V3 I vs Minelab E-trac

[NorCalJoe59]

I know this is been talked about but I couldn't reply in the old posts. I have been metal detecting for 30 + years....I have had numerous detectors. I was in the market last year for a new detector and I wanted the best bang for my buck and I am really focused on coins. So I went to a dealer who sells all sorts of brands. He too has been detecting for years....(he was far better than me)....but he had the V3 and MInelab...but he said "V3i" .... he used personally for coins and jewlery. I aksed him hundreds of questions and had brought my old whites spectrum and Eagle II to compare with the V3i. So I laid out trash, aluminum , tin cans nails bottle caps new coins and old silver coins....the signals on the old detectors were ok as far as the vdi reading....but the V3i visual bars and colors and tones on differant modes.......I was like ahhhhhhhh well now thats what I need!!!!! I dont waste my time on junk...it is AWESOME!

He told me as they were designing whites V3i the engineers had hundreds or so ideas to put into the machine....which leave for alo of tweaking. What happend was they were going to put about 15 into the v3i...but something happend and they left whites , quit or something....so the new guys/engineers came in saw the notes and put "everything" into the V3i which makes it one hell of a detector....

Somewhat complicated but very very sweet for the advanced treasure hunter. With some fine tuning and playing around, even a novice can see for himself that this detector is so advanced, awesome and easy to use. Placing coins on the gound and adjusting settings (fine tunning) are the key to any detector...but when you see how DEEP coin readings go and jewlery, gold....even small nuggets.....it's amazing. I took the minelab over the same targets...and it would not pick up smaller targets such as jewlery.....rings....it just wouldt go the depths that the V3i would.....in "coin mode" on the V3 i .....the mine lab would go a tad bit deeper 1/2 inch 3/4 of an inch...but....here's the kicker folks.....the settings on the V3i....if you fiddle with it and set it to "deep silver" it smokes the minelab....not even a contest.

Im not saying the minelab is inferior....I have not played with it enough to know if the settings enable you to do what I can do on my V3i....but according to the guy I bought it from....he does not beleive the Minelab is a better machine. Tones and reading screen make the V3i a sweet machine...when you hit a coin all the bars go to the right and its a steady tone...and what I have seen it do...and the coins I am finding in all the places that have been gone over a hundred times...I am finding coins everywhere....places that have been hit numerous times. I LOVE my V3 i.
Also I love the wireless headphones with...the V3i ...So the battery lasts all day long...I have a rechargeable and a AA backup I take with me...I dont know how long it would keep up without it but I do know I love the headphones...you can hear the faintest of sounds that you might miss without them.

 

[Ray-Mo.]

However infield results are all that matter to me and on old, deep coins my E-Trac blew the V3 out of the water.I liked the V3 a lot but as I mostly hunt for old silver and Indian Heads I kept what worked best for me and have never been sorry or wondered if I made the best decision when keeping the E-Trac.Over 3 years latter and me and my E-Trac are still pulling a lot of old silver coins from hard hit public sites as are several of my detecting buddies.
One of the great strengths of the E-Trac is you set it and start digging deep goodies rather than spend a lot of time tweaking a multitude of settings trying to get it to perform better at each site.I never have to wonder if I have the E-Trac set just right as it is so simple to set up for optimum performance.
Also the ID at depth is beyond comparison for coins in my soil here in SW MO and SE KS

 

[Larry (IL)]

I want to point out that the V series becomes a turn on and go hunting detector just like all other detectors once you have your ground and personal preferences set......... turn on, GB and hunt. I have not changed my settings other than the sensitivity and recovery speed in the trash in over two years.

 

[calibil]

I got to agree with Ray ,if your looking for silver-indians the etrac is better.I have both and if looking for gold stuff I'll tend to use the V3i. The etrac is more user friendly even more so than the dfx, the v3 took me a while to learn to tweak for specific searches. The etrac is heavier. We could debate these two quite a bit, both are great machines, learn,learn your machine and read read the manuals you will have great finds with both.

 

[NorCalJoe59]

I think I going to buy an E trac and go back over everything I have gone over with the v3i....If I find some silver then Ill put my v3 i up for sale.

 

[Fire Fighter 43]

I was a diehard Whites user for over 32 years and I could not wait to get my hands on the V3i. Once I got it set-up for my type of hunting which is mainly deep old coins I had very good results. I was curtious about the Etrac so I started whaching the Etrac area of different forums. I could not help but notice they did not talk much about settings but the Etrac users did post a lot more finds of old silver. So I brook down and got an Etrac to give it a try, thinking I would do some side by side comparisons with the V3i. Once I proved that it wasnt as good as the V I would sell it and keep the V. Well it did not take me long to realize that the Etrac was going to get me more deep old coins and help with the recovery of coins in the trashy areas. Even though the Etrac feels heavier and is not as well balanced I sold the V3i and have not regretted it at all. I also covered s few areas that I had previously hunted with the V and found plenty that I had missed.