Fisher F75 LTD or Whites V3i - HELP me decide please...

[Nefarious]

Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

I'm ready to purchase my first "real" metal detector (the previous one that I had was just a toy - don't even ask).

Recently I have been drooling over either the new Fisher F75 Limited Edition or the new Whites V3i (but I'd also still consider others...).

My budget is up to $1500. I'm not really sure exactly what I will use it for (in the long term that is) as I have lots of different things that I'd like to try doing with it ranging from gold, beaches, jewelry, parks, meteorites.... you name it. (I live in California not far from gold country).

So really what I would like to buy is a very good general purpose metal detector that can do most things either well (or preferably very well). I'm hoping that I can find one detector that does nearly it all.

Your tips, hints and experience would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance,

Bob

 

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[slwilliamssr]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Well not that what I have to say will mean much because I'm so new to the hobby my self. But from all the research I have done both of those units are nice. But the one that seems to stand out to me is the MXT or MXT Pro. That unit seems to do it all from everything I have seen and heard.

Those that use it, love it. I'm using a GTI 1500 but will be looking to up grade next summer to the MXT or MXT Pro myself.

Look into it I think you will like what you see and may save your self some cash for other toys like a sunray pin pointer to go with it

 

[JOE(USA)]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Nefarious ,


Go here for info on the F75LTD: http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/list.php?2.
Info on the White's is MUCH harder to find. No one seems to be using it I just finished a lot of in-depth research on the very question you are asking. The F75LTD is the clear winner.

P.S. - NEVER, take advice from a particular detector user! They will ALWAYS tell you the one They use is the best.

 

[Lowbatts]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

I don't use any of the flagship models, but I'm curious as to why you are not considering the ETrac as well? If you're pricing that range, then it's gotta top the list. A couple of hunters I know use the V3, to great effect. A lot of hunters I know use the ETrac, to great effect also. The few fellas using the F75's were using early models and could not adjust to it's nuances, so they moved to ETarcs and have not looked back.

That said I was impressed by a new F75 user I encountered this summer at a park spot who absolutley killed the field with the rig against pretty much every other mid-to-high end machine on the market.

So, decide what your tolerances are, and don't overlook the MXT, the F70, the Omega 8000 and a few others that give awesome performance, when put to the test.

 

[Nefarious]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Thank you for the feedback. Tons of food for thought here...

JOE, I read that Dankowski article in your link - my god, it sounds almost impossible to do a meaningful comparison between detectors. He lists so many variables that can completely invalidate any results you get.

How does ANYONE decide with any level of confidence which is the right detector for them? It really now sounds like an almost impossible task.

I'm now more confused than ever and I had thought that I was fairly well informed with everything else that I had been reading.

 

[Nefarious]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Lowbatts - yes, I had also learned about the ETrac. It's also on my list...

But given all these variables I'm starting to wondering about the wisdom of "flagship" models in general - perhaps I should save a few dollars and just go for a good mid-range detector.

Bob

 

[Nefarious]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

I'm starting to think that this is much more like fishing!

It's not really about how good your rod and reel is but rather it is about where you go to use it (and also about how often you get out there).

Isn't this actually the truth?

Bob

 

[JOE(USA)]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Bob,

You got it! It's all about what the detector will do AND what the detectorist wants it to do. As for Dankowski,he is possibly the best in the business. He lays it all out, then you decide if that detector is for you. To buy a mid range detector is a little easier because there are less variables to consider,but the process is the same; detector / personal wants. By the way the Etrac has VERY slow response time and is heavy. I use one myself, but it certainly has it's downside.
The less experience you have detecting, the harder it is to decide. Pretty easy for me, but I have been detecting for 43 years. Joe

 

[bazinga]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

As the user of another machine, I would be more than happy if you picked either one of those. I've hunted side by side both of them in the past with experienced users of both. Neither impressed me. I probably found 5x as much good stuff as they did each and every hunt. I DID see a V3 pull out a silver roosevelt out of an unhunted house yard at 4", though. That was impressive. I hunted a V3 users own yard and within minutes had multiple silver at all less than 5" deep. And it wasn't a big yard, so it's not like it could have been walked over.

My buddy hunted a yard that had been hammered by a DFX and then a V3. He pulled out a barber half and an SLQ, none of which were very deep. The V3 user watched all of this and went and hunted the back yard out of disgust.

 

[Frankn]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

You don't know what you will use it for in the future, so be prepaired. Buy the top of the line and learn how to use it. The top of the line models won't go out of style. My XLT still works like new after 10 years of finding everything you can imagine. I like Whites detectors because they last. I have used Fisher detectors in the past. They are good units also. The new F75 special edition specs look great. The advantage of the Whites unit is that you have more controll of the computer settings. Both Whites & Fisher have been in the game a long time so you can't go wrong with either. Look at it as an investment in your future fun!
Buy the best you can afford, learn it and enjoy it.

​

 

[Bradley137]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

It's all in the user and the understanding of the machine, and of course, swinging the coil over it. Buy what you can afford and something you can learn. I've used all the "big daddys" from Minelabs, Fisher, Tesoro, Whites and Bounty Hunter. They all find treasure, and they all leave stuff behind. Confidence gos along way in the field so buy the one you really think is the best, and you'll stay longer and go more often which is really the key to treasure.

 

[2bits]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Nefarious,
What Bradley said! I have also used the top line units of the major brands, and as someone else mentioned Whites is rock solid. Given your location I think you would do well with the MXT Pro. Although I have not used one on the beaches I've heard it does Ok there. I do know that the MXT Pro is a great coin shooter, relic finder, and especially "gold prospecting" machine. That would leave you with enough money for extra coils, probes and what have you. And it's a simple machine to figure out, it's also technical enough to keep you occupied. I don't think you could go wrong.
Good luck in your quest!
Doc
PS I used to live in the CA Gold country, did a lot of sluicing, panning and dredging. Wish they made the MXT back in those days!

 

[benvareen]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

This is probably my first post on metal detector preferances so here it goes. I have also used most top of the line major brands (exept Minelab) and now use the f75 as my primary detector. The bad things I have noticed #1-As I have read several other times in other posts the f75 is not the strongest as far as build quality, I think the whites felt the most solid. Sometimes I'm nervous just swithcing coils as it feels like the control housing is going to be pulled off of the stem when plugging and unplugging although I have done it many times with no problems. #2- the chattiness of the machine is hard to get used to and hard to get rid of but!!!! Once you do get used to it, it is a great maching and has ways of seeing through trash that is better than anything else so far. It took me almost a year before I figured a few things out and got used to them but now I feel like I can read the ground with it, (but it is still noisier than my other machines most of the time) I just turn the volume down to the point that It does'nt bother me any more. I have consistently been pulling more coins out of the ground than 3 of my other experienced detecting partners since I have figured out and understood the machine. (they have garretts and whites) so I really do recomend the f75 over the other choices (espesially the new ones with boost and cache process) but cannot put down any of the other top of the line machines as I have used them and they are great also. My thoughts on Garrett are easiest to use and love their notch system. Whites were excellent build quality but a little to many controls that were not so easy to adjust without taking a course and not all needed in my opinion. Hope this helps and I did not offend anyone.

 

[Digger]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Bradley is dead on.

I've tried many detectors including the E-Trac, V3 and V3i, Omega 8000, DFX, MXT, X-Terra 70 just to name a few recent ones, and it all boils down to if the user connects or not with the detector. As a long time White's user I connected well with the V3's and found they do go just as deep as any of the others once you understand them. In fact I dare say the vast majority of the detectors I've used all could get pretty much the same depth under the right conditions. Conditions seemed to dictate how well any one detector performed than anything else.

A few did have some ability to increase a users success with less experience than others. The E-Trac, for example does very well at telling even the first time user when a deep coins is under the coil. The other detectors go just as deep, but took some knowledge of the detector before you recognized it.

Some detectors, due to having more adjust-ability, could be adjusted to perform better than others, but you had to understand the adjustments to benefit from them. Each detector had it's own little pros and cons, but in the end they each had pretty darn close to the same performance when used correctly.

 

[DBFISHER]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

Nefarious, I asked the same question when I was looking for a good metal detector. Got pretty much the same answers.The answers were pretty much everybodies preferences. My price range was lower than what you are looking for, so I settled with the Fisher F70 and I am very happy with it, it's everything i've herd about it and MORE! So i'm sure your decision will be a good one regardless which one you pick. HH

 

[supafly136]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

just got my new spectra v3 bout 2 weeks ago with the wireless headsets. only detector ive ever owned. used a cheapo rental model, totally generic and old. and used a tm-808 2box. i absolutely love this thing. finally have some time to go out for a while now. finding plenty of change in grassy parking lots. one kids charm for a necklace and some junk. many stock preset programs to turn on and go, including meteorite. or u can customize the hell outta any of the programs to your liking. deepest thing i detected was an old silver coin i buried to 10 inches and packed it down. found it with deep silver program with tx boost on and gain set to about 6 i believe. soil isnt too bad here in indiana. hope u have a lotta fun if its the one u choose. i know i am lolol.

i dont have the v3I upgrade, its 125 dollars i believe, but would be useless to me.

 

[PKennett]

Re: Fisher F75 LTD or White's V3i - HELP me decide please...

No two metal detectorists are alike, an experienced user can find objects in a hunted out site using a cheap machine, when compared to an inexperienced user and a top of the line machine. The only benchmark is to set up a test bed, and try them yourself. I can't speak for the Fisher, as I have never used it. The V3i though is a very customizable machine. The Fisher has an operating frequency of 5 and 15 kHz. The V3i sends out 2.5, 7.5 and 22.56 kHz at the same time and analyzes them simultaneously, plotting the result on a variety of graphs. Or you can send all the power to any one frequency, and even adjust them up and down a few kHz if electrical noise is causing interference. It also has a scrolling scan for prospecting. This machine has a steep learning curve, and although I have been using it frequently for about 3 months, I am far from mastering it. I am happy though that I have been able to pull gold rings from 6" to 8" down in wet salt sand at the beach. I am just now learning how to use it's stereo mixed mode where it places the all-metal channel in one ear and the discrimination tones in the other. Experts who use this machine a lot claim that pushes it down to an even greater depth. The sheer number of options you can adjust is staggering. You can adjust all the usual stuff like gain, threshold, discrimination and ground tracking. But you also adjust a whole slew of settings such as frequency offsets, bottle cap reject sensitivity, ground balance autotracking speed, dissemination delay setting, soil type, transmit boost, Frequency span limit, digital filter speed, correlation, band pass filters vs high pass, recovery delay, etc..

But depth alone is not the answer for most finds. The ability to pick out the good signal in a wash of ground and electrical noise. If the Fisher can do that one task better, than it will prevail at finding more stuff. Most objects are not beyond the depth of these new machines, they are simply very close to trash and/or iron and hidden by noise.

I think my short answer is that both are good machines, and with experience you will hone your skills to make either machine sing. But I would suspect that the variety of options on the V3i can be a big distraction to inexperienced users and takes a lot of time to master exactly what setting you are changing and why. While it's easy to adjust a setting to amok the V3i search better, it's just as easy to screw it up and make it worse!