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You Know, For An Old, Outdated Detector The Equinox Isn't Too Shabby


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Were they though? Sure, the old detectors were not made obsolete, they still work as well as they ever did.... but for most people now they just sit in the cupboard rarely used replaced by multi frequency machines thanks to the Nox kicking it off, and owning the market.

Other companies have been forced to jump on the band wagon making their detectors SMF too or they knew they would struggle to sell detectors with the Nox being the dominant force in the market.  Obsolete may have been too strong of a word, but one thing is for sure the Nox shook up the market to an extraordinary level.

Good things come from that though, it woke up the sleepy competition, XP had sat on the Deus since 2009, over a decade, Garrett popped out with the Apex after sitting there on the ACE series since 2004 so the Apex was a big jump for them in that series.  Their flagship AT series were no better really, they had and are still sitting on them since 2010.. all these are well over a decade of absolutely nothing.  Now Nokta Makro are a different story, they seemed to pump out a new detector every 6 months to a year, but never a simultaneous multi frequency until the Nox forced their hand, they had to make one and out pops the Legend. 

Obsolete maybe questionable but one things for sure, the other manufacturers seemed to be worried enough about it to act on it after decades of doing nothing as if their detectors were obsolete, and perhaps they were.

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On 10/3/2022 at 5:41 PM, Bill (S. CA) said:

With all of the talk about the Manticore, Deue II and Legend, I thought I would take out my old Equinox and see if the poor outdated detector could find anything.  Son of a gun, it still works.

Yes that's sarcasm.  I hadn't been to the parks in many many months with my Equinox so I decided to hit an old LA park Sunday morning just for fun.  While I didn't hit anything great, I was reminded of what a truly exceptional detector the Equinox is.  Its separation with the stock coll in high trash is just astonishing.  I hunted a slope by an old merry-go-round in Griffith Park, a spot that has been hit and hit and hit and hit for many years.  It is literally a carpet of low conductors.  If you want do dig 15's through 18's all day let me know and I'll send you the GPS coordinates.

Despite all of this trash i was able to pull out over two bucks in long-burined, dirty clad, including a 1951S Wheatie.  It was really fun and I just love the way that the Equinox can see through the trash.  The only downer for me was that I couldn't pull one single nickel despite digging a ton of 13's.  This slope had a lot of a certain type of old pull tab that read a solid 13 with good tone and they fooled me every time.  Anybody else run into these buggers?

In summing up, I'll just say that I'm interested in these new machines just like everybody else.  But this hunt reminded me of what a special detector the Equinox is and personally I am in no hurry to send it to the closet. 

Bill

Tabs.jpg

I don't know if it works for nickels - I sometimes use 10k or 5k if I'm after coins only. Pulltabs stay at 13/16, but our european clad get's IDed significantly higher than in multi freq.

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On 10/18/2022 at 12:14 PM, phrunt said:

Were they though? Sure, the old detectors were not made obsolete, they still work as well as they ever did.... but for most people now they just sit in the cupboard rarely used replaced by multi frequency machines thanks to the Nox kicking it off, and owning the market.

Other companies have been forced to jump on the band wagon making their detectors SMF too or they knew they would struggle to sell detectors with the Nox being the dominant force in the market.  Obsolete may have been too strong of a word, but one thing is for sure the Nox shook up the market to an extraordinary level.

Good things come from that though, it woke up the sleepy competition, XP had sat on the Deus since 2009, over a decade, Garrett popped out with the Apex after sitting there on the ACE series since 2004 so the Apex was a big jump for them in that series.  Their flagship AT series were no better really, they had and are still sitting on them since 2010.. all these are well over a decade of absolutely nothing.  Now Nokta Makro are a different story, they seemed to pump out a new detector every 6 months to a year, but never a simultaneous multi frequency until the Nox forced their hand, they had to make one and out pops the Legend. 

Obsolete maybe questionable but one things for sure, the other manufacturers seemed to be worried enough about it to act on it after decades of doing nothing as if their detectors were obsolete, and perhaps they were.

Speaking of fanboys.........and people that don't want to or are unable to let go of their single frequency detectors or their overweight Whites and Minelab SMFs from the turn of the century, I always chuckle when I read that stuff. 

For me, the APEX is an okay detector, so is the Vanquish. The Legend, Equinox and Deus 2 are definitely a cut above, not just because they have more versatile ground handling SMF tech and are mostly waterproof and wireless.......they also have fantastic selectable single frequency choices which work great when they are needed.

The Equinox Multi IQ tech and the Equinox selectable single frequency tech along with similar tech on the Legend and Deus 2 at least for me have definitely made owning any other single frequency or selectable single frequency only detector that I own or have owned absolutely obsolete as far as would I buy one new at a similar price opposed to an Equinox, Legend or Deus 2......I would be nuts to do that.

So, I think obsolete was a good word to use. I think Minelab was not specific enough when they used that word concerning the Equinox and should have made it clear that with the Equinox, people are getting a simultaneous multi frequency detector and a selectable single frequency detector that is fairly lightweight, has wireless audio, internal rechargeable battery, is supposedly waterproof and can handle just about any ground/beach conditions and is sensitive to a huge range of target conductivity and size. That had not been done before. I had to own several VLFs to equal all the things the Equinox could do by itself.

Other than too many regularly encountered aluminum targets (don't mean canslaw) showing up in the 11 to 14 target ID range and no pitch tones for the Equinox Park and Field modes, the Equinox is still a fantastic detector and well worth the money at least in the USA. 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Most of us have moved on with multifrequency or are doing so. Yes, single frequency will be around for entry level or specialized niche detectors. But time moves on, and you can either move with it, or be an old fuddy duddy living in the past. :smile:

What would be nice is after four years, Minelab took some of the improvements made with Manticore, and refreshed the Equinox with an update. No new electronics, but some new hardware would be nice. That Manticore rod is what most of us wanted, and many of us made for ourselves or bought aftermarket. If I were Minelab, I'd would ditch the leaky Nox pod and replace it with the Manticore pod. Reduce having two pods with one for production economy of scale, and eliminate some of the warranty expense Nox has been incurring. Win win. Equinox II + Manticore = More Sales

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Manticore is a high margin detector for them, the Nox not so much, so they'll be quite happy that dealers will be up-selling the customers to the Manticore by pointing out the issues with the Nox, they'll be showing the new fancy coil ears that won't break like the Nox ears and have a few pictures floating around of broken Nox ears, and they'll talk about the new improved Pod that is now much more waterproof.  If the dealer judges the customer can't budget for the Manticore they'll just not talk about that and sell them the tried and proven successful Nox, the most successful best selling VLF of all time. 

They have these marketing tidbits like the 50% more power to the coils to further make the Manticore look far superior.

Yes as customers we would like the Equinox to take on the improvements they've made to the Manticore, but as a business they know they've sold a bulk of the Equinox they were going to sell, now its just a trickle compared to early on, they want the Manticore with its much higher margins to take a bulk of the sales now.

If they released a new Nox pod based off the Manticore that comes on all newly sold Noxes I can just imagine how many people with under warranty old model Noxes will try drown it to get the new improved Pod.  If they did new shafts the same thing would go on.  The better they made the Nox with these improvements the less Manticores they would sell as they need to justify the much higher price with these extras.  What surprises me is they never worked out why the original pod leaks, and fix whatever design fault causes that, new ones rolling out now seem just as likely to leak as originals from years ago and that's just weird, it must be cheaper to just replace them when it happens than it would be to resolve the problem.  I guess we'd be very surprised how little a Nox Pod really costs them though.

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Yes, I'm sure the parts to repair a Nox is cheap to them, but, they don't get shipping for free, and the stain on their reputation quality has turned many off in buying one.

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4 minutes ago, cudamark said:

Yes, I'm sure the parts to repair a Nox is cheap to them, but, they don't get shipping for free, and the stain on their reputation quality has turned many off in buying one.

what you just stated is what kept me from jumping on a nox I just could not get past the build quality issues and they are why I jumped on the Legend band wagon I have no regrets in my decision in going with the Legend, I do not believe a single frequency detector will ever be obsolete or Mine Lab, Nokta/Macro and XP would not have made it possible to switch to single frequencies, the Legend, Equinox and Deus2 just gives you several detectors in one

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36 minutes ago, phrunt said:

so they'll be quite happy that dealers will be up-selling the customers to the Manticore by pointing out the issues with the Nox

No, that is exactly what they do not want. They want dealers selling the Equinox compared to the competition, and fixing a few things would help with that. Minelab could care less what Minelab you buy, as long as it is a Minelab. The goal is to compete with the competition, not yourself.

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6 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

No, that is exactly what they do not want. They want dealers selling the Equinox compared to the competition, and fixing a few things would help with that. Minelab could care less what Minelab you buy, as long as it is a Minelab. The goal is to compete with the competition, not yourself.

I guess you're right, I've never been involved with sales, I'd make a terrible sales person 🙂  But yes, when you think about it at the moment there is some fierce competition to the Nox in the market place making a detector that has already well sold past it peak sell even less.  It needs something to bring sales back to it and with the competition making a mockery of the build quality of the Nox and saying theirs is much better, and more for less then I can see the Nox is going to struggle now.

I was thinking as myself, I'd no longer buy a Nox now the Manticore is coming, if my Nox dies it won't get replaced with another Nox.

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11 hours ago, phrunt said:

I was thinking as myself, I'd no longer buy a Nox now the Manticore is coming, if my Nox dies it won't get replaced with another Nox.

I think there are many people who would (have to) choose the Nox over a Manticore - even if it's just for the price.

And even that is a tough one .. at the moment, Nokta cranks out the Legend for 499€, 599€ with headphones, 699€ for the pro pack with headphones, 11" + 6" coil, extra battery - while the Nox 800 is on sale for 899€..

For the brand-unbiased users, that's pretty much a no-brainer imho.

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