Decisions, decisions...

[Detector]

Hi all,

I am new to these forums but not to detecting. I've been swinging the coil for near 30 years, but I find myself facing a decision I'm not sure how to make.

In 1991 I bought a Whites Spectrum Eagle after years of using various BFO's, TR's, VLF and TR/VLF machines and it turned our local 100+ year old park into a virgin gold mine. After 13 years of bliss the pickins are now getting quite slim in my favorite park and I want to upgrade again hoping to coax a few more goodies out of the park with some new technology.

At the first of this year I looked really close at both the DFX and XLT but went with the XLT because I got a chance to buy it right. I found the XLT less than exciting. Don't get me wrong the XLT is a fine machine it just doesn't seem to be much more than my old Eagle Spectrum was, and in fact a bit slower as far as the processing goes. Anyway, I tried everything to make this machine work for me I even sent it to Whites and spent $114 getting it freshened up and checked over. Later I did read somewhere that the XLT was a Spectrum Eagle in a smaller box.

No big deal other than now I'm back to square one. Now I'm looking at the Whites DFX or a Minelab Explorer II. I figure more than one frequency should help give an edge in the park. I know I left plenty of goodies because some were simply to deep to dig, and the gold to silver ratio is way off meaning I missed lots of gold targets. This park sits along side a river that has flooded an average of every 20-30 years leaving roughly 3"-6" of mud each time. The reason it was virgin hunting for me in the 90's was because no detector had been able to get below that 6" mark until the Spectrum. I regularly dug targets from 8"-10" and left many deeper fearing I'd destroy the grass.

So here is my question to you fellow hunters that have had experience using or being around these two models. I've heard the Explorer II has a bit better depth while the DFX is lighter and easier to use. I'm not afraid of complicated machines, I'm a network administrator at a local hospital so computers don't intimidate me. So if you had to make a choice between the DFX or Explorer II for hunting mostly my favorite park and a few old forts, what would you choose and why?

Thanks

Both are very good detectors. Either one will serve you quite well. I have the DFX and can recommend it.
It has so many different ways you can set it up that it is a never endig challenge for whatever usage you might prefer. If you would like to know more about it try the DFX only forum. You can learn a lot about it on that forum.
Of course this is just my humble opinion.

[bill(de)]

Sounds to me that those precious targets are beyond VDI dependability and just need a deep beep. Have you thought about a Fisher 1266 ,1270 ,a Nautilus or a Minelab Advantage to compliment the XLT.

I have the Eagle Spectrum and the XLT and haven't found much to gripe about performance as they both found wheaties at 8to9" with a 950 coil in loamy soil .
The Explorer according to the most experienced detectorist is the deepest target ID detector on the market and i don't include myself in the mix.
I had a DFX and it is light and very well balanced but needed to be swept much quicker to achieve the depth of my Sovereign GT which i use in very mineralized soil and hotrock conditions and also does better than DFX in iron trash in my opinion.

I feel you have a very capable target id detector in the XLT but it does have some ultimate depth problems in mineralized soils but it's lightweight and almost as versatile as the DFX.

Good luck in your decision as what to buy.

HH Bill

[Detector]

Thanks for the input.

One thing that concerns me is that neither detector boasts too much about accuracy. The DFX has 2 frequencies while the Exp II has 28? Now generally you would think 28 would be far better than 2, but yet DFX vs Exp II discussions never mention anything about this, you'd think, advantage. Wouldn't more frequencies equal better identification? Apparently not in this case or surely it would be the strong point in the DFX vs Exp II debates.

Having detected for many years before discrimination and target ID was even available I have developed somewhat of target ratio. That is to say in general I know in a park I should find 1 gold ring for every 4-5 silver ones. I found a ton of silver rings and very few gold. This tells me I've missed them due to over discrimination and I was aware I was doing it all along. This park has a lot of garbage and so I've done mostly cherry picking(digging only the good stuff).

There is also a good sized area packed full of iron bottle caps that is virtually untouched because its so litter. It also happens to be by the area where I've found some of the oldest stuff, so I'm sure its a hot bed of goodies if you can just get past the bottle caps. The Exp II is said to have great iron rejection so it could have an advantage there.

I've learned not to believe all the hype you read about these detectors and rather ask the people in the field that actually use them. So why do I not see anything about how accurate the 28 frequencies is over the 2 frequencies? Apparently it doesn't make that much difference or it would be mentioned. If it doesn't make much difference then why would I spend an extra $200 for 28 when 2 works just as well?

If the Exp II is better at ID'ing gold rings, which 28 over 2 should be, then that could be the deciding factor for me.

[bill(de)]

I'm a coin hunter first and relic hunter second and other goodies to me are fringe benefits. I have found many silver rings but only 3 good gold rings and a lot of junk gold plated stuff.
Just wondering if you ever tried a concerted gold search using a top down discrimination pattern instead of bottom up meaning Disc out all high coin and only accept VDI of probable Gold targets say -07 up to say +48 or whatever and notch the worst offenders from there. I noticed Ring and jewelry programs before but never really thought about it that much until recently i read some insightful posts from those who use that type disc pattern to increase the odds of finding gold. I've also seen comments on that here at TQ about a Ring program

I'm going to look into further and perhaps try it when i can hunt the turf again but now i'm confined to woods hunting and scaring hibernating bugs. HH Bill