Equinox Performance

[DDancer]

While I'm still debating the two models I already have two test parks in mind that will give a yea or nay on the EQ.  I call them test parks because they have been flogged regularly by each wand I've possessed and that is the telling information to me.  I just hope I get there before the detector club down the road does ;)

[Mark Gillespie]

2 hours ago, MikePfeiffer said:

Mark, About 40 years ago I was at a silver mine in southern Virginia. I think some where near Fancy Gap. There were wooden planks covering the opening to the mine. The problem was the shaft was straight down. Don' remember how to get there, just remembering being there.

Wow, I'm less than 50 miles from there.  Very interesting.

 

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, DDancer said:

While I'm still debating the two models I already have two test parks in mind that will give a yea or nay on the EQ.  I call them test parks because they have been flogged regularly by each wand I've possessed and that is the telling information to me.  I just hope I get there before the detector club down the road does ;)

I'm thinking the same thing.  I have a new park which was previously a 19th Century homestead.  I've found Wheaties, Indian Heads, silver coin (just one so far), a Mexican-American War button, old agricultural pieces, silverware, lead bullets, gunshells, and a million nails!  There are still 10 times that many nails there with goodies masked in between.  When I get the Eq I'm headed there almost before I get it out of the box.

[Steve Herschbach]

4 hours ago, Redneck said:

The one piece of information I am eagerly awaiting Steve to show us when he is able, Is the picture of all the silver coins he has found in city parks using the EQ800.

You won't have to wait much longer. My silver detecting was an exercise in trying to make the most of limited time. I got cut off just over two weeks ago by other business, and when I got back to Reno ten days ago the ground was frozen. And this morning I see snow on the ground. I knew this would happen and so was basically rat-holing the silver story for later when I would not be able to be detecting. I was also waiting for a lull between now and actual delivery to post the story. My plan is to write something up just after an official delivery announcement gets made, which should not be much longer now. In the meantime I just had a tooth pulled and so between waiting for the swelling to go down and the holiday week not much is getting done this week either except for bench testing. As soon as is practical I will be driving "over the hill" in search of thawed ground to detect on, probably about a week from now. I need to start making new finds so I have something to post about once the silver story is out!

[Cabo Chris]

6 hours ago, Mark Gillespie said:

Cabo, I agree with all your points, belief in a machine makes a huge difference in how I approach hunting any site.  I know I shouldn't do this but the XP Dues will be the comparison machine with the Equinox.  The Deus was really good at pulling goodies out of assumed hunted out sites and I have over 3 years of hard hunting experience which adds a lot of confidence. 

Too bad the Deus is not waterproof.  It will be good to read your comparison.

[Steve Herschbach]

I am sure that when the rubber hits the road lots of people will be doing comparisons to the Deus, AT Max, etc. Fine detectors and I for one will not be participating in trying to convince anyone otherwise. Sounds like a shooting war ready to break out (elsewhere) and I for one will sit on the sidelines and watch the resulting festivities with great interest.

 

[Go-rebels]

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

...except for bench testing.

Steve, will you be doing any bench (air) test comparisons between the Equinox and other Minelab products under various settings?

[Steve Herschbach]

Great question!

If anyone Googles away they will see that depth test comparisons have not been something I have published in the past. As the photo above shows I had plenty of opportunity to test the Equinox against other machines including the CTX 3030. My tests are done in field on targets I find while the targets are still in the ground.

The bottom line is simple. I am not out to prove anything to anyone except myself. I proved to my own satisfaction that Equinox performance is such that I am quite comfortable with using it in the future without feeling I am at a serious disadvantage compared to anything else VLF that I have used. For me it is not so much trying to prove Equinox is better than anything else but more a case of proving to myself that nothing else would have a serious leg up either. In the end I sold all my other VLF detectors with three exceptions. The Gold Monster, Makro Gold Racer, and White's V3i. The V3i I have to keep to run my Bigfoot coil. The Gold Monster I like for its simplicity and for it being more a work tool I don't mind beating up and because I need more time with both it and Equinox before deciding if the Gold Monster stays or goes. And the Makro Gold Racer I am keeping just because I have a soft spot for it because it was almost like Makro made it just for me. Not true but it was them that made it when nobody else would make a detector like it.

So out of the detectors pictured above the Nokta Impact, Teknetics G2 (19 khz Gold Bug Pro variant), CTX 3030, and Deus all have found new homes.

Note that I am not saying these are not great detectors and that there might be things some of them do better than the Equinox. It is just that I really, really like the Equinox, it does most anything I could ever want of a VLF, and it does it very well across the board. I am convinced that if I have an Equinox that in most cases I will have an actual technological advantage over users of other detectors. And in cases where another machine might have an edge, such cases are rare enough or minor enough (or in my case perhaps simply undiscovered) that it has completely let the air out of any desire I had to own other VLF detectors. By the end of 2018 the Gold Monster and Gold Racer may even be gone. Only the V3i has serious protection in the form of the Bigfoot coil.

My goal in setting up this forum was not to prove the Equinox is better than anything else. My goal was to create a forum for people who have decided Equinox is for them for whatever reason, and have a place to learn about it and have fun. What I really do not have is any burning need to prove to anyone they have to have an Equinox or that it is better than this or that. The commentary on various forums about how testers can't be trusted and people desiring to wait for unbiased reviews has had the desired effect. I see no upside in getting involved in all that and so I will not.

If doing comparative tests was a concern of mine I would have kept the detectors, but I did get rid of them and I sure don't plan on replacing them. So I have nothing left to test and for me at least questions of this versus that are behind me and put to rest anyway. The best bet from multiple angles is for people to wait for truly third party reports for such things. The good news is people should be seeing their machines by the end of January, and the internet will be flooded immediately after with nothing but videos and reports on the Equinox from sources far and wide.

What you can expect from me is any tips, help, or answers that I can provide that will help an Equinox owner any way I can. My goal right now is for the final tweaking to get wrapped up and the lid fully off so I can dive into more detail about what Equinox does. And then I plan on using the Equinox as much as I can in 2018 and reporting along with others any information discovered that might help us all.

The bench testing I referred to in the post above is not Equinox versus other machines but simply me trying to find bugs for Minelab to fix. "I wonder if pressing these three buttons at once will make the detector explode.....?" 

[Go-rebels]

Thx Steve.  With the ground frozen where you're at, can you share any quantitative measurements taken on the bench?  For example, how far can the Equinox see a dime at constant sensitivity under the various frequency options?  Or under multi-frequency mode with various reactivities?

[DDancer]

12 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

 "I wonder if pressing these three buttons at once will make the detector explode.....?" 

Indeed!  But if you press the fourth button a magical back hoe deploys and digs for you I suspect.  LOL

Look forward to the wars myself, elsewhere, but I'm content to sit on the fence a bit longer.