My Equinox " Coming Out " Statement

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi Brian,

You and Tom are awesome. He especially being my gold coin hero - I have yet to find one and he has dozens? Amazing!

I have been detecting since 1972 and basically hunt precious metals - gold, silver, platinum - in any form they come in. Coins, jewelry, nuggets. My relic detecting has therefore been more accidental, stuff found while looking for gold nuggets or old coins. My detecting is usually “dig everything” or “dig all non-ferrous”. So yeah I have done the dense trash stuff but not as much as you guys. I think you guys will be happy with what develops, and for once nobody need take out a mortgage to find out!

It has been said many times that the CTX and Deus are an excellent complimentary pair, each one strongest where the other is weakest. Well, this burly Australian snuck into the XP camp and had his way with a cute little French gal. The Equinox is like the kid they had who has all the best features of both. Nothing is perfect but there truly is nothing else like Multi-IQ, and in my opinion by just being different (think FAST multifrequency) it does things other machines do not do. Some of the finds I am making are real head shakers but that will have to wait a bit. I guess the good news is the Equinox has finally got me seriously interested in coin detecting again. It’s nice to find silver almost every time I head out to the parks for a few hours. It’s been a long time since a detector did that for me.

My best coin and relic hunt ever

[scoopjohnb]

If you kept the CTX, ... then you would have completely turned towards the Dark Side.

Not all hope is lost yet!!

I’m not going to touch my 800 for a whole day when it arrives,... if it can beat those machines. It’s just too hot to handle!

I’m sticking to my earlier pet name for the Equinox,... THE EQUALIZER!

[Cal_Cobra]

Steve don't tell Tom, but he's my gold coin hero too - lol  I've been with him when 3 of those 15 gold coins were found, and a lot of it is location.  I believe that one of these days, my coil will get over one too, maybe it'll be the Equinox 800 :)    We actually have a new (for us) site that's been producing mid 1800's silver, and oddly various early 1900's coins (with a 1870's - 1900 gap, odd eh?).  We feel that this site will (eventually) produce one, or more gold coins as we continue to pick away at it.  It has, like many desert sites, intense alkali soils, which not only tend to destroy most silver coins (although not gold), but it also handicaps my VLF detectors.  The Impact was a game changer when running at 20kHz, but even then, Tom's Explorer 2 had no challenges.  I believe the Equinox will solve this challenge. 

With Tom and I both getting the Equinox 800, it'll be really interesting to see how things play out when we're detecting the same sites.  Perhaps his 40 years of experience will trump my 11 or so, perhaps the Equinox will equalize things. 

HH,
Brian

 

 

 

[Whitbey]

Steve,

Did you go to the dark side! May the force be with you.

P.S. Love your posts and all the good information you give us.

 

[canslawhero]

figured you had one....

could you have 'come out' sooner if you wanted to?

question re: FBS dual ferrous/conductive VIDs vs EQ single digit...is there some sort of 'tell' with the EQ

that informs one there's a good chance for old silver/copper coins? but maybe you haven't found enough yet to say?

the FBS machines were able to let me know when there was a good chance of 'oldie below' with the combo VIDs.

was selling the ctx more due to ergos (ie weight loss) than due to a better ability to find oldies on the EQ's part?

how accurate is the 'running depth' meter as an aid to a solid VID that 'could' be something 'older'?

do you run 'auto' GB most of the time...

enough for now you lucky dog!

[Steve Herschbach]

I can’t answer questions on fine details of the efficiency of any one function until the code is baked. But yes, I have no problem cherry picking copper/silver targets. The reason I sold the CTX was not that the Equinox does better than the CTX, but because I could not find a compelling reason to keep the CTX once I had the Equinox in hand. I am not saying that a true CTX guru might not feel differently.

[canslawhero]

thanks for the response, sounds like a lot of CTX's will be in the 'for sale' column once this gets out...

for me, the weight was oppresive (aside from the cost).

hopefully the code will be baked by end of year....can't wait....

[Steve Herschbach]

One thing I have said and will be repeating is that this really is a case of the entire package being more than just a list of features/sum of parts. Does the Equinox beat everything everywhere all the time? Doubtful. That is backwards however. The real question is - do other detectors offer enough extra "something" to make a person pass on the Equinox? Especially if the "something extra" means more cost and weight?

So you start swinging this 2.9 lb detector and find out it performs simply and effectively. It is a VERY easy detector to like, and it does not take a lot of use to decide you don't want to put it down. A lot of people are just not going to "get it" until they get to actually swing one, but it did not take me long to decide I really don't want to use anything else.

That's just me though. I will honestly be grateful when these things get into more hands because more than most I am very curious to see what the consensus ends up being for other people.

[scoopjohnb]

A word that has grabbed my attention is Performance.

And why would you dump a CTX and keep an Equalizer 800,... please endure the petname. I can only speculate but here it goes.

CTX runs at 3 kHz and 25 kHz or something like that, because nobody is telling us the secret recipé. I can only accumulate knowledge read from reliable sources and my own experience. It either finds high conductors or it either finds small low conductors. But doesn’t really like that mid conductor range. Most serious tectorists have caught on to this and the CTX is often seen in the company of a Deus.

Then we’ve got the 15-ish detectors. Great relic hunters, love the mid conductors and people generally like them. Or they plain hate the things, more of a local dirt, targets kind of thing.

Enter the 800 and the word performance. Just imagine what it would be like if you were running a 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 kHz detector simultaneosly with decent performance. Not a perfectly tuned specialized unit but a Recon unit. And then you drop out of Multi into single with a tad more performance.

Targets recovered,... now lets get in the special unit with peak performance for the intended purpose.

It would certainly obsolete a lot of stuff. Just had to use the O-word didn’t I :-)

 

On 11/23/2017 at 7:59 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

I can’t answer questions on fine details of the efficiency of any one function until the code is baked. But yes, I have no problem cherry picking copper/silver targets. The reason I sold the CTX was not that the Equinox does better than the CTX, but because I could not find a compelling reason to keep the CTX once I had the Equinox in hand. I am not saying that a true CTX guru might not feel differently.

 

[GB_Amateur]

18 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I will honestly be grateful when these things get into more hands because more than most I am very curious to see what the consensus ends up being for other people.

And you'll get some help answering the unending list of questions that you've been peppered (barraged?) with.