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Fisher F75 Giving The Equinox A Good Old Butt Kicking


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I stumbled across this video of the F75 finding a silver coin deeper than the Equinox, and then he goes on to show the F75 performing better finding a coin between iron.

What are your thoughts on this one? I never did bother buying a F75 even though a SE edition came up for sale extraordinary cheap nearby to me, my experience with my T2 had me thinking my Nox was better in almost all situations, was I wrong?    I'm a bit puzzled by this video and I guess it could be soil conditions or something but I've found my Nox far better on deep silver than my T2 and I sure have experimented a lot on untouched in ground silvers.

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Not sure how a F75 would go on the beach.. I know the Nox (600 and 800) with big coils (both ML and Coiltek) punch deep on the beach, not matter how wet or salty the sand.. All my silver coins were found on the beach with a Nox and I've compared them to the Gold Bug Pro, Gold Monster, Gofind and a X-Terra 705 in the same location.. The F75 is an unknown beast for me.. but I don't think I'd swap it for a Nox for beach detecting..   

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In my experience (and that includes my soil's mineralization), the depths are more/less comparable for coins, but the Minelab Equinox holds its TID much better than the Fisher F75, which tends to make deeper coins sound ferrous.

I recall reading some reviews on other metal detecting sites saying something about the F75 being a great relic detector but not a coin killer.  Since some relic hunters dig it all (because iron relics can be prized), that kinda makes sense based upon my experience.

I'd be surprised if the F75 performed much differently than the T2.

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First, I have total, undying respect for the F75 and the T2. I am not going to speak about them except to say that the reviewer obviously knows his F75 very well and knows what it can and can't do.

Now, if I wanted to do a head to head on planted targets that I know my F75 can handle versus the Equinox 600........would I learn the Equinox 600 well before doing the video in order to actually make it an optimized head to head? I would. I would not plan to make a public video and call up my detector dealer the day before and ask what settings I should use. Has the dealer detected the video maker's test garden? Does the dealer know his soil conditions?  

Anyway, an 11" silver US dime is no joke of a target. That is tough for just about any detector. The video maker does report in the comment section of the video that his dirt is 2 to 3 bar dirt (out of 6 bars on the F75), so fairly mild mineralization. He uses default Park 1 on both tested targets with iron discriminated out. If he has an updated 600 the Fe or F2 iron bias setting is 2 (=4 on the Nox 800). The 11" dime target sounds like it has enough iron around it to result in the Equinox detection tones breaking up over the target. So already this is not a fair test. Press the horseshoe button and lower the iron bias to F2= 1 or 0, raise the sensitivity a bit and swing a little slower. Also, I would try Park 2 or Field 2, 2 tones, nothing discriminated and play with the iron bias. The higher frequency weighting might just hit more of that deep silver dime if it is being masked at all.

I got a good laugh when he said he was going to turn on the iron tone........(horseshoe button) definitely knows the Nox 600 well....not!

The same happens during the wheat penny in between iron target scenario. Lowering F2 to 0 with nothing discriminated is where I would start on that target and I would probably use Park 2 or Field 2 in 2 tones not 50 and adjust things from there. 

The F75 with his settings in those soil condition may still be better, but at least give the Equinox a chance.

 

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It is my understanding (I think from the Equinox Manual, can’t remember) that the 600  recovery speed settings of 1, 2 and 3 equal the 800s settings of 2, 4 and 6. So the 600 does not have the 800s recovery speed settings of 1, 3, 5, 7 and 8.

That really is a lot of important recovery speed settings that the 600 doesn’t have. The situation is similar with iron bias too.

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I would say from my experiences using all 3 machines. F75,T2 and 800. F75 and T2 were great back in the days and maybe ahead of times back then. Now days ya can't take me away from my 800 or Deus.

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Thanks for sharing that video, Phrunt.  It's enjoyable watching someone use the F75 that is familiar with it.   Especially in dP audio which I use often myself.

You should pick one up someday when you get the chance.   It's not a T2.   I think you would like it.   Very capable on both High and Low conductors.  

 I prefer the DST model over the non DST model personally as my EMI is quite high.  I think the performance difference between the two is only 0.2 tenths of an inch, although listening to some people talk you would think it was a foot.

It is designed to be a true treasure tool.

HH

Mike

 

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If there is one thing I'm not it's a detector snob, I'm always willing to give anything a go and more often than not I'm pleasantly surprised, detectors that aren't the flavour of the month can still be very good detectors especially in my soil and low junk conditions.

I'm quite disappointed I didn't buy the F75 SE that was for sale, it was only 30 minutes drive away and was only $287 USD with two coils and rarely used, it looked brand new.  😞   The reason I didn't is I've already got two T2's, one with DST and one without.  I much prefer the DST model.

For me to even buy an aftermarket coil for it would almost cost the price of it and I knew if I bought it I'd want another coil for it 🙂, I've been kicking myself over that as buying US made detectors here is quite rare as the market is dominated by ML and Nokta.

If I see another ever pop up, or more than likely that same one I'll grab it and give it a go.

 

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