whats a good price for a used whites spectrum?

[jibb]

What is a good price for a used white spectrum? Its the one with the rainbow sticker on the coil so I know its several years old and it has 5 programs installed. Comes with 2 battery packs and headset? Also how much better would this be then my bounty hunter 505? Thanks for any information you can give me. John

 

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[U.K. Brian]

I had my XLT Spectrum in 1997 so the detector could be much older than you think. You could always ask Whites for the date of manufacture by telling them the number in the battery compartment. UK prices tend to be different to US ones so I can't help you there.

I should be much better than your Bounty Hunter as long as your prepared to adjust the inbuilt programmes to suit your ground conditions and things like your hearing. If you don't want to optimise the settings then a more switch on and go detector might be a better choice.

Don't forget its four filter not two like most detectors so in this case a slightly faster than average sweep speed will improve both depth and discrimination. This allows more ground to be covered in a day with the potential of more finds. The main drawbacks of the Spectrums is that they don't work to well on wet sand (fine on dry) and are not the best on very dry, light fluffy soil. Great on pasture, your local park etc in fact anywhere where the soil is compacted. The concentric coils the detector uses do tend to mask out good targets if there's a lot of metallic rubbish nearby. There is a recovery speed adjustment that helps with this problem but DD coil design copes far better.
This is one machine with which you can avoid digging almost all iron. If ferrous is to large to be discriminated out then the meter will smear to indicate the larger iron.

Its one of the few detectors that really will grow with you yet you don't have to go through a large learning curve all at once. Use one of the inbuilt programmes (I stick to Relic) then increase sensitivity to suit the site. All the other things can be tried one at a time so you can see the effects. If you having any hearing loss do sort out the tone which suits you best right from the off.

Lots of programmes on the forums some of which are poor whilst others are good but they have been designed for other peoples conditions so only use as a guide.

Best of luck. They are still a great detector but do use the fact they are not being manufactured any more to help bargain the price down.

Brian

 

[wingmaster]

I can say that the spectrum XLT is way better than the bounty hunter, its not in the same ball park as the XLT. Not sure what they go for you might look in the for sale forum here to see what they go for, taking into account what the XLT your buying has with it like extra coils or what ever. You will probably get the best proformance from some of the user made programs that you can find on line for the XLT. HH

 

[jibb]

Thanks for the information. I'm going to try to find out the year of the detector. Is there a certain age that the detectors usually last or certain years that they weren't nearly as good?

 

[wingmaster]

The first ones that came out had a bigger control box I believe and took C batteries, it would be nice if it was the AA battery version as I'm sure its probably a little lighter in weight. I'm not sure about that but I'm thinking an old friend has the C battery one. HH

 

[Coinstriking Michigan]

From what I've noticed I'd say an average of about $400-$450.

 

[U.K. Brian]

You can pay almost nothing for an early Spectrum as some parts can't be obtained an more. Early models had the C cells and a much larger control box plus a lack of programme slots. Better to get an early XLT for its light weight, better balance etc. No need to go for the last (E series) as the only difference was a change of decal and a price increase over the original version.