Equinox Issue With 2 Euro Coin & Trash Overlapping?

[Chase Goldman]

 

On 4/15/2018 at 10:25 PM, LowTide said:

The ID system on the Equinox is the way it is because it was specifically designed that way to address the targeted market segment for the detector.  The ID system is not the way it is because of an oversight, poor planning, or lack of familiarity with end user wishes.

Minelab is very methodical in attacking market segments.  They developed advanced PI technology and dominate the high end PI market.  They went after the low slow turf market with BBS/FBS and they dominate that market.  They developed the Xterra 70/705 to go specifically after the Whites MXT.  They developed the Go Finds to go after the Ace’s.  All of the aforementioned devices had very specific design criteria to attack a market segment.

The Equinox primarily was designed as an iron trash high speed detector to go after the XP and AT.  That is why it is so fast and has an iron bias setting which is an integral part of the Multi-IQ discrimination system.  With that thought in mind what happens to a detector’s ID of a non-ferrous target co-mingled with a pile of nails?  The answer is that it skews, and the more ID segments, the more it is going to skew.  To which there will be the complaint that the detector can’t “lock on”.  In this iron trash detecting application if they had made the ID 200 points wide the meter would be whiplash-ing wildly.  So having the ID be fairly stable in a difficult target environment has it’s advantages to address this market segment.

There is also a belly button factor at work.  Included with the detector there is a wide assortment of overlays in different languages.  So despite a U.S. user thinking the ID system should be U.S. specific and a U.K. user thinking it should be U.K. specific that is simply not realistic.  This is a world wide product.

In a nutshell here is Minelabs thinking.  If you go to a park that has cleaner ground, and then areas with trashier ground, they want you to break out an FBS for the cleaner areas.  And then after your arm gets tired, go back to your vehicle and get the Equinox and then attack the trashier area.  If you are a relic or saltwater beach hunter the Equinox is all you will likely need unless scuba diving.  If you are a casual prospector the Equinox will at least make you competitive.  The uptake is that if you are a serious hobbyist they want you to buy two models of their’s to cover most of your detecting needs.

Here’s a disclaimer, I don’t own an Equinox nor have any immediate plans to purchase one.  However I am enjoying the release of this product to no end because I am extremely frustrated with the complacency of U.S. manufacturers.  Boys the chickens have come home to roost!  And I will make a prediction, and that is that Makro will be the first to respond and in doing so may offer a wider ID span which will be good for the hobby and push Minelab.

I agree with just about everything you said and speculated on.  Regarding ML's "two-detector" plan,  I think that if you already did not buy into the eTrac or CTX deep, accurate, but slow FBS game, there is very little chance you are going to go from Equinox and seriously purchasing either of those detectors because you feel that the Equinox is just not cutting it in some manner.  The same logic probably holds for XP Deus.  However, I have perceived (I don't have objective evidence to support this claim) more hard core Deus users hanging on to their Deus after the Equinox purchase and while more hard core BBS/FBS users putting their older BBS/FBS machines up for sale after getting their hands on the Equinox.  Also, even if it was not their intent to kill their own, I do not see how keeping the CTX at its existing price point is sustainable from a business perspective with Equinox in existence.  

BTW - I have and will hold on to my GPX 4800 for hard core relic hunting in hot soil and will alternate between my Equinox and HF Deus for general relic hunting depending on specific conditions.  Equinox will now become my go-to beach/surf/water machine.  Those three detectors will form the core of my detecting arsenal.  So there you go Low Tide - I fit your ML two-detector profile and am playing right into their hands on their plan to take over the world of detecting.  The remainder of the herd will be thinned significantly (already begun) except that I will hang on to 2 or 3 other branded detectors for sentimental and a few practical reasons and so I cannot be accused of any fanboi behaviors on the forums.  LOL.

[Sinclair]

I've been out with some test settings yesterday and made a short video:

"If you want to coin-shoot fresh stuff only on the beach with the nox, your're eventually better off switching to single-frequency.

This are example settings only! You can discrim 0-18 and 25-40 if you want to. Remember: Either way you can loose a lot of other valueable targets!

I've been on the dry sand with this settings yesterday and they worked out pretty well. The machine ran very quiet, because it doesn't pick up all the small stuff in 5 kHz. You can clearly distinguish Pulltabs and Bottletops from the 2€ coins."

[thelock]

Same issue here. I used to hunt with a Garret Ace 250 and it was awesome on euro coins, never fooled me. The 2 euro coin jumped a little more but I could always tell. With the equanox 600 the numbers of coins match with a lot of trash unfortunately.