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705 vs. Vaquero

T

Tired Rooster

New member
I know this is an X-terra spot. BUT...I have been in the market for a new machine for a bit now. Considering a Minelab. I have never used any other machines but Tesoros. How does the X 705 compare with the Vaquero in your opinion. Who has used both.
 
The Vaquero is a beep and dig machine with a single tone and one coil frequency that IMHO is a decent machine for relic hunting. The Xterra is a great all around machine that has many great features including user settings for 1, 2, 4, or multi tones that can help identify targets and a TID to help identify targets - these two features can save a lot of trash digging. The Xterra is also more flexible than the Vaquero because it has modes for beach hunting and gold prospecting, along with coils you can get in various frequencies used for specific hunting needs. The Xterra pinpointing is also far superior to the Vaquero's. These are just a few things I can think of and i have owned both machines. There are folks on this board that know a lot more than I do when it comes to the Xterra, but this is my 2 cents.
 
You pretty well summed it up! But I would add one thing.......having owned a couple Vaqueros (high tone and standard tone) I will say that they do have great depth of detection. However, to achieve that extreme depth you must do what is referred to as "Super-Tune". This means you must raise the Sensitivity and turn the Threshold to the Max. This causes the Vaquero (and Cibola) to produce a lot of false signals when you bump the coil against things like clods of dirt, weeds or brush. And, if you forget to turn them down before you hit the PinPoint pad, you will feel like it has blown your ears out. JMHO HH Randy
 
Great posts by Digger and Jmotycka! Don't forget you can change the coil on the 705 and it changes frequency making it 2 machines in on virtually. No other machine does that. VERY cool feature!!

Holler if i can help with questions or for a great deal! Bart
 
My take is the Xterra 70/705 series detectors are an excellent choice for any hunting that you are going to do. I'm a relic hunter and have used the Vaquero. In our soil here in SWMO the Xterra 705 with it's ground tracking beats having to re-adjust the GB on the Vaquero when in the moderate mineralized ground. Team that up with having multi-freq coils, better DD coils including the new WOT 15" Coiltek coil and you have a killer relic machine!!!......MO
 
Results...... that is what it's all about. Thanks for sharing the pic MO. HH Randy
 
Super information fellas. Much appreciated! Another question for you current 705/previous Vaquero users. Coming from a Tesoro background (knobs and toggle switches with no TID) what is the learning curve like with the 705. Menus and programs are a little intimidating to me.:confused: Also does the 705 do well in mineralized or iron rich soil. And how about trashy areas? Sorry for all these questions, but you guys know this machine and (some of you) have used the V also. I'm really interested in the 705 but cautious. Money don't come easy!:lol:
 
The X-TERRA is a very flexible detector in that it will allow the user to determine how much "programming" you want to do. If you want to hunt in the factory presets, they'll work fine. After you "get the feel" for it, you can tweak your X-TERRA to make it as "refined" as you need, for any site you decide you want to detect. If your soil is iron rich, my suggestion would be to buy the Gold Pack instead of the standard 705 package. I believe they are the same price and I know they are the same detector. But the Gold Package includes a 6 X 10" Elliptical DD coil at 18.75 kHz as the stock coil. The stock coil in the "regular" package is the 9-inch concentric at 7.5 kHz. Although any of the DD coils are great at target separation, my preference for the real nasty areas is the 6-inch DD at 18.75 kHz. Currently there are 9 "authorized" coils available for the X-TERRA. 8 from Minelab and one from Coiltek.

I don't see learning the X-TERRA as being a curve. It is just a matter of understanding how a notch discrimination system works and setting up the detector for your site. With the 705, you simply turn it on and it can chose the best noise cancel channel and even set the ground balance automatically. Set up the Threshold for your hearing, the volume for how loud you want to signal to be, the Sensitivity as high as you need (without causing falsing), and you're ready to hunt. When you detect a target, the X-TERRA assigns a value to each target. That value is associated with one of the 28 notch segments. You determine beforehand which notch segments you want to accept (beep) and which notch segments you want to ignore (no beep). They don't have to be "in a row". The great thing about notch discrimination is that it allows the user to accept (for example) nickels, copper and silver, and reject pull tabs. On variable discrimination such as on the Vaquero, when you set the discrimination control, it rejects everything below that level. With notches, you can pick and chose which target values you want to hear.

If you take a look near the top of these posts, you'll see one that is FAQFAQ. It has posts that address many of the most frequently asked questions. Just above that, at the top of list of posts, you'll see one about my eBook, Understanding your X-TERRA. This book is available on Minelab's website, FREE of charge. All you have to do is log in download it. Take a look at it and see if it addresses some of the issues or questions you have about the X-TERRA. If it doesn't, make a post! There are a LOT of very knowledgeable X-TERRA users on this forum. HH Randy
 
There is nothing to be intimadated about with the X-terra machines. You already know what all of the settings do such as disc, sensitivity and ground balance. The only thing you will have to choose is the type of tone setting you want. And like all of the other detectors out there including Tesoros(which are a very good manufactorer of detectors by the way) just dig all good repeatable signals until you learn what the numbers represent. The difference you will have is the display which will lock on to a number, a depth readout and you just pin point like any other detector. You will not have any problem at all learning the x-terra. Tim
 
A little correction to some of the above information. The Minelab XT-705 Gold package comes standard with a 5x10" DD high freq. (HF) coil that operates at 18.75 KHz. Which in turn will hit a little better on gold than what a 7.5 KHz. DD coil would..
 
Digger said:
The X-TERRA is a very flexible detector in that it will allow the user to determine how much "programming" you want to do. If you want to hunt in the factory presets, they'll work fine. After you "get the feel" for it, you can tweak your X-TERRA to make it as "refined" as you need, for any site you decide you want to detect. If your soil is iron rich, my suggestion would be to buy the Gold Pack instead of the standard 705 package. I believe they are the same price and I know they are the same detector. But the Gold Package includes a 6 X 10" Elliptical DD coil at 7.5 kHz as the stock coil. The stock coil in the "regular" package is the 9-inch concentric at 7.5 kHz. Although any of the DD coils are great at target separation, my preference for the real nasty areas is the 6-inch DD at 18.75 kHz. Currently there are 9 "authorized" coils available for the X-TERRA. 8 from Minelab and one from Coiltek.

I don't see learning the X-TERRA as being a curve. It is just a matter of understanding how a notch discrimination system works and setting up the detector for your site. With the 705, you simply turn it on and it can chose the best noise cancel channel and even set the ground balance automatically. Set up the Threshold for your hearing, the volume for how loud you want to signal to be, the Sensitivity as high as you need (without causing falsing), and you're ready to hunt. When you detect a target, the X-TERRA assigns a value to each target. That value is associated with one of the 28 notch segments. You determine beforehand which notch segments you want to accept (beep) and which notch segments you want to ignore (no beep). They don't have to be "in a row". The great thing about notch discrimination is that it allows the user to accept (for example) nickels, copper and silver, and reject pull tabs. On variable discrimination such as on the Vaquero, when you set the discrimination control, it rejects everything below that level. With notches, you can pick and chose which target values you want to hear.

If you take a look near the top of these posts, you'll see one that is FAQFAQ. It has posts that address many of the most frequently asked questions. Just above that, at the top of list of posts, you'll see one about my eBook, Understanding your X-TERRA. This book is available on Minelab's website, FREE of charge. All you have to do is log in download it. Take a look at it and see if it addresses some of the issues or questions you have about the X-TERRA. If it doesn't, make a post! There are a LOT of very knowledgeable X-TERRA users on this forum. HH Randy
Click to expand...

Great post! I totally agree!
 
Thanks for finding that. I made the correction. HH Randy
 
Super! You guys have been great. Much appreciated and I will check out your eBook Digger. Got more reading to do:laugh: Talk to y'all later.
 
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