Equinox Software Update 3.0...

[Tom_in_CA]

3 hours ago, steveg said:

These results -- in central Oklahoma dirt, anyway -- were gathered using the very same type of "testing" that you and your buddy did.  And the results are MUCH different from what you report.  And for the life of me, I can't understand why that carries exactly ZERO weight, in your mind.  I COULD say that yes, it may be such that your California dirt renders the EQX less capable than your Explorer (as opposed to my Oklahoma dirt).  Obviously that's a possibility, but then you have Raphis -- a very long-time, very talented detectorist to say the least, confirming that the EQX is at least the equal of his Explorer in CALIFORNIA dirt (although, not specifically San Fransisco dirt).  

I don't know, Tom...hard to figure why you have such a hard time putting any weight on the experiences of others...BUT -- we've had this discussion before.  I know it doesn't have any influence -- but it's all good!

 

Steve, I am absolutely NOT dismissing the glowing reviews for the Nox.   And I saw first-hand that it spanks my Explorer in a relicky iron-riddled ghost townsy location.   No problem. 

 

But when it comes to turf, so far I have not seen that.  Yes I've seen the glowing testimonials, but haven't seen it in action so far.   And as for Dan / Raphis :   His hunting partner in So. CA, and I, have been in conversation lately :  And as it turns out, when they compare signals @ the Etrac to the Nox, they are coming to a draw.  Neither has the edge.  They can each hear each other's flags, and each make the same TID judgement calls.     That's a little different  than Dan's report of the move from SE  pro to Nox, where Dan is .... yes .... saying the Nox is doing better than his prior SE.    But when  it comes to the Etrac vs Nox, those 2 guys are not seeing any edge.  It could be debated that the SE pro and the II and Etrac are a little different depth-wise.   The SE pro incarnation *did*  suffer some criticism that it  didn't have *quite* the depth of the others  in the incarnation lineup of Explorers.

 

Yes I'm "influenced" by all the glowing testimony.  That's WHY  I'm interested in seeing how it will stack  up.   If it can at least *match* my Exp. II in the turf (and not even necessarily "spank" it), then that will be great !   Because it's lighter, water-proof, better in iron, etc...  What's not to  love ?  🙂

 

We may head back to SF for some more turf hunting.   Will report  back after that.

 

 

[Chase Goldman]

39 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Steve, I am absolutely NOT dismissing the glowing reviews for the Nox.   And I saw first-hand that it spanks my Explorer in a relicky iron-riddled ghost townsy location.   No problem. 

 

But when it comes to turf, so far I have not seen that.  Yes I've seen the glowing testimonials, but haven't seen it in action so far.   And as for Dan / Raphis :   His hunting partner in So. CA, and I, have been in conversation lately :  And as it turns out, when they compare signals @ the Etrac to the Nox, they are coming to a draw.  Neither has the edge.  They can each hear each other's flags, and each make the same TID judgement calls.     That's a little different  than Dan's report of the move from SE  pro to Nox, where Dan is .... yes .... saying the Nox is doing better than his prior SE.    But when  it comes to the Etrac vs Nox, those 2 guys are not seeing any edge.  It could be debated that the SE pro and the II and Etrac are a little different depth-wise.   The SE pro incarnation *did*  suffer some criticism that it  didn't have *quite* the depth of the others  in the incarnation lineup of Explorers.

 

Yes I'm "influenced" by all the glowing testimony.  That's WHY  I'm interested in seeing how it will stack  up.   If it can at least *match* my Exp. II in the turf (and not even necessarily "spank" it), then that will be great !   Because it's lighter, water-proof, better in iron, etc...  What's not to  love ?  🙂

 

We may head back to SF for some more turf hunting.   Will report  back after that.

 

 

Tom  - you should just get one and prove it to yourself and take the variablity of the other guy's detecting and detector proficiency out of the equation (we know no one else stacks up to your abilities anyway ).  It will either click or not.  If it's a no go, the Equinox loses minimal resale value so you can get rid of it online, recover most of your investment, and call it a cheap rental fee.  I mean why the heck else would someone spend so much time hanging out in a forum discussing a detector they don't own.  The answer: you secretly do want one.  

[Tom_in_CA]

10 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Tom  - you should just get one and prove it to yourself and take the variablity of the other guy's detecting and detector proficiency out of the equation (we know no one else stacks up to your abilities anyway ) .  It will either click or not.  If it's a no go, the Equinox loses minimal resale value so you can get rid of it online, recover most of your investment, and call it a cheap rental fee.

I could.  But I  could also look at the results of side-by-side testing , with those who are already proficient on it.   Can see how it stacks up on  flagged target comparisons.    That would be much more conclusive.  Because if I only took it for spins on my own (comparing to my own self, back and forth, with my Exp), then I'd forever be doubting that I was "doing it right" or "should have done a different setting" or "need more practice", into infinity .  

 

In fact, that's what I'd be told, if I did my own tests, and posted anything short of glowing thoughts.  I'd most certainly be told "you weren't doing it right" or "you need more practice", etc.....    Therefore it's better to do  comparisons with those that have ALREADY determined that it's superior.

[Chase Goldman]

10 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

I could.  But I  could also look at the results of side-by-side testing , with those who are already proficient on it.   Can see how it stacks up on  flagged target comparisons.   

You're just stalling.  C'mon, throw caution to the wind.  You've already determined it would be the right tool for a ghost town job.  No need to do all the comparisons and more comparisons unless this is all just about spanking your buddies over and over, turf hunting using Equinox comparison challenges as the excuse to get them to show up for their spanking.  The deltas on vlf depth performance are really miniscule at this point.  You pretty much know it is not a detecting dog, so the depth performance margins are really pretty thin if set up optimally.  With the ability to crank recovery speed up vs. the Explorer, it can also open up new performance dimensions in modern trash infested parks.  Bed o' nails or Bed o' crown caps/pull tabs - it can run circles around most slower machines with the possible exception of the Deus.  Depth isn't everything as you well know.

[cjc]

On 7/25/2020 at 3:59 PM, Chase Goldman said:

Weird.  Wonder just what are these deep, large targets in Asia that are invisible at 5 khz but not at 4 khz.  Glad we are still getting updates 2.5 years into the original release, scratching my head this is really at the top of the list - it was not even on my personal Equinox enhancement radar screen.  Having a frequency shift option (+/- 1 khz across the board) would have made more sense if EMI was the real driver to 4 khz.  And then again the all encompassing "stability enhancements" - that is clear as mud but hopefully useful.  Really would like to have seen a host of other enhancements such as improved pinpointing "stability" [maybe part of the stability enhancements perhaps - we'll see], perhaps a VCO like pitch tone on the non-gold modes, back-and-forth mode navigation (instead of the one-way merry-go-round), future proofing the bluetooth interface since 3rd-party APTX-LL hardware seems to be doing the opposite of "catching on" in the marketplace, and a true "raw" unprocessed all-metal mode would be cool.  The other stuff (more sophisticated target ID and discrimination and other FBS goodies) I can wait for the Equinox/CTX "1040" iteration.  Oh, and I hope they fixed that dreaded nickel on top of a dime issue.  That should have been at the top of their list...    BTW - how about some smaller form factor elliptical coils, Minelab, if you really want to help out your Equinox users...tired of being jealous of the kid running around here with the Vanquis 540 and that cool 8 inch elliptical.

Finally, cool down vest dude in the promo pic, quit admiring yourself in the truck windshield and start swinging that Equinox, ya prima donna slacker!  Since you don't have a digger, looks like you are going to have to get those french manicured nails dirty.

Hope they got his good side--guess they ran out of bearded guys.  

I had really hoped that 4kHz would be in the multi mix hence the stability gains by way of balance in the higher weighted modes ie P2.   Jury still out would like to hear from some salt water hunters on this. Never liked how the big coil performed in salt--same with the CTX's even bigger processor.  cjc 

[Dances With Doves]

2 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Steve, I am absolutely NOT dismissing the glowing reviews for the Nox.   And I saw first-hand that it spanks my Explorer in a relicky iron-riddled ghost townsy location.   No problem. 

 

But when it comes to turf, so far I have not seen that.  Yes I've seen the glowing testimonials, but haven't seen it in action so far.   And as for Dan / Raphis :   His hunting partner in So. CA, and I, have been in conversation lately :  And as it turns out, when they compare signals @ the Etrac to the Nox, they are coming to a draw.  Neither has the edge.  They can each hear each other's flags, and each make the same TID judgement calls.     That's a little different  than Dan's report of the move from SE  pro to Nox, where Dan is .... yes .... saying the Nox is doing better than his prior SE.    But when  it comes to the Etrac vs Nox, those 2 guys are not seeing any edge.  It could be debated that the SE pro and the II and Etrac are a little different depth-wise.   The SE pro incarnation *did*  suffer some criticism that it  didn't have *quite* the depth of the others  in the incarnation lineup of Explorers.

 

Yes I'm "influenced" by all the glowing testimony.  That's WHY  I'm interested in seeing how it will stack  up.   If it can at least *match* my Exp. II in the turf (and not even necessarily "spank" it), then that will be great !   Because it's lighter, water-proof, better in iron, etc...  What's not to  love ?  🙂

 

We may head back to SF for some more turf hunting.   Will report  back after that.

 

 

I like Cal   Cobra's videos, have him do  one so we can hear what he is dealing with.

[Dances With Doves]

With the  quality of the targets at your Ghost town   spots that alone is a good reason to get  one.You can also   use the  beach mode if the ground is  wet and salty in some of those spots.

 

[Chase Goldman]

3 hours ago, cjc said:

Hope they got his good side--guess they ran out of bearded guys.  

I had really hoped that 4kHz would be in the multi mix hence the stability gains by way of balance in the higher weighted modes ie P2.   Jury still out would like to hear from some salt water hunters on this. Never liked how the big coil performed in salt--same with the CTX's even bigger processor.  cjc 

Clive, most of the "magic" of Multi IQ is likely about how the target signal is processed not what and how many simultaneous individual constituent frequencies are transmitted by the coil.  There is ample evidence from those who have actually measured the individual frequency components being transmtted by the coil for the various Equinox modes, that all four of the. Park and Field modes across the board likely, simply use the two frequencies of 7.8 khz and 39 khz (5 to 1 frequency ratio) combined and transmitted simultaneously (different frequency combos are used for the Beach and Gold Multi IQ modes).  Yet each of those modes has very different responses to high and low conductive targets.  This can only be explained by postulating that the relative magnitudes of the two different transmit frequencies are varied from mode-to-mode and/or different signal processing algorithms are applied to the received target signals from mode-to-mode.  In fact, adding another discrete frequency to the simultaneous frequency mix would likely only degrade performance as transmit power would have to be shared between 3 vice 2 individually and simultaneously transmitted frequency signals, reducing depth performance (a case of where more is not necessarily better).   

That being said, it really appears that 4 khz has something different going on vs. the other five original single frequency settings and that may actually be indicatve of some additional signal processing magic.  Perhaps ML is attempting to optimize a new signal processing algorithm by getting it into the fielded Equinox machines as a massive beta test bed (albeit in a single frequency vice multifrequency application, to start) for potential incorporation into their next genera mtion Multi IQ platform (e.g., a Mu,ti IQ variant of the CTX).  All just hopeful speculation on my part.

I think Minelab just created a lot of consternation and confusion with their infamous "cloud" diagram (below) that implied but never actually confirmed that the 5 original individual single frequency settings of the 800 were also the individually transmitted, simultaneous multifrequency constituents of Multi IQ.  If this were actually true, then that would probably be one of the most craptastic multifrequency detector technology implementations of all time for the reason stated previously regarding power efficiency.  Adding 4 khz would just make the situation worse, as stated above.  Consistent with the sentiment that respected detector engineer Carl Moreland (Geotech) has expressed elsewhere on this board, and as an engineer myself, I am very disappointed that the ML engineering community allowed the marketeers to let that pseudoscience graphic design abomination see the light of day.  Reading more closely, it appears that the advantages of two different Equinox concepts/technologies/capabilities were attempting to be explained that were both rooted in the principle how targets of consisting of metals of different conductivity and magnetic properties respond differently to different transmit frequencies, simultaneous multi-frequency (Multi-IQ) and discrete selectable multifrequency (which ML dubs 5Fx8 on the 800 and 3Fx3 on the 600).  In the former, you can get away with just two or three simultaneously transmitted frequencies to get the desired "frequency spectrum effect" due to signal interference and harmonics when two or more frequencies are mixed (ironically, the principle of a beat frequency oscillator used by early BFO machines).  But to cover the same spectrum "ground" so to speak, using single selectable multifrequency requires a lot more discrete signal frequencies to be able to be transmitted one at a time (ML chose 5 and then eventually 6 for the Equinox 800...wonder if they have to call it 6Fx10, now and what about the 600, is that now 4Fx3.75? ).  These two concepts got smushed together somehow in the graphic below and most everyone got confused as a result (including me, until Carl and others helped me to understand how what ML was showing/implying in this diagram could not represent a practical working simultaneous multifrequency detector).

[Badger-NH]

In my test garden, Multi does not perform as well as the single frequencies. I'm starting to feel that Multi may only have a depth advantage in mineralized ground and possibly iron situations. Another advantage would be that Multi covers a wider range of metals but at a slight loss of overall depth in mineral free ground.

I'm not claiming this to be fact. It's all just speculation derived from my test garden results. I don't understand the electronics anywhere near the level of some of you here.

Lately I've been hunting in the single frequencies and have been happy with the results. 4 kHz does seem to have something special going on with it because it's the only frequency that will pick up the 12" silver dime and 15" silver quarter in my garden.

 

[GB_Amateur]

Thank you guys who have gotten us back on topic (discussing the V3.x update and its consequences). 

I was out "in the field" yesterday for (only ) 30 minute test.  I was searching in 4 kHz and target investigating with MultiFrequency.  The only plus I saw (admittedly very short time to be testing) for 4 kHz was that it was pretty quiet at gain=24 whereas MF had to be turned down to 22 for similar near quiet operation.  The TID's at 4 kHz were their usual (in my ground) upward shifted, with for example ring tabs hitting in the low- to mid-20's.  I'm going to my test garden today to compare 4 kHz and MF (with same gain setting) pseudo-depth on a 5 inch deep 95% copper Memorial.  Stay tuned.

BTW, if you didn't see my long post comparing v2.x and v3.x, which kind of got buried in the Equinox vs Explorer debate, you might want to look it over, too.  Currently it's on page 17 of this thread.