What Makes Multi-iq So Good?

[mh9162013]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

If you're in a situation where you dig it all that beeps then yes, possibly the Go-Find (limited by coil size) and especially the Ace will probably find you in my soils virtually everything the Nox will.

Thanks for confirming that. The more and more I read about Multi-IQ, the more I began to think what you just said.

For example, I hate the Equinox's straight shaft and built-in battery. Assuming:

1. I was willing to dig everything,

2. I wasn't going to search salt water beaches,

3. I wasn't going to do any hunting in super hot grounds,

4. I wasn't going to do any gold prospecting, and

5. I was willing to really learn my machine,

Would I be as successful with a Garrett AT Pro or Fisher F75+ as with an Equinox 800? It sounds like the answer is, "yes."

Yeah, I know those are a lot of assumptions...

[mh9162013]

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

The right tool for the job at hand.  I use a PI for relic hunting in super hot dirt, the versatile Equinox for relic, park, and beach hunting, and my Deus/Orx is probably my favorite because I know it so well, it is light, and it kills in thick iron. 

If you life depending on searching salt water beaches, would the Equinox 800 still be your detector of choice? If not, what would?

[Jeff McClendon]

Equinox 600

Jeff

[mh9162013]

1 minute ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Equinox 600

Jeff

The 600 would be your first choice detector for a salt water beach?

[Jeff McClendon]

Yep. If I only hunted salt water beaches and surf, I would want waterproof headphones and a really good scoop. I would have no use for wireless headphones, the WM08 module, 20 or 40 kHz single frequencies or the Gold modes.

 

Jeff

[mh9162013]

24 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Yep. If I only hunted salt water beaches and surf, I would want waterproof headphones and a really good scoop. I would have no use for wireless headphones, the WM08 module, 20 or 40 kHz single frequencies or the Gold modes.

 

Jeff

You'd pick the 600 over the CTX 3030, Excalibur II, Garrett Sea Hunter Mark 2, et al.?

EDIT: My question assumes money is no object.

[GB_Amateur]

5 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

The main advantage of Multi IQ...

The other advantage on land hunting is little more subtle....

Fantastic post, Hugh!  Hope Steve links to it in his "everything you ever wanted to know about the Equinox" page.

 

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

...You can cover the same patch of ground once with multifrequency, whereas it might take multiple passes at different frequencies to pull out the iffy, boderline targets....

Hope I'm not taking this out of context, but I disagree with the blanket statement.  Multi-frequency does give more reliable coverage than typical single frequencies but we're learning from recent posts that even the Equinox on single frequencies can squeeze out targets that its multi-IQ didn't indicate were 'good'.

I see the Equinox (already 2 years into production) as an incremental step towards better detecting.  There's still a lot of room for improvement and I look forward to that progress from all detector manufacturers willing to take those steps.

 

[Jeff McClendon]

57 minutes ago, mh9162013 said:

If you life depending on searching salt water beaches, would the Equinox 800 still be your detector of choice? If not, what would?

If you had specifically included submerged salt water hunting I would have included the Excal for sure. Your question was searching salt water beaches............

 

Jeff

[mh9162013]

3 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

If you had specifically included submerged salt water hunting I would have included the Excal for sure. Your question was searching salt water beaches............

 

Jeff

It was and it is.

So you'd pick the 600. Is your answer objective or subjective? In other words, do you pick the 600 b/c you truly think it's the best for salt water beaches? Or do you love that Equinox so much, even though there might be another choice that's better, you still go for the 600?

It's an honest question. All I have for information is marketing fluff from websites and seeing what the "influencers" use on Youtube...either is hardly the most reliable source.

[Jeff McClendon]

1 hour ago, mh9162013 said:

It was and it is.

So you'd pick the 600. Is your answer objective or subjective? In other words, do you pick the 600 b/c you truly think it's the best for salt water beaches? Or do you love that Equinox so much, even though there might be another choice that's better, you still go for the 600?

It's an honest question. All I have for information is marketing fluff from websites and seeing what the "influencers" use on Youtube...either is hardly the most reliable source.

Do I like (not love) the Equinox 600 for any type of detecting I do except for gold prospecting=YES. That was subjective. I'm 64 years old, my body hurts most of the time, detecting is something I mostly love except when it hurts too much, detectors including the Equinox are a tool, not something I love.

Does the Equinox 600 detect just as well on a dry or wet salt water beach as the Equinox 800. From my experience, yes. That was not subjective and yes I have detected extensively on salt water beaches with both. 

Considering my age and the time I have left to detect physically, if there is a better detector: which for me means lighter, detects as well or more exactly as in will correctly ID a target (ferrous/low conductor non ferrous/high conductor) at 1 foot in wet sand, and is fully waterproof, I haven't swung it or used it yet. Yes, I have used the Kruzers and Anfibios along with many other VLFs at salt water beaches............

Chase and phrunt have already mentioned this and it is very important to me too which is target recovery efficiency.......... Unfortunately at my age: I usually do not have the luxury of digging every target, 90% of my coin and jewelry hunting is on moderate to high mineralization on municipal or public land that has digging tool restrictions so I cannot use any kind of shovel, I need to detect with a detector that has outstanding numerical target ID in iffy dirt down to 10",   I am able to swing it for 4 hours or more, and I don't have to spend more than a few seconds analyzing a target in these areas. The Equinox 600 and 800 meet those requirements almost perfectly so far.

So, where I do most of my general hunting, a single frequency detector running 13kHz or a bit higher will get about 4" of depth with somewhat accurate numerical target ID. They will usually (if they are capable detectors) give an audio tone for sure.  On deeper targets I have absolutely no clue what the detector is detecting (Fisher, Teknetics, Nokta Makro, Whites, XP, Garrett, single frequency Minelabs,) and I am seriously wasting my time if I have to decide to dig a 6" deep target that appears to be a high conductor and turns out to be a 1" square piece of aluminum can slaw that should have registered as a low to mid conductor and well below a zinc penny. That has happened to me way too many times with those other detectors. The Equinox does not do that to me. I generally (90% of the time) know what I am about to dig (ferrous, non-ferrous low conductor, mid  conductor or high conductor) down to 10" with the Equinox 600 or 800 when I am hunting for coins and jewelry. This is not subjective. This is my experience after thousands of hours detecting with the Equinox.

If I was detecting an 1800s or early 1900s abandoned house, farm or cellar hole I would definitely bring my ORX along with the Nox. When I'm gold prospecting I take the 800, ORX and a Whites 24K to most places. If I know the prospecting ground is super hot, I take the Nox 800 and my TDI SL.

Is the Equinox 800 or 600 the absolute best detector for any situation? No. Does Multi IQ technology work the best for me in the vast majority of my detecting scenarios? Yes.

Jeff