Compare The Competition To Your Sovereign Or Excal

[synthnut]

Since there is no software to help here, I would ask you to argue with the gentleman who wrote the Minelab E Trac manual ......AGAIN , the scale on the E Trac will blow away the Sovereigns scale , and the discrimination is another milestone that also works in the E Tracs favor not to mention you should read the E Trac manual pages 70, 71,72, and 73 .....I mention these pages because they are all close together for a quick read .....There's plenty more information if you care to argue more with the gentleman who wrote the manual ..... When something is proven to you , you continue to go on and on and do not even consider that someone else may know more about certain criteria than you do ..... I didn't write this manual , so I will not argue the point with you , becuase i know it's senseless ..... Argue with the guy who wrote it ..... Tell him that he's wrong ......Here's the link to the manual ....Jim

http://www.minelab.com/__files/f/4065/4901-0065-1.3%20Instruction%20Manual%20E-Trac_Screen.pdf

 

[Tony in FL]

Hit this same link and try this with your Soveriegn !!..........Jim
http://www.mlotv.com/view/394/circle-of-trash/

BTW ...This is not MY experiment , this takes MY experiment a step further ....... You don't have to believe ME .....Will you believe Minelab TV ? .......Jim

Impressive video Jim. That got me poking around looking at other E-Trac videos. On this one check out the dime wedged between 4 pieces of iron and the super fast sweep speed (at about 2 minutes into the video). It is amazing how it still manages to give off a tone rather than nulling out:

http://www.mlotv.com/view/378/e-trac-timings-minelab-modes-pinpoint-modes-and-screens/

The guy in the video suggests that this is the detector's faster timings make it really good at dealing with iron.

 

[kered]

All a coil is is an antenna, nothing more, it transmits and receives, what is received is then translated by the software/electronics to something we can hear. the better the antenna the more signal may be received but you have to direct it in the right direction. If the electronics can't decipher the signal received you hear squat all.
Put the best antenna on a poor radio and you hardly hear a thing probably more static, put a poor antenna on a good radio and it will still pick out stations from the static the poor radio didn't know was there however good the antenna is. Think about it

Almost any coil will separate two targets close together if you go slow enough and attack from the right direction(put it in all metal and see) what makes the difference is the capability of the electronics to process the first and get it out of the way ready to process the second.

Critter
Quote "So long as you swing the coil at the proper speed and investigate targets with the coil properly then recovery speed has no factor in the results."
I Disagree completely
What is the proper speed???????
Speed is governed by the electronics capability to decipher one signal before the next one comes in, all machines are different therefore you have to adjust your swing speed accordingly on each machine, even between coils or different settings on the same machine( for example in heavy iron cutting down the sens will help shorten the null) therefore a faster machine will cut down recovery speed. If a machine just plain and simply ignores a discriminated target there is nothing to recover from(like a F75). Minelabs let you know you passed a discriminated target by giving a null, the length of the null depends(among other factors)on its speed/ability to detect the target, decide what it is, pass on the info for sound processing and then open the receive channel for the next one, if a machine can do this in half the time the recovery will be twice as fast, if a target is passed over before the receive channel is open or while still processing the previous one the you miss it, therefore faster recovery leads to better unmasking to some extent especially on two targets close together or touching as the first is dealt with faster and so is ready for the second.

You with your GT may get the same end result as me with my Etrac(although i doubt it) but it will take you longer because my machine will decipher and process the info much faster than yours can. (One of the reasons the F75 is used and wins most competition hunts)
Also What you need to take into consideration is that some of us CAN comment on first hand info as we have BOTH machines and can compare results for ourselves and not rely on hearsay and comments from third parties.
Do you really think i would choose the Etrac over the GT just to show i have an Etrac if i could get better results with the GT, times move on even if there is a small place for nostalgia. If you had one or used a one for any length of time(not just one hunt or an hour or two) you would know what me and jim are on about.

Nothing personal but i think your in the same place i was some 3-4 years ago when i first got the Sov Elite, i thought it was the muts nuts compared to anything i had used before, my finds increased and better quality too, i moved on to the Explorer then an Etrac, but i still have 2 Sovereigns that i like to use now and again(for old times sake more than anything)as it opened my eyes as to what a minelab can do in the right hands.

And just for the record, i sold my 12x10 and kept the 11" pro coil for the etrac, depth about the same but the 11" is more sensitive(too sensitive at times to tell the truth ) lighter, and has sharper detecting line for better unmasking also less bleed out outside the coils radius which helps too at times, on the whole much more precise.

 

[kered]

Watch the full video
http://www.mlotv.com/view/387/e-trac-iron-test/
then try it on you sovereign. On a full null i always change direction just in case(which in efect is like changing the nail orientation) also quick mask a couple of passes.
Also note the speed of the various passes

 

[EZrider]

Kered, the problem is that he thinks the ETrac and the Explorer are the same machine. He puts them in the same class. When Critter talks about Explorer he has had. They were the older ones. Not the SE or Pro.

The Sov is a nice smooth old Cadillac of a detector. They are alot of fun to use. But they are far from the 2010 Mercedes we have today.

 

[kered]

Another advantage of the modernised tech on the Etrac is you can run in all metal, ok so can the GT, the main advantage on the Etrac in all metal is you have the same tone id(be it ferrous or conduct whichever you have selected) as in disc mode, this allows you to pass over an iron target, hear it, then immediately hear anything that's alongside with a different tone, sometimes they are so close or one on top of the other that the tone is mixed in one but its higher than an iron grunt(if in ferrous tones) or lower than the iron shrill in conduct, whichever way you know something other than iron is present and depending on the numbers a probability of what it may be if you know them, either way there is something there to dig.

 

[Critterhunter]

Hey Synthnut, thought you'd be interested to know that I have two friends that should be buying an Etrac within the next few days. One guy is upgrading from a 6000 Pro XL and the other from an Explorer. Another friend had an Etrac for a short while but sold it, and I didn't have a GT at the time to compare targets on, so I'm anxious to do some depth and separation in field tests of the two Etracs they'll be getting to my GT using the 12x10 SEF coil. They'll be using the stock Pro Coil. I'll be checking what they suspect to be deep coins or ones mixed in heavy trash with my GT to see if I'm able to see those targets fine as well using my 12x10. If I find that they are able to see some old coins that are either real deep or mixed in heavy trash that I can't, and they are also able to see the deep coins I find or in trash before those are dug too, then I'll consider buying an Etrac down the road here.

I've talked to people and also read threads where they own a GT and either an SE or an Etrac and felt the GT was as deep or even a bit deeper (able to ID deep coins better than the FBS machines), but as always that largely can depend on soil in your area. I know my Explorers did not get the depth of my GT in my medium to high mineral soil. I attribute that to the higher and more frequencies on the FBS machines bouncing or reflecting off the ground minerals in my area. That's why I prefer actual in field comparisons on undug targets that I can witness and participate in first hand. I plan to post my findings as time goes on in the comparisons of these two machines. If I find *in my soil* that even with the 12x10 I'm not able to see coins as deep, or that I can't pick ones out of trash as well, then I may consider an Etrac. The way I feel about it the results could go either way. If the Etrac, being an FBS machine, follows suit with my prior Explorers then I'd expect my GT to get deeper, and with the tight detection field of the 12x10 I'm also real curious to see if the GT can sniff out close targets as well too. Should be real interesting field tests ahead. I love this sort of stuff.

On the other hand, even if I find the Etrac is a tad deeper or a tad bit better at finding coins in junk the advantage will have to be a large one. I don't know that I'd spend $1400 on a machine that can only say manage a quarter inch more depth, or is just slightly better at revealing a coin with trash laying in with it.

 

[synthnut]

Critter,
The reason I sold my Sovereign had NOTHING to do with depth ....If you can hear the target , I would venture to say that the Sovereign is every bit as deep as an E Trac ..... The issue I have is the Masking issue alone .....The Sovereign does not handle iron masking with Iron Mask ON , or Iron Mask OFF nearly as good as you think it does .... Not every situation calls for the expertise of the E Trac .....But when there is a target like the Barber dime that I experienced , it's something you will NEVER forget .....If you remember that thread , I found a barber dime not 100 ft from the area where the masking issue took place ....The Barber dime that I found was at least 1 - 2 inches deeper than the one that I tried to get a reading on earlier and couldn't ...... As I said earlier, it's not a depth issue at all, but very much a masking issue that does not come up all the time , but when it does , it can mean a Barber dime in my case .. .....If I stayed with the Soveriegn , I would be wondering how many other targets did I miss from a masking issue ......Jim

 

[dbsmokey]

I would also add that an Etrac handles EMI much better than a Sovereign. Also, I have found it nearly impossible to hunt with my friend who has an Etrac. I can't cancel out interference from his Etrac. He hunts away after noise canceling, and I have to stay 150+ feet away from him. I like the Sovereign, but the Etrac definitely is a powerhouse as well and I plan to get one as soon as I can save up the $1400+.

 

[Critterhunter]

Synthnut, just remember that you weren't using a 12x10 on the Sovereign which I think would even out any advantage the Pro-Coil has in unmasking. It comes down to coils to me. If the coil can't see the targets or separate them there is nothing the machine can do that will change that.

 

[synthnut]

I never kept my 12 x 10 long enough, nor my Sovereign , to know whether it was the coil or what as far as the masking issue is concerned .....It was however a 10" Tornado coil that some would say would do better in a trashy park which I was in ..... I would guess that even if the 12 x 10 did better at EVERYTHING over the Tornado, that the Tornado should have at least hinted that something was there .....The dime in question was not that deep ...If it was 6 inches it was a lot ..... The very same coil hit a Barber dime not 100 ft away and that one was an inch or two deeper !!.... It was not a mineralization issue , and it was not a depth issue ..... Call it what you like , but I am convinced that the E Trac does in fact have a MUCH better iron discrimination and the added features on the machine will handle iron much better than the Sovereign .... I felt strongly enough about it that I sold my Sovereign that up until that point I thought was gonna spank that E Trac ..... The Soveregn does a good job on the beach as does the Excal .....Again, if I am hunting dry sand and just a dip in the water , my E Trac again is my go to machine .... It does better there too .... This is not to say that the Soveriegn is bad, it's just that I like the E Trac better and have found more targets hunting with it than the Soveriegn on the same beach .... I have had a Sovereign running on the beach with a 12 x 10 SEF ....It was better than the Tornado , but was still not as good as the Pro Coil on the E Trac .... The Pro Coil on the E Trac can hit small gold pretty well .... The SE that I am building will be set up to do double duty ...It will hunt the water and the dry ...... The jury is out on this one ..... I'm having to deal now with ANOTHER VID system !!.... If it comes anywhere near the E Trac as far as masking issues go , I will be a happy camper .....I'm not concerned about the performance in the saltwater because most iron has rusted away .... I'll keep you posted ....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

After playing with the Etrac I'd have to wonder if the SE would be a better option for me to consider now. I'm not a fan of the way everything gets compressed into the 12th line on the Etrac. Makes no sense to me why they would do that. The discrimination pattern the Explorer uses seems to make much more sense. I hear the Etrac is a bit better in trash than the SE (if using the same size coil) but that depth is on par with each other for the most part. Then again, I liked the weight of the Etrac. The SE I would expect to be heavier and of course to have the less comfortable angle of the hand grip like the older Explorers. I guess though it'd be lighter than my previous Explorers were thanks to the Pro Coil on the SE, and I could probably fit a lipo in the battery holder to drop some more weight. May have to consider an SE unless somebody can argue why the Etrac is the better machine to them. In particular I'd like to hear why you think the discrimination pattern the Etrac uses has any advantages over the Explorer style.

 

[dbsmokey]

Synthnut,

I am headed in the same direction you went. I am going to sell my sovereign, use my beloved excal, and save for an etrac. It will take me months to save enough for it but I think it will be well worth it. I can cover beach hunting with the excal and land hunting (without EMI woes) with the etrac.

 

[Tony in FL]

I just started learning the E-trac and am amazed by the available options. My prior experience was with an Excalibur, which I still plan to use. There are a number of advantages of the E-trac over the Explorer reviewed in Andy Sabisch's book. I would start there. It also explains the logic of why the Minelab engineers overhauled the Smartfind X and Y axis and the associated advantage with doing so.

 

[Critterhunter]

Got another one of those PM's I've always talked about. This message has been modded a bit to hide the identity of the writer in order to insure his privacy. I left out a few key details that might otherwise tell people who it was...

"My buddy has an old sovereign and the thing looks like it has been through a war zone. He wanted to upgrade to an explorer and then to the etrac, but the dealer told him that the upgrade would be like he went from a cadillac to a cadillac with a few more options. Obviously I use the etrac, and I will be the first one to say that he finds just as much if not more than I do."

That has to warm your heart. Still, I feel myself getting that old itch again to "sample" the wine and try a few of the machines out there I have yet to try. My eye has been wandering towards the SE and Etrac lately. Just have to compare things for myself. Not sure if the SE is even worth trying considering the lack luster results *in my soil* that I got from my three prior Explorers. Then again, those machines were using various renditions of the lousy 10" coil they had made for them. I feel the 10" Tornado on the GT is MUCH better in pinpointing, depth, separation, and stability. I'm curious if the Pro Coil would greatly improve things on the Explorer along with whatever minor improvements the SE has anyway over the II. On the other hand, then there's the Etrac. But man why did they cram everything into the 12 line on the VDI? If it wasn't for that there would be no doubt which of the two I'd be giving a try out. Maybe I should wait and do the head to head stuff with my GT against my friend's Etracs and see where that goes. I'd hate to buy the thing and find out it's not finding any coins the GT couldn't.

 

[jbow]

They crammed everything good onto the 12 FE line and that really is an improvement once you understand that the numbers are arbitrary anyway. The BEST thing they did on the ET is that they straightened the curve on the CO line so that while the cursor still bounces on the CO... it does not bounce upper left to lower right... it bounces in a straight line so the CO number does not change, shallow or deep the CO number is reliable... it also really ignores whatever is discriminated out and if there are two targets like brass and iron together.... if you have iron discriminated out, even though the iron may be bigger it is programmed to ignore what is disced and signal on the accepted metal.

No disc does not bring out the best of the ET... it is not an Explorer.

It is much better, in my ground.

J

 

[synthnut]

Critter,
Do not pass go, and do not collect $200 ......Advance token to E Trac !!..... As Julien said , once you wrap your head around the 12 line on the E Trac , you will like it ..... Your conductive numbers on good targets will stay pretty darn solid , but the Ferrous numbers will change at extreme depth ....Tone is king , and it will always ring true .... faint , on very deep targets , but true , and even that can be brought up louder by raising the "Gain" ..... The matrix is also more variable on the E Trac .... The SE has a Ferrous of 1-30, and a 1-30 Conductive matrix, and the ETrac has 1-35 Ferrous and a 1-50 Conductive matrix .... A Pro Coil on the SE basically ( to me anyway ) takes your old Explorer , and makes it better by virtue of a new Pro Coil, and you also get both Ferrous and Conductive numbers at the same time unlike the older Explorers .... If that along with the Explorer VID line sounds good to you , than maybe the SE is for you ....Both the E Trac and the SE have tone shaping functions so you can make the tone "Long" to simulate the Soveriegn so you don't feel like you didn't make a HUGE leap in the tone dept .... There are more additional features on the E Trac that you can see by looking at both manuals, and I would venture to say that you would like the 12 line once you got use to it ..... A lot of folks who went from an Explorer to an E Trac could not get use to the 12 line simply because they hunted and updated Explorers for years and got use to the VID line ....Like anything else , once you work with it for a while, it will come to you, and the numbers will fit into place for you ..... To me , for the features offered over the older Explorers, and a Pro Coil , the SE is not enough to make me want to buy one as a main machine .....Yes , I still have my SE that I am waterproofing , but ONLY because I could not find an E Trac for the price I got my SE for or and ETrac would be the machine I would be waterproofing !!.... The choice is yours .....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

I've read over the manual and andy's etrac book and am leaning away from it now. Too many controls for things like high and low trash, audio, etc. I am not oppsed to computer controls but i have seen no direct info/opinions on how exactly everything should be set for deepest of coins in low trash, or when hunting high trash, best audio setup for hearing those two situations, etc. Would drive me crazy always wondering if something should be chaged, distracting me while hunting in back of my mind. I am now leaning toward T2 Special Edition. less functions to mess up and have heard as deeper or deeper than etrac, explorer, GT. Any opinions on this.

 

[synthnut]

A lot of the settings are common sense ....Then again , you can change them up if you like .....Some like the settings one way, and some like it another .......For example ....When I'm on the beach , I run a certain program that is pretty wide open as there are so many different targets that one might find on the beach ....I would not set it for high trash as there is not a lot of trash like parks would have ..... I would not have the recovery fast ON .....I don't need it to recover fast as there are not a bunch of targets .....I would have deep ON because there is a good chance that I am running a higher sensitivity in the sand on my beach because I can , and could also use the deep on as well as raiising the gain , so that the deeper targets will sound better .... .......On the flip side of the beach , we go to the park ....There is plenty of targets all over the place and the ground is full of trash .....I would NOT have deep ON because I'm trying to find good targets in the trash ....I have to get past the trash before I can go deep .....Recovery from one target to the next would be of importance to me because there are so many targets , so I would have Recovery fast ON ..... Trash Density would be HIGH ...... It looks overwhelming when you are starting off with the ETrac , but basically , once you know where you are going to hunt , you will already have a preset ready to go that has all these features already in it , and you will scroll to that preset , and hit the button, do a noise cancel and you're off to the races !!..... All the work is done , and presets are made BEFORE you start hunting ..... You will make programs/presets for various types of hunting that you do ...... A lot of the stuff is going to remain the same anyway .... You will try a lot of things in the beginning of owning the machine , but once you get thru the early stages , you will know how you want your machine set up for certain applications , and 90% of the time , you already have a preset all set up for that particular hunt !!..... It's like the radio in your car ....There are 50 different stations to listen to, but you already know the stations that you want to hear , and you hit the preset buttons depending on what station you want to hear ...If you want to hear country music , you hit the first button ....Easy listenning , you hit the 2nd button ........Same thing on the E Trac ....You have your programs already made up, and all you have to do is select them .......I fully understand that the entire menu looks overwhelming , but once you set the machine up , you actuallly hit less buttons and turn less knobs than you would on the Sovereign ....I'm serious !!..... Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

i can see that. i just don't like too many variables in order to get a machine to run all out. That's why i hate the current high end Whites. i understand the high/low trash functions and deep/fast, but i'd like to hear info on things like audio. how high of variability, gain, smooth or what, etc. and how those change for deep coins/trash etc. what i'm looking for is somebody to run down all his settings for trash, then all for deep coins, and explain why. that would be a good starting point to venture out from. not able to find that kind of info yet. Also, what disc pattern do most feel is best for every US coin including gold coins? Does one even exist for download? is andy's program best found in etrac forum?