Minelab Explorer XS

Close encounter`s but a long way out

Terrymet 2000 in N/e UK -
Although I've not had my Minlab Xs very long I've got to say (It dose my head in) I've done my very best to make head way with it but I'm no further forward with it now than the day I got it. My Sovereign Xs yielded more without the (Close Encounters backing track) Its going!!!!!

Sep 16, 2008

12 Yes
12 No

Was this helpful to you? 

Deep But Misses A Lot

Michigan Hunter in Southern Michigan -
The Minelab Explorer XS is a very well made detector.

It is able to reach great depths on coins if they are not too masked by iron. Iron near a deep coin greatly changes the tone of the coin and it can sound like iron or be totally blanked out.

The display can be dead accurate on coins out away from masking trash. But in real world hunting the display is basically worthless unless you're hunting a site mostly free of iron.

What most Explorer users are doing is looking for solid signals at least one way. If the signal locks on, has a decent sound, and repeats well, they dig the target. It's about 30% skill and 70% luck.

Falsing is a tremendous problem with the Explorer at high trash sites due to it's sensitivity. To make it stable one must set it lower on GAIN and Sensitity but this makes it no deeper than most other top of the line brands.

The Explorer is a very slow machine and if you move a bit too fast it will miss loads of good targets. Hunting at a nail's pace is a must.

But it is true that the Explorer has the potential of great depth and under the right conditions it will find what most of the others will miss.

It is my opinion that this machine is way over rated and over priced (as in a new SE). The XS is an older out of production machine but all the Explorers up to the SE get the same depth.

I'm selling my XS because while it is a good machine there are much better machines out there for what it will sell for.

Sep 01, 2008

22 Yes
4 No

Was this helpful to you? 

Explorer XS - A Good Secondhand Choice

Charles in London UK -
I have used an Explorer XS for almost 4 years and have generally found it to be a good machine.

Firstly the bad points: It is heavy, it is hard to learn, the small headphone socket has to be converted to a large one with an adapter and these are always dreadful, pinpoint is poor, iron can sound like copper.

Now the good points: If tuned properly it can provide a lot of target information, it is capable of finding very small, and also large deep targets with just the one coil, build quality is good (I abuse mine disgracefully and generally it takes it), it can be tuned heavily if so desired.

I hunt UK farm sites only, using the XS with a standard Explorer II 10" coil (more on that in a minute) - some are very quiet, some are heavily mineralised. The XS is capable of hunting down very small Roman coins (right down to minims weighing just 0.2 grams), small hammered pennies and (so far), has found me 2 gold celtic quarter staters both of about 1.5 grams in weight. It seems to excel at winkling out small objects which give a characteristically low 'blap', though a slow swing speed is a must in such circumstances. It is chattery in iron soil, and I also find that with low discrimination 'blingy' iron can sound remarkably like a large copper coin. The coin gives a cleaner signal if 'scrubbed' but the similarity must result in lost targets (I don't scrub all targets all the time!)

By way of demonstration I recently detected a Roman site under moderate Winter wheat (March), found 15 Roman 'grots' then bumped into a bloke with a Minelab X Terra 70. He had not found a thing. I demonstrated the presence of the grots by finding 3 within a couple of yards of where we stood. He changed coils (7.5KHz which isn't ideal for grot shooting I do agree), detected until 11pm and got just one 'grot'. The XS would have picked up perhaps a dozen in that time. So the multi-frequency works. - I have found 30 + grots in a day on heavily mineralised Roman sites several times by slowly scrubbing the ground with the XS and listing for that low 'blap blap'.

Other informational 'nuggets': My original XS coil failed after 3 years. Too much abuse. The XS workings suffer in very heavy rain. If the circuits get slightly damp the screen fails but the detector keeps on working (!). I once got muddy water into it, took the case off, washed the board in distilled water, gave it a few days to dry out, then got right back on detecting with it. The default settings should never be used when hunting for grots or small hammered coins - just descrim out the top left hand corner of the screen. Only use Audio 3 mode in the quietest of conditions - it turns the coil into a dustbin lid and the noise will be deafening in trashy soil.

In all the XS is a powerful, very tuneable multi-frequency unit capable of winkling out the small coins found on UK farmland sites. It isn't perfect but at £300 - £400 is a very good secondhand buy indeed.

May 04, 2007

58 Yes
1 No

Was this helpful to you? 

the best

chas in england -
i have been detecing for over 25 years and had all the top detecors that have been made.i had the explorer xs when it fist came out and could not get on with it at all so i sold it and went to the whites xlt which is a great detector and later the dfx which is not as good as the xlt.i had the chance to buy a used explorer about nine months ago and thought i would give it another go.i got some programs of the net for uk ground conditions and went over some of my sites,mostly i search roman and medevile sites.the results were outstanding,i was finding roman ae3s and minims on sites where the finds had almost gone with the other detectors i had used there,and on medevile sites hammered coins are coming up again.when set up right the explorer xs is unbeatable and is the most sensitive detector out there.

Sep 03, 2006

16 Yes
1 No

Was this helpful to you? 

deepest on salt

Jacques in Netherlands -
I ve been using minelabs since they were introduced in Europe, back in the nineties. I used the old sovereign on flooded medieval villages and found tens of thousands of dollars worth of items with it. Unfortunately, these sites are not open for detectorists anymore. I use the explorer on beaches now. I am absolutely sure that the explorer is way deeper then the sovereigns, which were top of the bill untill the explorer became available. I have never seen a detector that is as deep as the explorer on salted soil, and trust me, since there is still a lot of very valuable items to be found, dutch hunters used and tried everything on the market to beat other detectorists. You seldom see someone use another brand for more than one or two times! That should tell you enough.
I never use the multifrequency minelabs on inland sites. For those, I stick to my trusted tesoros on iron littered sites or to the minelab advantage, which is very deep too.

Apr 15, 2006

17 Yes
1 No

Was this helpful to you? 

explorer XS

Moss in New Mexico -
I've owned and used weekly an Esplorer XS for two years. I purchased it used because the owner said it was to complicated. It did take me a couple of weeks to gain some confidence. As for the trashy areas, I routinly hunt old ghost towns that are covered with smashed metal cans, literaly layers of them. I've found by using a sniper coil I can find tons of items because other detectorists and their various detectors won't go near the cans. My friend and I who also uses an XS head straight for the spots people tell us are hunted out. We clean up! It a matter of understinding what the machine is telling you. I have two Garretts which are great detcetors in their own right but for an all around detector it's the Minelab for me! Good hunting.

Mar 12, 2006

12 Yes
1 No

Was this helpful to you? 

explorer xs

mike b in Lynn Mass -
The first day I got my explorer i read the manual and set up a program for finding half dollars only. I went to a site of an old hotel I had hunted for years and immediately picked up a 1919 half dollar at a depth of about 10 inches.
While the programmable functions are great the
discriminator leaves a lot to be desired. Beach hunting in high trash beaches produce many coins but little or no jewelry unless your willing to dig everything.
I like the explorer xs but it was overpriced.

Feb 24, 2006

5 Yes
1 No

Was this helpful to you? 

explorer

minelabman in old park -
I have been using an explorer for two years now. I would not recomend it to anyone. I had much better luck with my Fisher, finding hoards of nails and pulltabs. Unfortunatly I find silver coins at great depths in parks that have been "hunted out" and rings in areas with pulltabs and foil everywhere. So please anyone who wants an explorer, don't get it. Keep digging those highly prized rusty nails.
Thanks again

Jan 07, 2006

16 Yes
22 No

Was this helpful to you? 

Naw

Bill in Savannah, GA -
The learning curve is HUGE. Overly complicated. Overly heavy. Thumbs down.

Oct 18, 2005

11 Yes
10 No

Was this helpful to you? 

Explorer XS

Terry in Mo -
I've had same problem as above, go's quiet on iron and just don't seem to get as deep as it should, a CZ5 Fisher really found a lot more old coin's than me.

Jan 04, 2005

9 Yes
1 No

Was this helpful to you?