Safari vs Etrac

[Bryannagirl]

From what I have read the Etrac was designed using more from the Quattro then explorer Now comes the safari do you think the safari got a lot fro. Etrac.

I assume that many of the settings on the Etrac are implemented in the safari but in combinations. Now I do not know this for sure but I am guessing that high trash vs low trash implements more then just the trash setting. Is it possible that high trash is also recovery fast and deep off. And maybe low trash is deep on and recovery slow.

Has anyone compared Etrac to safari to see how close the really are?

Bryanna

 

[john4840]

Basically the Quattro and the Safari are the same metal detector, Minelab did make a few changes that went into Safari. One being that the Safari is in high trash at start up instead of the low trash like the Quattro. I think the biggest difference between the Quatto and the Safari is that the Pro coil that comes stock with the Safari. I believe the performance would be about equal between both detectors with the pro coil. I am not knocking down the Safari and I think it would be a great detector, but don't see enough of a change between the detectors to think that a Safari is an upgrade to The Quattro. I think the biggest difference between the E-Trac and Safari is the Iron Mask feature that the E-Trac has. The E-trac can discriminate out iron better then the Safari. If the Safari had this feature i might have thought of buying one.

John

 

[larryk56]

I had both. From my experience the Safari was much easier to use
and I did well with it.

For me, the E-trac was too confusing. Maybe that is why I found more
with the Safari.

 

[Prep1957]

I had Etrac and Safari,kept Safari,you are very right on your observations Safari is slimed down Etrac.Etrac is no better in Iron than Safari no matter what you set it at.

 

[Bryannagirl]

There are lot of Etrac for sale these days given the release of the CTX3030. I have to say I have been tempted but something in my gut tells me I will spend more time fiddling then hunting. With the Safari there is no fiddling per say. Just turn it on select one of 8 programs 4 factory and 4 custom. Noise cancel and hunt. So it takes no time to get hunting. I also am slowly weaning myself off discrimination and using my ears more as discriminators. So the jury is very much out on upgrading. The one thing I wish I could do is two tone ferrous. Seems like that could be helpful.

Bryanna

 

[Hotzone]

Today I worked an area of the park with little trash. With the Quattro in high trash all metal I picked up $2.15 in just over an hour without digging the customary nails that I usually find if using coins jewelry.Up until now, I have been trying to switch modes and verify before digging and that takes a lot of time. I did find coins right next to trash using this method as the good signal is not blanked out by the bad, as in low trash with discrimination. Also the nail was quite obvious because of the low sounds associated with it. The bottle cap was more easily identified but dug up anyway to keep from missing anything. I plan to try this method with progressively trashier conditions. For now though I have been using my Tesoro tiger shark with 8 inch coil for the really trashed out areas as I am more confident in the sounds of that machine telling me when to dig.

 

[john4840]

Hotzone do you have a 6 inch coil? I have done pretty good with my smaller coil in high trash areas. I have not notice much of a depth loss and found coins 10 inches deep with it.

John

 

[Hotzone]

Yes, but it is concentric and the cone of influence narrows to a point. Ok in extreme trash, but the 8 inch Tesoro covers more ground and I have a lot of experience with Tesoro sound. I really like all 3 of my detectors and find that each has merit when conditions warrant. I have not had much occasion to use my 16 inch DD coil with the Quattro though. I keep experimenting with the settings on the Quattro and continue to find more potential. I think the all metal mode and high trash gives the best information from the machines audio, I had a hard time convincing myself to use it as minelabs claim this is a ferrous sound. Knowing pure silver or gold would have no iron and hence no sound I felt this was just a sales gimmick. Regardless of what the sound is comprised of, I get More information from the sound generated in all metal. I just need to get used to all the noise I must ignor with high trash densities, something I already do with Tesoro, having used one since 1985.

 

[john4840]

What I do with my Quattro use the 6 inch DD coil, and I will notch out the TID #40 and some of the lower TID #'s (usually all the negative numbers). I do this because of the wrap around discrimination effect, This is when the same iron object in the ground will give you a high and low tones and TID # 40 and negative TID #'s corrisponding with tones, even in ferrous sounds. What is funny is that this happens with my XT 70, and what I have read on this forum is that the Explorers and Etracs have to deal with this also. What is weird is that my Sovereign XS does not have this problem, but every once in a while it will get fooled by a bent rusty nail. Anyways what I have learned is that this quiets my Quattro down in the high trash areas where I can hunt comfortable with it, even in low trash mode..

Do you have Andy Sabasch's Quattro/Safari handbook? It has a lot of good information in it I use, Andy covers conductive and ferrous sounds in it.

What is your impression on your 8 inch concentric coil, I wondering if it handled iron better then the DD?



John

 

[Hotzone]

The 8 inch concentric that I have is hardwired to the single frequency tigershark, not a bad thing if used for diving and you don't want another place for a leak. I think the benefit I notice is due to the type of circuitry that chops sounds that are conductive but below the selected discrimination level, allowing me to find a nail and a coin side by side in the same hole, that the quattro would have blanked out as iron. The coiled nail and rusty washers and pulltabs will fool you as they are all iffy signals that get dug anyway. The 6 inch concentric with the Quattro works in the worst conditions quite admirably, though very slow due to overlapping. I think the pro pointer allows me to dig trash so fast that I rarely use the small coil. When I rework the area at 90 degree search angle to find the coins I missed that we're on edge I will switch to the Quattro as the trash clearing I previous applied with one of my fast sweeping tesoros allows a much deeper and productive cleanup. I don't think I leave much for the next guy. I will give your suggestion a try as I have simply added the 40 tid to the existing coins program and not selected negative numbers only. Don't own the book, I often do things the hard way, and the lessons learned are most meaningful. Have you used one of the butterfly coils?

 

[Bryannagirl]

Interesting comments, I am still up in the air about Ferous verse conductive tones. Logic tells me conductive sounds off based on the relative conductivity of the metal under e coil so a target like gold or a nickel will have medium tones and iron low tones and silver the highrest tones. So if it was a Etrac - and I really do believe there is a lot of Etrac in the Safari the tones go from 0 to 50 with 0 being your lowest tone and 50 the highest.

Now let's look at ferrous tones. Again my instinct says that iron produces a low tone and as the amount off ferrous content goes down the tone goes up so the pitch goes up as Ferous goes down. In the case again a silver coin reads high because no Ferous content. Now a nickel should sound off medium again because it does have some Ferous content. This is where I start to get confused because I do not believe gold has an ferrous content so gold should sound off high but I believe this is not correct and again like in conductive gold is a medium pitched tone. This scale should be 0 to 30. With 0 being a high tone and 30 low tone

I know they are different but when I talk my way through it the seem to do the same thing. High conductors are normally low Ferous and no matter what program the read a low tone.. Now iron is a low conductor and high Ferous again this will be a low tone for both tone modes. I guess the real difference is in the middle. Maybe this is why ferous is preferred for relic hunting. It is known that large iron can be very conductive thus giving the impression it is a high conductance metal. But in the Ferous tone it will still sound off as a low tone because it is high Ferous. So know you know if your digging a iron pick head or a large coin. Anyone with a better way to look at this please chime in..

Thanks

Bryanna

 

[john4840]

No I have never use the butterfly coils, but from what I read they really good, a lot better then the Quattro's original coil. You can find the field test for the different coils here http://www.findmall.com/read.php?19,1055627. I would buy one for myself, but i think I am going to upgrade to an Explorer or an Etrac and I am going to wait for now.

I'm sorry I thought you talking about the 8 inch concentric coil that is available for the FBS machines though Kellyco, my fault. Have you ever tried Monte's nail board test? You can find it here http://compass-metal-detector-forum.548136.n2.nabble.com/file/n6045236/Nail_Board_Performance_Test-1.pdf.

My Quattro didn't handle it very well, I also tried my Sovereign and Tesoro Lobo ST, neither of these detectors did the great either with the test. All three detectors could not pick up the coins. When I tested my XT 70 and my Son's Ace 250 I was able to get a iffy coin signal that most likely if it happen in the field I most likely would have dug. The difference is that the Quattro, Sovereign, and Lobo had a Double D on and the XT 70 and Ace had an concentric on them. That is why I was curious.


John

 

[john4840]

Interesting comments, I am still up in the air about Ferous verse conductive tones. Logic tells me conductive sounds off based on the relative conductivity of the metal under e coil so a target like gold or a nickel will have medium tones and iron low tones and silver the highrest tones. So if it was a Etrac - and I really do believe there is a lot of Etrac in the Safari the tones go from 0 to 50 with 0 being your lowest tone and 50 the highest.

Now let's look at ferrous tones. Again my instinct says that iron produces a low tone and as the amount off ferrous content goes down the tone goes up so the pitch goes up as Ferous goes down. In the case again a silver coin reads high because no Ferous content. Now a nickel should sound off medium again because it does have some Ferous content. This is where I start to get confused because I do not believe gold has an ferrous content so gold should sound off high but I believe this is not correct and again like in conductive gold is a medium pitched tone. This scale should be 0 to 30. With 0 being a high tone and 30 low tone

I know they are different but when I talk my way through it the seem to do the same thing. High conductors are normally low Ferous and no matter what program the read a low tone.. Now iron is a low conductor and high Ferous again this will be a low tone for both tone modes. I guess the real difference is in the middle. Maybe this is why ferous is preferred for relic hunting. It is known that large iron can be very conductive thus giving the impression it is a high conductance metal. But in the Ferous tone it will still sound off as a low tone because it is high Ferous. So know you know if your digging a iron pick head or a large coin. Anyone with a better way to look at this please chime in..

Thanks

Bryanna

Bryanna here is excellent video on the Safari and this should help you understand the Conductive nad ferrous tones. http://www.minelabowners.com/forum/videos/367/getting-most-out-your-minelab-safari-metal-detector.html


John

 

[Hotzone]

My instinct tells me the ferris sounds are a composite of conductive and ferris readings with the ferris component completely dominating when iron is present and the conductive component dominating when it is low or not. There has to be a way to know the object is under the coil if you are only considering iron otherwise no noise at all. Regardless I believe there is more audio information contained in the ferris sounds that enable me to make better decisions. The blanking that occurs when discriminating in all modes mask good signals. If you can stand to listen to all the noises your ear is a better discriminator in all metal nothing blanked. Just listen for high and medium signals that repeat. There is obviously more to it as coiled nails, rings, washers, and old large ring pulltabs have a resonance that produces a ringing sound and repeatable tone. Besides if all you needed was numbers there would be no need for audio. I don't tweet.

 

[Coyote65]

I made the switch from an E-Trac to the Safari and love the simpler lighter Safari. With the E-Trac which I did love I found I babied it due to the cost and also found it to be a bit heavy to swing especially after a few days of hunting. I also feel I didn't fully take advantage of the extra settings and features of the E-Trac as I like to turn on my detector and go and enjoy only doing minimal adjustments while detecting. I also find I hunt more by ear than visually so the Safari fits my particular hunting style and I love the tones of both the Safari and E-Trac. The E-Trac is a great detector and I have many friends who use it and would use nothing else and they swayed me into my E-Trac purchase but for me and my hunting style the Safari is the detector for me and the E-Trac is great for those that use them and fits their hunting styles.

 

[Bryannagirl]

Like I said it is hard to tell what you gain by going to the Etrac. FBS is FBS when it comes to depth but the Etrac should give you more information about if it is good or bad but not sure how much so. My Safari is deep and I am starting to go 100% tone. Still an thinking about upgrading though.

Bryanna

I made the switch from an E-Trac to the Safari and love the simpler lighter Safari. With the E-Trac which I did love I found I babied it due to the cost and also found it to be a bit heavy to swing especially after a few days of hunting. I also feel I didn't fully take advantage of the extra settings and features of the E-Trac as I like to turn on my detector and go and enjoy only doing minimal adjustments while detecting. I also find I hunt more by ear than visually so the Safari fits my particular hunting style and I love the tones of both the Safari and E-Trac. The E-Trac is a great detector and I have many friends who use it and would use nothing else and they swayed me into my E-Trac purchase but for me and my hunting style the Safari is the detector for me and the E-Trac is great for those that use them and fits their hunting styles.

 

[Coyote65]

Like I said it is hard to tell what you gain by going to the Etrac. FBS is FBS when it comes to depth but the Etrac should give you more information about if it is good or bad but not sure how much so. My Safari is deep and I am starting to go 100% tone. Still an thinking about upgrading though.

Bryanna

They both are deep and pretty equal depth wise IMO the E-trac does have the better/finer discrimination, the E-Trac may identify a tad better but for me as I mentioned I hunt mainly by ear rather than visual ID. I listen for the subtle tone changes and only use the target ID to verify what I'm hearing but usually dig regardless of the ID if the tones sound right to me. I more than likely do dig a little more trash than others do but have found several surprises especially on the iffy ID's that sound good. I'm sure you will be happy if you upgrade as the E-trac is an awesome detector and as I mentioned I really liked it but just felt I didn't use it to it's fullest extent due to my hunting style and found the simpler lighter Safari suit myself and hunting style better.

 

[john4840]

Like I said it is hard to tell what you gain by going to the Etrac. FBS is FBS when it comes to depth but the Etrac should give you more information about if it is good or bad but not sure how much so. My Safari is deep and I am starting to go 100% tone. Still an thinking about upgrading though.

Bryanna

I made the switch from an E-Trac to the Safari and love the simpler lighter Safari. With the E-Trac which I did love I found I babied it due to the cost and also found it to be a bit heavy to swing especially after a few days of hunting. I also feel I didn't fully take advantage of the extra settings and features of the E-Trac as I like to turn on my detector and go and enjoy only doing minimal adjustments while detecting. I also find I hunt more by ear than visually so the Safari fits my particular hunting style and I love the tones of both the Safari and E-Trac. The E-Trac is a great detector and I have many friends who use it and would use nothing else and they swayed me into my E-Trac purchase but for me and my hunting style the Safari is the detector for me and the E-Trac is great for those that use them and fits their hunting styles.

Well Byannagirl I guess the only way you will find out is if you try one and compare the rwo detectors. If I had the money I would definitly upgrade to an CTX 3030 because that is an awesome machine. Since I don'r have the money I am going to try to find nice use Explorer or Etrac and take advantage of the CTX hype. Maybe in couple of years I will be able to get an used CTX or maybe Minelab will come out with an CTX without all the bells whistles of the 3030.

HH

John

 

[Prep1957]

If you can find a nice used Etrac for around $800 dollars go for it, there are some nice useful features.but I will tell you now it will not find any more than the Safari can and that includes 2 tone ferrous.When you get your Etrac like I did and get to understand it you will really get to know what a great detector the Safari is.One really great thing that I can say for the Etrac if coin hunting is your main hobby it will give you many hours of enjoyment just setting up new combinations to run it without ever going hunting.

 

[croakersmoker78]

Safari is awsome I think the e trac would be to much for me I like the safari it is simple.I find the same as my buddys at the same depth.