Critterhunter
New member
This is always an interesting topic so long as it's kept civil. Remember that outcomes are often based on your soil in you area, how good you are at setting a specific machine up, and how you like a machine to respond for you. Those factors mean nobody is wrong or right here so don't make it personal.
I'd like to hear which machines (land or water units) you have used that you feel come close to or match a Sovereign or Excal in depth and performance. Pretty much there is nothing out there that will match the Excal or Sovereign in depth under all ground conditions and mineral content. Even some FBS (Etrac, Explorer) users say they don't perform on certain beaches or land sites as well for whatever reason compared to their Sovereigns/Excals. Some PI units will go deeper but of course at the cost of having almost no ability to discriminate out targets like rusty iron. There are a few land units that can probably just about match an Excal/Sovereign using the same size coil but they are more dependent on the sand or soil, losing depth in places where Minelab BBS technology has no problem at still providing top performance.
I've said this before but it's worth stating again- These Minelabs are far ahead of the competition in technology. While I've never used one I have read a few people say that the T2LTD or F75LTD are about the closest in depth the competition gets, holding their own at some sites, but again that depends on how bad the minerals are for them to handle. I'd really like to get some field use on one of these down the road for comparisons. I'll add either one of these or an ETRAC to my lineup down the road. The DFX and V3 most of the time won't even come close depending on conditions, and you usually have to jump through a bunch of steps to set them for a specific site before they can even start to come close.
I'd like to hear any differing opinions on this. Which land or water units these days does anybody feel can match a Minelab in depth, at least at certain sites. Comparisons opinions are always something I like to read. From what most say the Tesoros and the DFX/V3 have better small gold sensitivity to things like thin chains. On the other hand, most of the time they won't get as deep or hit as hard on a gold ring or coin compared to a Minelab.
So which machines do you feel can at least match or come very close to a Minelab at least at some sites. I've owned a lot of machines over the years but there are a few such as the LTD series that I haven't owned or used in the field. I'm interested in seeing people's top five machines in depth and performance. For me that would be...
Sovereign GT. No other machine has got me coins as deep. My prior Explorers have not even come close in terms of depth on coins, but that again could be due to site specific conditions (my soil) or the less stable Explorer ID causing me to pass over coins that didn't lock on well.
QXT Pro Or Explorer. In *my soil* I've never dug any silver or copper coins deeper on my Explorers using the stock coil than I have with the QXT Pro. They were fairly matched in that respect but with the QXT providing much more solid COIN IDs. However, the Explorer was more sensitive at depth to other metals such as nickle and could handle high mineral sites better and that's where the performance difference would really show. There are no after market coils bigger than 9.5" that will work on a QXT, so the Explorer at least has larger coil options to beat it on coins with.
6000 Pro XL Or Tesoro Tiger Shark (or whatever the VLF version of this machine is called. The 6000 was so close in depth to my QXT Pro provided you set it up right that it's a close call. The ground tracking on the Pro XL is about the best on the market and so I think when I used that feature it would find me coins that the QXT missed. However, using a static ground setting on the QXT I always felt I got about a half inch deeper regardless of how I set the 6000 Pro XL up. The lack of high tones on the 6000 made it suffer much more in high trash, where as I could hear the high tone of coins amongst the lows with the QXT easily. That machine really got me a lot of coins in trash with it's high tones and fast recovery speed. The Tiger Shark seemed a bit deeper than the above 6000 maybe, but again suffered from the same flaws (listed below) the Bandino had that would cost it depth. One big plus was it was light enough to also use on land comfortably and had the best waterproof control box I've ever seen on a detector IMHO.
Bandido II Umax. That machine would really get some pretty outstanding depth if the conditions were right. Meaning low minerals and keeping the discrimination very low. With higher minerals or higher discrimination settings depth would suffer greatly. Do to the lack of tone alerts or ID it required me to use discrimination more with it, where as I prefer to use no discrimination when coin hunting to achieve maximum depth and unmasking ability.
Those are my top five. I'd like to hear how you rate yours and why. I'd also put the Etrac right at the top along side the Sovereign based on the very short exposure I had to one in the field. I saw it hit hard on two separate silver dimes deeper than my Explorers did. Nothing the Sovereign probably wouldn't get but I didn't have a Sovereign at the time to sweep those signals with in comparison. The QXT Pro could just hardly ID one of those coins while I think the 6000 Pro XL couldn't hit either one of them. Then again, if the 6000 had hot rock reject on that could easily have cost it those targets.
I'd like to hear which machines (land or water units) you have used that you feel come close to or match a Sovereign or Excal in depth and performance. Pretty much there is nothing out there that will match the Excal or Sovereign in depth under all ground conditions and mineral content. Even some FBS (Etrac, Explorer) users say they don't perform on certain beaches or land sites as well for whatever reason compared to their Sovereigns/Excals. Some PI units will go deeper but of course at the cost of having almost no ability to discriminate out targets like rusty iron. There are a few land units that can probably just about match an Excal/Sovereign using the same size coil but they are more dependent on the sand or soil, losing depth in places where Minelab BBS technology has no problem at still providing top performance.
I've said this before but it's worth stating again- These Minelabs are far ahead of the competition in technology. While I've never used one I have read a few people say that the T2LTD or F75LTD are about the closest in depth the competition gets, holding their own at some sites, but again that depends on how bad the minerals are for them to handle. I'd really like to get some field use on one of these down the road for comparisons. I'll add either one of these or an ETRAC to my lineup down the road. The DFX and V3 most of the time won't even come close depending on conditions, and you usually have to jump through a bunch of steps to set them for a specific site before they can even start to come close.
I'd like to hear any differing opinions on this. Which land or water units these days does anybody feel can match a Minelab in depth, at least at certain sites. Comparisons opinions are always something I like to read. From what most say the Tesoros and the DFX/V3 have better small gold sensitivity to things like thin chains. On the other hand, most of the time they won't get as deep or hit as hard on a gold ring or coin compared to a Minelab.
So which machines do you feel can at least match or come very close to a Minelab at least at some sites. I've owned a lot of machines over the years but there are a few such as the LTD series that I haven't owned or used in the field. I'm interested in seeing people's top five machines in depth and performance. For me that would be...
Sovereign GT. No other machine has got me coins as deep. My prior Explorers have not even come close in terms of depth on coins, but that again could be due to site specific conditions (my soil) or the less stable Explorer ID causing me to pass over coins that didn't lock on well.
QXT Pro Or Explorer. In *my soil* I've never dug any silver or copper coins deeper on my Explorers using the stock coil than I have with the QXT Pro. They were fairly matched in that respect but with the QXT providing much more solid COIN IDs. However, the Explorer was more sensitive at depth to other metals such as nickle and could handle high mineral sites better and that's where the performance difference would really show. There are no after market coils bigger than 9.5" that will work on a QXT, so the Explorer at least has larger coil options to beat it on coins with.
6000 Pro XL Or Tesoro Tiger Shark (or whatever the VLF version of this machine is called. The 6000 was so close in depth to my QXT Pro provided you set it up right that it's a close call. The ground tracking on the Pro XL is about the best on the market and so I think when I used that feature it would find me coins that the QXT missed. However, using a static ground setting on the QXT I always felt I got about a half inch deeper regardless of how I set the 6000 Pro XL up. The lack of high tones on the 6000 made it suffer much more in high trash, where as I could hear the high tone of coins amongst the lows with the QXT easily. That machine really got me a lot of coins in trash with it's high tones and fast recovery speed. The Tiger Shark seemed a bit deeper than the above 6000 maybe, but again suffered from the same flaws (listed below) the Bandino had that would cost it depth. One big plus was it was light enough to also use on land comfortably and had the best waterproof control box I've ever seen on a detector IMHO.
Bandido II Umax. That machine would really get some pretty outstanding depth if the conditions were right. Meaning low minerals and keeping the discrimination very low. With higher minerals or higher discrimination settings depth would suffer greatly. Do to the lack of tone alerts or ID it required me to use discrimination more with it, where as I prefer to use no discrimination when coin hunting to achieve maximum depth and unmasking ability.
Those are my top five. I'd like to hear how you rate yours and why. I'd also put the Etrac right at the top along side the Sovereign based on the very short exposure I had to one in the field. I saw it hit hard on two separate silver dimes deeper than my Explorers did. Nothing the Sovereign probably wouldn't get but I didn't have a Sovereign at the time to sweep those signals with in comparison. The QXT Pro could just hardly ID one of those coins while I think the 6000 Pro XL couldn't hit either one of them. Then again, if the 6000 had hot rock reject on that could easily have cost it those targets.
I also hated the "Hey now it's saying copper penny....Wait...now it's saying silver dime.....Wait again, it's bouncing over to clad dime." That's a waste of "dig time" in falling into that trance, and something as simple as ground matrix or even moisture content can make one coin look like the other from my experience. Dug too many "copper pennies" or even "zincs" that turned out to be silver dimes with machines over the years to trust that kind of finer detail when it comes to coins. I mainly go by the depth. If it's past X inches deep at a particular site I don't care what kind of coin the machine fancys it to be, I'm digging it. With a bigger net you'll second guess yourself less, spend less time deciding, and more importantly it's EASIER for the machine to "lock on" and say "that's a coin, dig it!"