep if you adjust the sensitivity , that is one of the best things I like about it , and it has auto ground tracking so you do not have to deal with that as you move back and forth from the wet salt sand to the dry sand . You can go into all metal mode in any of the coin programs if you want , this helps a lot . On the depth I found a silver dime at 11 to 12 inches , it was just breaking the threshold at that depth but it did register on the TDI and I got a beep and not just a sound warble .

Prospecting mode is all metal but it has settings that make it work very well . As it is the X-Terra 705 is a very good all around machine that you can take from the beach to the mountains and it will do what you need in any of those environments .
As to the coils that you can get for it I found that I like the concentric coil the best and this coil is water proof , it pinpoints very easily and I do not have any problems at all when I am hitting multiple targets that are close together , the recovery on the machine is very fast . And it is very easy to learn , it did not take me long to learn the detector and it's functions . And the multiple sound settings make it great and easy to set to what works for you .

And on a final note I have seen a few dealers that have X-Terra 705's that come with more than one coil , this will help in getting what you want or need . Also I found that having the HF 18.75 Khz and Medium Freq 7.5 khz coils did just about every type of hunting that I needed or used , as there is a coil in the 3 Khz range that you can get but I tried a friends and found that it did not help anymore than the two that I had . And the HF 18.75 coil will find very fine gold as well as the larger nuggets or rings .

Hope this helps you in your decision and if I can help anymore with questions just PM me and I will try to answer any that you have. HH

 

[goldseeker4000]

Daedalus, very well said! I love my 705. I have a friend that says that my 705 will never out perform his explorer. He says he doesn't believe that I found a wheatie at 9 " with 6" DD HF. I will have to prove it to him. Nice job on your silver dime at 11"-12" deep.

 

[Donut]

I have had the 70 for 3hree years an really like it. Been detecting for 35 years.
Both are good units. 70 is great and the 705 is even better.

JMO.
Doug