West Jersey Detecting
Gold Member
I know there have been recent posts with a lot of opinions on which is better, the Etrac or the V3i. Much of this information can be conflicting, confusing the potential buyer, so I thought a simple comparison can be helpful to someone who is considering either.
First of all I want to state that they are both great detectors, but each does have its advantages. My detecting buddy uses the Etrac, and I use a V3i. We are constantly comparing questionable signals.
In my opinion the Etrac may have a slight advantage on deep silver and copper, but when it comes to small targets like gold, the V3i has a distinct advantage.
A few weeks back I was testing different targets in my yard with my newly purchased Minelab Excalibur 1000. I was very surprised that the Excalibur could not detect the small, hollow 14K gold charm (pictured) unless the coil was within a half inch of the charm, while the V3i sounded off nicely at more than 4 inches. The all metal picked it up at an additional half inch on the Excal, while the V3i did at greater than 6 inches. When the V3i was switched from Multi-Frequency mode to 22.5 KHz, the signal strengthened even more.
Now I was curious to see how the Etrac fared, so I made sure I brought the charm along on my next hunt with my buddy. Luckily on the next hunt there were not one but TWO experienced ETrac users to insure that the results were accurate.
I carefully placed the tiny target on the ground and stood back so my detector did not interfere and waited for his Etrac to go through the Noise Cancel process. As he passed the coil over the target there was only a faint blip sound within an inch of the target. The other Etrac had the same result.
In short, the V3i is more sensitive to small targets such as tiny gold charms, earrings, etc. If jewelry is your focus, the V3i is the detector for you, while if your focus is on higher conductive metals such as copper and silver, the Etrac may be a better choice.
First of all I want to state that they are both great detectors, but each does have its advantages. My detecting buddy uses the Etrac, and I use a V3i. We are constantly comparing questionable signals.
In my opinion the Etrac may have a slight advantage on deep silver and copper, but when it comes to small targets like gold, the V3i has a distinct advantage.
A few weeks back I was testing different targets in my yard with my newly purchased Minelab Excalibur 1000. I was very surprised that the Excalibur could not detect the small, hollow 14K gold charm (pictured) unless the coil was within a half inch of the charm, while the V3i sounded off nicely at more than 4 inches. The all metal picked it up at an additional half inch on the Excal, while the V3i did at greater than 6 inches. When the V3i was switched from Multi-Frequency mode to 22.5 KHz, the signal strengthened even more.
Now I was curious to see how the Etrac fared, so I made sure I brought the charm along on my next hunt with my buddy. Luckily on the next hunt there were not one but TWO experienced ETrac users to insure that the results were accurate.
I carefully placed the tiny target on the ground and stood back so my detector did not interfere and waited for his Etrac to go through the Noise Cancel process. As he passed the coil over the target there was only a faint blip sound within an inch of the target. The other Etrac had the same result.
In short, the V3i is more sensitive to small targets such as tiny gold charms, earrings, etc. If jewelry is your focus, the V3i is the detector for you, while if your focus is on higher conductive metals such as copper and silver, the Etrac may be a better choice.
