I have an Etrac and AT Pro and went to the beach (Outer Banks, NC) this year for a week and got to use them. The ETrac was nice and quiet and stable, the AT Pro was nice in the light surf, but after coming home and researching a third detector for the beach when I go back down this winter..... I have pretty much decided on the Garrett Infinium. I saw a lot of bad reviews and I saw some good ones for people that actually got to know how to use it.
If you don't take the time to learn a good machine, then you will get frustrated, think it's crap, and never get to see it's potential. When I got my ETrac and T2, everyone said 'the ETrac is great on silver but bad on gold, and the T2 is too chatty'. The ETrac takes time to learn learn what gold looks/sounds like which is tougher than silver on that machine. If gold is there I find it easily as silver, cause I took the time to learn the machine. The T2 is chatty, but it's super sensitive...too sensitive when run all out. Like taking all the governors off the go-carts at the track and watch people wiping out like mad and them saying 'the track is bad and the carts don't work right'. Run it as hot as it will go and it's amazing. From what I read if you know the Infinium and run it, set it up correctly for youself/conditions, it's amazing!
I been lucky with detectors and accessories and the only issue I ever had was with my headphones adapter kit for my AT-Pro. When I unplugged it after using it the first time, the insides pulled out of it. ouch! I sent Garrett Service an Email about it. I got a response within 6 hours that they were sending me a new one and a return shipping label to send the bad one back so they could see how it failed. Garrett was fast, no B.S., very courteous, and professional. I was very impressed.
I am sure I'll be posting here more after I get mine very soon...
12