DollarDigger
Greenie
Hi All..... I'm one of those that always reads and never replies to threads but this time I feel obligated to throw in my two cents. Like a lot of people, I started with a cheap low-end Bounty Hunter...but later I bought a Cibola......then a T2 Se...then an E-Trac and now a AT Pro. Heres the skinny on the AT Pro the way I see it and the differences in ATP and the higher expense machines.
I was not a T2 man, couldnt get it to suit me in regard to EMI and never felt confident in my set-up for every situation.....too much noise for me. The Bounty Hunter I had was just low quality. The Tesoro was good but I thought I really needed an ID. The E-Trac was a dream to run.....SMOOTH & ACCURATE ID.
The AT Pro is horrible out of the box...bad balance and way short on the arm rest. The headphones really sucked bad!! However, I mounted it on the Bounty Hunter chassis, this required drilling one additional hole and it mounted up as if it was made for it. This much improved the comfort problem. Next, I went to radio shack and bought a 1/4" jack adapter, cut off the ATP jack and run the cord inside the pole and fixed the jack in the back of the unit to use any headphones i wanted. This was easy, big improvement and just a little trouble.
Now to the meat.... The AT Pro will hold its own with the E-Trac when ATP is set to Pro Mode and Zero.... The AT Pro runs much smoother without disc dialed in and the iron tones are much better tolerated to listen to compared to iron tones of the other machines. Its super fast in this setting as well. I have not had any real issues with EMI on the AT Pro... Its not a solid lock on ID like the E-Trac but thats maybe a good thing. The E-Trac has to be cut back in EMI situations just like every other machine on the market.
So for MY money....For MY hobby enjoyment, this is the decision I made and why..... E-Trac is just a little slower.....E-Trac was not as good on gold....With similar coils the E-Trac is deeper on silver coins, however, the very oldest coins in my area seem to be not very deep. I have not found super deep, deep, deep coins with the E-Trac unless it was in my coin garden....my soil seems to not swallow them up like other areas. So the ET is deeper but seems to be a waste of technology for my area. I have NEVER dug a target that the AT Pro would not have hit. But the biggest thing with me was I had become so dependent on the accurate numbers, I stopped digging the close or iffy signals. Also, I lost the thrill of guessing what it was gonna be when I uncovered the target. E-Trac target ID is so accurate, you pretty much know when its a coin and what type and if the numbers don't comply you start passing them up and you guessed it....sometimes you needed to dig!! I mean everybody usually digs high-tones with any machine, so why care if you can tell the difference from a copper penny or a silver dime or a clad quarter.....You're gonna dig them all anyway!!! And you can't get gold if you don't dig a bunch of low tones and they come in all over the board. Even silver coins go down in value when a nail is laid up with 'em.... You're gonna miss a lot of good stuff if you lock on to numbers and only dig what has perfect numbers.
I have now sold the E-Trac without regret... I will say that with practice the AT Pro is a very good unit if you improve it a bit....more bang for the buck. Also, I really believe that in different situations and targets, one machine will out-perform the other but at the end of the day you're probably gonna find a few more coins with the E-Trac but a little more gold with the AT Pro, if you will dig low signals.
If I had my druthers....Garrett would build an AT Pro Deluxe with a light, comfortable chassis, better balance by having the lower shaft attached more to the center of the coil, universal headphone jack in the rear of the machine, larger numbers on the ID and a little more modulation on the weaker signals in Pro mode. But the engine they have provided better suits my hunting style, than any other machine I have picked up. All this is said with the idea the AT Pro is in Pro Mode Zero.... The other settings just don't stack up with high-end machines, nor were they meant to...hence the PRO mode.
AT Pro is a great machine and detects metal as deep as it gets in my region. Hits harder on gold than most others, great on fresh water beach and is lighter, faster and close enough on ID numbers to tell me when I need to dig or when to walk away and make better use of my time. For the money.....E-Trac isn't the best purchase! I'm okay with getting 99% and a guy behind me with an E-Trac saying "It only cost me $1,000 more to find this quarter your machine missed!" Because when I am behind him I get to say, "Your E-Trac missed this $1,000 gold and diamond ring!" LMAO
I was not a T2 man, couldnt get it to suit me in regard to EMI and never felt confident in my set-up for every situation.....too much noise for me. The Bounty Hunter I had was just low quality. The Tesoro was good but I thought I really needed an ID. The E-Trac was a dream to run.....SMOOTH & ACCURATE ID.
The AT Pro is horrible out of the box...bad balance and way short on the arm rest. The headphones really sucked bad!! However, I mounted it on the Bounty Hunter chassis, this required drilling one additional hole and it mounted up as if it was made for it. This much improved the comfort problem. Next, I went to radio shack and bought a 1/4" jack adapter, cut off the ATP jack and run the cord inside the pole and fixed the jack in the back of the unit to use any headphones i wanted. This was easy, big improvement and just a little trouble.
Now to the meat.... The AT Pro will hold its own with the E-Trac when ATP is set to Pro Mode and Zero.... The AT Pro runs much smoother without disc dialed in and the iron tones are much better tolerated to listen to compared to iron tones of the other machines. Its super fast in this setting as well. I have not had any real issues with EMI on the AT Pro... Its not a solid lock on ID like the E-Trac but thats maybe a good thing. The E-Trac has to be cut back in EMI situations just like every other machine on the market.
So for MY money....For MY hobby enjoyment, this is the decision I made and why..... E-Trac is just a little slower.....E-Trac was not as good on gold....With similar coils the E-Trac is deeper on silver coins, however, the very oldest coins in my area seem to be not very deep. I have not found super deep, deep, deep coins with the E-Trac unless it was in my coin garden....my soil seems to not swallow them up like other areas. So the ET is deeper but seems to be a waste of technology for my area. I have NEVER dug a target that the AT Pro would not have hit. But the biggest thing with me was I had become so dependent on the accurate numbers, I stopped digging the close or iffy signals. Also, I lost the thrill of guessing what it was gonna be when I uncovered the target. E-Trac target ID is so accurate, you pretty much know when its a coin and what type and if the numbers don't comply you start passing them up and you guessed it....sometimes you needed to dig!! I mean everybody usually digs high-tones with any machine, so why care if you can tell the difference from a copper penny or a silver dime or a clad quarter.....You're gonna dig them all anyway!!! And you can't get gold if you don't dig a bunch of low tones and they come in all over the board. Even silver coins go down in value when a nail is laid up with 'em.... You're gonna miss a lot of good stuff if you lock on to numbers and only dig what has perfect numbers.
I have now sold the E-Trac without regret... I will say that with practice the AT Pro is a very good unit if you improve it a bit....more bang for the buck. Also, I really believe that in different situations and targets, one machine will out-perform the other but at the end of the day you're probably gonna find a few more coins with the E-Trac but a little more gold with the AT Pro, if you will dig low signals.
If I had my druthers....Garrett would build an AT Pro Deluxe with a light, comfortable chassis, better balance by having the lower shaft attached more to the center of the coil, universal headphone jack in the rear of the machine, larger numbers on the ID and a little more modulation on the weaker signals in Pro mode. But the engine they have provided better suits my hunting style, than any other machine I have picked up. All this is said with the idea the AT Pro is in Pro Mode Zero.... The other settings just don't stack up with high-end machines, nor were they meant to...hence the PRO mode.
AT Pro is a great machine and detects metal as deep as it gets in my region. Hits harder on gold than most others, great on fresh water beach and is lighter, faster and close enough on ID numbers to tell me when I need to dig or when to walk away and make better use of my time. For the money.....E-Trac isn't the best purchase! I'm okay with getting 99% and a guy behind me with an E-Trac saying "It only cost me $1,000 more to find this quarter your machine missed!" Because when I am behind him I get to say, "Your E-Trac missed this $1,000 gold and diamond ring!" LMAO
