The Garrett Ace 250 metal detector is a good entry level metal detector with a lot of good features for its relatively low price. Its operation is fairly straight forward and easy to use. This does not mean that the Ace 250 is perfect or that it will compete with the higher end metal detectors.
No matter how much some detectorists would like to believe that the Ace 250 is on par with the $1,000 metal detectors, it is not and will not match their performance. On shallow items, performance may be similar, but many valuables are lost in areas that are now too deep for the Ace or that present conditions that adversely affect the Ace’s ability to perform.
In previous articles, I have focused heavily on the positive capabilities of the Ace 250. What follows are some things that I do not like or that are weaknesses that are a resultant of being an entry level economical detector.
Perhaps my biggest criticism of the Ace 250 is the bing bong sounds made when the coil passes over a metallic item. This is an annoying sound only rivaled by the Tesoro quack that still is not as awful as the Ace 250 tones. The tones on the Ace are long and drawn out instead of the shorter beeps found on other metal detectors.
In addition to the longer and annoying tones of the Ace 250 is a slightly longer recovery time. This often leads to missed or miss-identified items unless a slow sweep is used. This poses problems in trashy areas where there are a lot of metallic objects in close proximity to one another.
While depth on the Garrett Ace 250 is decent for an inexpensive metal detector, the effective depth is much less than its maximum detection depth due to the propensity of the Ace 250’s id system to lose accuracy after 2-3 inches of depth in moderately mineralized soils. What this means is that desirable items such as coins and jewelry start to id in the iron range when deeper than a couple of inches. The Ace will still detect these items, but most detectorists discriminate out iron and will lose these deeper targets. To be fair, this happens on most if not all detectors in mineralized areas but is extremely evident in the Ace 250. With this in mind, one should not rely on the id system for items deeper than a couple inches.
A ground balance feature allows a metal detector to minimize the effects of ground mineralization. The Ace 250 has a fixed ground balance which means that it is set at the factory. The operator has no control over this setting. This results in a loss of depth where mineralization is moderate to high.
Despite these shortcomings, the Garrett Ace 250 metal detector is still a good entry detector as well as a good choice for the budget conscious hobbyist. It works well in parks and other places where items are shallow and gets decent depth in less mineralized areas. One should not expect $1,200 performance out of a $200 metal detector.