Lance Comfort purchased a White's V-3 from Streeter  and below is what he thinks of it.
Submitted by George Streeter

White's V-3 Evaluation
by Lance Comfort of Danville, VT

I’ve always promised myself that I wouldn’t buy a brand new model detector until it had been on the market for a while and they had worked all the kinks out; that is until the Whites Spectra V3 came out.

Half out of an intense interest of all of the new features and half feeling sorry for myself for some health issues I decided that I was going to break my long standing pledge, and investigate this exciting new machine.

My brother Rick and I had just completed our week long fall “Brothers and Others” hunt, and I was taking him to Manchester Airport for his return trip to California. We had a few extra hours to kill and so I suggested that on the way down to the airport we stop by Streeter Electronics and check out the new machine. Although I had the money in my metal detecting fund to purchase the machine, I was still not sure I was going to get it that day.

I had called George before we left Vermont to make sure that he had a V3 available. I didn’t want to get all excited about a purchase, only to find there were none to look at. He assured me that he had a machine that I could try out, but that there was someone who was interested in it. He could get another one out to me by the next day should the person decide on it, however that would not be until later in the day, so I would be able to take a look at the Spectra and try it out in any case.

George greeted us at the door when we arrived and although we had not met before, it was if we had been friends for a long time. It’s a nice feeling when you meet people like that, and you make an instant connection.

As it turned out that other individual had called back and wanted a different machine, so the one at the store was available. I put on the very comfortable head phones and turned the Spectra on and new instantly that I wanted this machine, and not later, but right now.

I have always owned only Whites detectors, starting with a Classic ID my wife bought me for my birthday long ago. I then purchased a used and then later, new XLT, and have had and used predominantly my DFX for the past three years.

I have always felt that the DFX was the Cadillac of detectors. Well, if the DFX is a Cadillac then the Spectra V3 is like a Ferrari. The first thing that you’ll notice is how light and tight the machine feels. It is very well balanced and felt like a comfortable glove on my hand. As I mentioned earlier, the cordless headphones are among the most comfortable I have ever used, but the biggest surprise came when I turned on the Spectra and heard the sound of the machine. The sounds and tones were the most comfortable I’ve ever heard. I’m sensitive to loud and raspy sounds and have always had to maintain a low threshold and volume when detecting. Listening to the V3 was a pleasure. I am not sure how to explain it, other than you have to hear it to understand what I am saying.

Needless to say I purchased the Spectra V3 immediately along with the cordless headphones and a new Sun Ray DX-1 pin pointer to go with it.

We said our goodbyes and I brought Rick to the airport for his return flight to California. He made me promise to let him know how I like the “new” machine.

I was fortunate enough to have the next day off, and knew that I would be out in some of my favorite spots seeing what the Spectra could do. I placed the Nickel Metal Hydride battery in its charger and curled up in bed with my new owner’s manual. After just a little reading I knew that there was going to be a learning curve with this detector, unlike what I had previously experienced. Going from the XLT to the DFX was simple; this was going to take longer. It’s important to recognize this before you take the V3 out for the first time. There’s a lot to learn with new sounds and new exciting tools to help with your detecting.

If you have used headphones all along you’re going to love these cordless ones. I could detect no delay, despite what I have heard from others. The sounds are crisp, and as I said before, they are very comfortable and eliminate all outside sounds. The only draw-back I can see is they use up the two double AA batteries rather quickly, so always keep a spare set of two on you. There is no warning other than they turn off. You can turn them back on again for a few seconds, but they will keep going off. The nice feature is they automatically turn off when you turn your detector off.

The Spectra also uses batteries faster than the DFX, but the rechargeable will last you for a nice long hunt. (I still always carry a spare with me though).

The menu is easy to use and much quicker to get around than earlier Whites detectors. A nice feature is that your settings are all saved when you take out your battery and put a fresh set in. No more having to input your program again. Just continue detecting.

With three frequencies as compared with one on the XLT and two on the DFX, the Spectra is better able to differentiate between Nickel/Gold, Brass/Lead, and Copper/Silver than other Whites detectors. Three easy to use screens make determining your target easier too. Trigger centered is the active search screen. A nice new feature here is the “on-the-fly” depth indication along with target signatures on each of the three frequencies.

Once you have found a potential target, squeeze the trigger and you enter the Active Pinpoint Screen. The frequency with the longest bar indicates the probable metal you have found and the potential depth is indicated in large numbers

Push the trigger forward and you enter the Active Analyze Screen. This to me is one of the most exciting of the new features on the Spectra. This graph gives you a wealth of information and will take you the most time to learn, but will save you from digging so many of those deep iron targets that I have always hated. If any one of the line graphs is not smooth, you most likely have deep iron. What a time saver. (If you’re like me you will still dig them for a while just to make sure. The Spectra was dead on each time.)

There are many more new and exciting features that are too numerous to mention here. My suggestion is to get one of your own and see what you think. I believe you’ll be most happy with it.

You can put lots of bells and whistles on any machine, and make it light up in multi colors with graphs and other features, but when it comes right down to it, how it works is all that counts.

When I got my Spectra it was just about the end of our season here in Vermont. Most of my fields and cellar holes had been gone over for the year and I didn’t have any new spots to detect, so I went back to several fields I had detected many times before.

After getting used to the machine and what it was telling me, I started to find a number of targets in areas that had been detected many times before. Over the next month I found many small and deep targets in fields where I did not expect much would be found. Among the finds are two half reales, a half cent and many small buttons, all which were over six inches in depth. I was able to get permission to detect one new field before the snow arrived. The Spectra V3 excelled there too, with two large coppers, several silver dimes, a half reale and a beautiful GAR Belt Buckle, to name just a few of the finds. 

Does it work well? You bet!!!