TedinVT

The V8X is great in places like tot lots or other places where targets may be tight. If I'm out in the open where targets and trash may be spread out, give me the V12X so I can cover more ground faster. The V8X will help you zero in on a target quickly. At the end of the day it still comes down to the person swinging the detector.

Best rechargeable NiMH batteries are Panasonic Eneloop batteries. If you buy cheap batteries, you get cheap batteries. Panasonic Eneloop Battery

Nice writeup Simon. Great detail and pics! Thanks for the tour.

No coil cover may be OK on dry land, but no go in saltwater. I started out years ago with my AT Pro w/o a coil cover. Worked out OK at home in fields and parks. When I submerged it on vacation in the Gulf of Mexico in saltwater I hit a rock and chipped it. Soon saltwater got in and I ended up with a ruined coil. Fortunately for me, Garrett immediately overnighted a new coil under warranty and saved the vacation. Great customer service! For the 15 seconds or so that it takes to pop the cover off and clean it I'll stick with the covers.

And the million dollar question remains - has Minelab fixed the 600/800 leak problem?

They will all work. As already mentioned, “depends on your budget”. If you will be detecting in saltwater, the 700 & 900 have carbon fiber shafts which will be immune to the salt whereas the other machines have aluminum shafts which will require careful rinsing off after being in saltwater. You should rinse any detector that's been in saltwater. The 700, 900 and Elite have the latest technology which might give them an edge in your choosing. The 600 & 800 both use regular bluetooth headphones. All the rest use proprietary bluetooth headphones and will not work with regular bluetooth headphones. They all will work with any waterproof headphones with the standard Minelab connector. If you purchase the 600, the Pro or the basic Elite package and want wireless headphones (and who doesn't), you'll have to add some $$ for those. The 800, 700, 900 and Elite Expedition come with wireless headphones. Thresher waterproof headphones (you'll definitely need waterproof headphones if you plan on detecting in the water) are great. Figure around another $150 - $160 for those. There are others as well. I have the 800 and bought a carbon fiber shaft for saltwater detecting. It's been a great saltwater, freshwater and land machine. I had the Pro for a while and it was a good machine - bought it to get my wife started in detecting. Sold the Pro and bought the Elite Expedition for her. Liked it so much that I bought one for myself. The Elite Expedition comes with the 12”x9” and 8”x5” coils plus the wireless headphones. Still lovin' my 800 though. So you're basically back to your budget when deciding. If you are a veteran or active military, Minelab offers a 15% discount on one detector purchase per calendar year.

When you pinpoint a target using the detector's pinpoint function get a peak reading then rotate the coil 90 degrees and get another peak reading. When you have peaked the target from both directions the target should be directly under the center (coil bolt area) of your coil. You may have to repeat the peaking a few times to get the target to peak from both directions. Leaving the coil against the ground when you rotate 90 degrees may help you to stay on the target.

I have the 800. I upgraded my wife's XTP to the XTE. I liked what the XTE delivered for the money and now I have my own XTE in addition to my wife's. Today was my first XTE outing due to too many hot & humid days the past 2 weeks. I like the XTE. It performs very well and the stability is very good. I start out with the Continuous Noise Cancel and set Sensitivity as high as it will go and the lower it a step at a time if it gets chatty. I'd have to say it will find anything the 800 will find. The big difference that stands out is the XTE’s 0-99 non-ferrous scale vs the 800's 0-40 non-ferrous scale. Example: zinc pennies on the XTE ring between 58 and 63 (typically) vs 19 to 21 on the Nox - a wider XTE TID spread. The thing I miss on the XTE is the ability to move TID bin boundaries up or down as the XTE bin boundaries above the ferrous range are fixed, unlike the Nox. Easy to get used to though. I have no plans to part ways with either the 800 or the XTE.

IMHO, the X-Terra Pro was never intended to compete with the Equinox series of detectors, rather it was offered as a decent entry level machine for those with limited funds or limited budget to dip their toes into the detecting hobby without breaking the bank in case they need to bow out. I bought the XTP in April 2023 for my wife while in FL as she indicated an interest in joining me detecting on the beach. Simple settings, not too technical for a beginner, easy to operate from a novice perspective, it was a purchase I don't regret. I was and am still amazed at what you get for $269. She kept up with me on the beach for 2 April's now and 1 1/2 seasons in the woods in VT and is enjoying the hobby and finding some really cool relics. I put the new firmware in the XTP a few days ago and with limited testing in our yard it appears to have settled the machine down, not that we had any serious complaints before with the low and slow approach, knowing it was a single frequency machine. BTW, my wife scored the only gold on the beach this past April while my 800 did not produce any gold 🥲. So, she's ready for a step up in a detector. I just bought her an X-Terra Elite. With temps in the low 90's and deer flies and black flies in abundance in the woods plus we're in a rainy stretch so we have not put it to the test yet. My point is we and many other owners of the XTP machine bought it to serve a purpose knowing it wasn't on the same plane as much higher priced and much more technical detectors and are very happy with the fact that it's doing what we bought it to do and the reasons we bought it. Coming from a happy Nox 800 owner / user.

Have you installed the new firmware update?

Good eyes, Cipher. Those pictures are all over the place. Somebody sure slipped up.

My wife's finds April 12, 2024, day after April 11 storm, Manasota Key, Fl saltwater beach using her X-Terra Pro in Beach mode.

Probably because only the Vanquish coil is waterproof and the really good stuff is out in the water where you need a waterproof detector.

Did this Gigmaster fix to my 800 coil ears after both ears broke (while using one of those so-called coil ear protectors) and I received the warranty replacement coil. It's been several years since doing this and my coil is like a rock. I've used my coil to clear ground, detected in fresh and saltwater. No issues. Personally, I would never use one of those coil ear stiffeners again.

I received a Minelab email this morning stating the XTP update adds the Continuous Noise Cancel and there are now updates for the 700/900 that also adds the Continuous Noise Cancel plus the -1 Iron Bias setting. My under standing of the CNC is it will do repeated noise scans while the Accept/Reject button is held down, giving the detector more opportunity to locate the best noise free channel. I did the update on my wife's X-Terra Pro. Scans displayed -1, 4, 5, 4, 4 which might indicate the first scan result may not have been the best choice and it stabilized in the 4/5 range. I'm guessing the idea is to eliminate any noise (EMI) resulting in more stable TID readings. Iffy did a video on the XTE and unmasking iron. He said in so many words, the addition of the -1 FE setting made quite a bit of difference. Check out his video. The Minelab release email this morning stated the XTE is shipping with the CNC and -1 software already installed.