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Equinox 600 Vs Fisher F44 & F70


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Hi Everyone. I am new to this forum but have been gold prospecting and metal detecting for many years. I have used machines from just about every major maker of metal detectors with except XP.  I recent bought a Equinox 600 and have been testing it out.  I have been making a lot of test comparisons with my fishers etc. And I realized today that the 600 does not have a true all metal mode like my fishers. Closest setting is Park 2' with iron detect turned on, but thats it.  The 600 is not as sensitive as my F70 on small gold either when using the 15 hz setting.  It says in the manual that single freqencies (machines)  may have an advantage over multi freqs in certain situations. That fact really Shocked me. What's the point of using a multi freq machine if it is not superior in all situations?  I tested the 600 against my Fisher F44 and F70 using the standard 11 in Dd coils on the fishers and the standard 11 in dd on the equinox 600.  The fishers out performed the 600 in just about every test. The one exception was on wet sand saltwater beaches, The 600 was slightly better there using beach 2, but that's it! The F44 with sensitivity turned down was almost as good. The F44 is lighter by a half pound, which matters a lot in all day hunts  And finally it may be my familiarity with Fisher products but the fishers handle much better then the minelab 600 (coil wabble)  That said, The minelab is not a bad machine but I'll take the fishers over it any day. 

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35 minutes ago, Maltfoto said:

It says in the (Equinox) manual that single frenqencies (machines)  may have an advantage over multi freqs in certain situations. That fact really Shocked me. What's  the point of using a multi freq machine if it is not superior in all situations?

I recently bought a 4WD vehicle.  Should I expect it to be better in all situations than a 2WD vehicle?  Even that may not be a fair analogy because the Equinox (and most/all simultaneous multifrequency detectors) allow you to run in single frequency -- best of both worlds.

 

37 minutes ago, Maltfoto said:

I tested the 600 against my Fisher F44 and F70....

It would be nice for you to detail how these tests were performed.

 

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Maltfoto you should have probably got the 800 if your a nugget hunter.  More options (like Gold Mode) and control over those options. The 800 also has 20 and 40 kHz options for small gold sensitivity compared to 15 kHz on the 600.

 

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Hi Michael welcome to the forum!

I too would like to know exactly how you were doing your testing. Were you testing your Fishers in All Metal against the 600 in Park 2 with no iron discrimination?  That is probably not a fair test since as you said the 600 does not have a true unfiltered all metal mode. I routinely test my F19 in disc mode against my 600 in either Park 1 or Park 2 multi frequency, with iron discrimination at +2 on the 600 in my established test bed both using stock 11"DDs. Both detectors will hit the deepest targets but the difference is the F19 does not give anything close to an accurate target ID or a solid two-way beep on full sweeps. The 600 will give a solid two-way beep signal AND an accurate target ID. I usually do the test with the F19 at 90% sensitivity and the 600 at a 50% due to EMI issues. If I put the F19 in All Metal I will easily obtain good two-way beeps on sweeps but again the target ID is all over the place. I think the F70 and F44 would probably have similar results at least in my 4 bar 85 GB dirt . Maybe we could start a Metal Detector Comparison topic in the appropriate forum.

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Maltfoto 

Welcome to the forum and grab some popcorn. 

The best metal detector for you is the one that you are most comfortable and familiar with.  For context, it would be good to know what you found compelling about the Equinox in the first place that encouraged you to buy one, even though you appear to be happy and comfortable with your Fishers.  In other words, what were you expecting to see it do versus what your Fishers could already do.  Hope is wasn't the ridiculous ML hype machine, because if that is the standard you are holding it to, heaven help us all.  LOL.  Nevertheless, some good discussion points here.  It is often hard to have a valid apples to apples comparison when you are really comparing apples and oranges and may not have sufficient familiarity with the new machine to do a valid apples-to-apples comparison.  For example, you are forcing the 600 to go up against BOTH your F44 and F70.  I love when people do that.  As if you can run around with both of those machines in your hand at the same time.  The very fact that you needed to do the comparison in such a manner should tell you something, especially since you found things the Equinox could do better than either of the two Fishers.  The main advantage of the Equinox is not that it is king of any one type of detecting, but its versatility may enable you to just have to take one detector to a site vs. both the 44 and 70, for example.

The other thing people like to do is hold the Equinox up against machines like the CTX and Deus that are two to three times the cost of Equinox.  Funny thing is, it pretty much holds its own in those circumstances too. 

Is it the do everything, be everything machine?  No way.  As I said, its main advantage is versatility.  Can there be improvements? Certainly (the shaft system wonky and better target modulation come to mind).  And Minelab has responded with at least one firmware update.  How about First Texas and Whites?  I did not really enjoy sending my T2 and Whites MX Sport in for firmware updates to fix flaws with shipping at my expense and a detector out of my hands for upwards of two to three weeks.  Fun... 

Note that I own a Fisher F75 and am still hanging on to it post Equinox though I haven't put many swing hours on it since forever.   I love its ergonomics, which still haven't been exceeded by anything else on the street today that I have swung (still need to look at the newest Nokta and Makro offerings, though). But I primarily keep it around because I want to have a detector that can still accommodate concentric coils and I love the multitude of accessory coil varieties  (including solid body ellipticals) it can accommodate.  On the down side, it is only barely weather proof, falses badly at the beach unless I turn sensitivity way down.  Does not really have true adjustable recovery speed settings or adjustable operating frequencies (stuck at 14 khz, yay!).  The audio leaves A LOT to be desired.  If you are used to the Fisher audio and have not previously experienced either the Deus, I can see how you are not appreciating all the target information contained in the Equinox 50 tone audio mode.  Even the 5-tone mode customizations blow the Fisher out of the water.  Which is not saying much because you can't take the Fisher into the water to begin with....

2 hours ago, Maltfoto said:

And I realized today that the 600 does not have a true all metal mode like my fishers. Closest setting is Park 2' with iron detect turned on, but thats it.

Agree, it doesn't have true metal.  The key question is this:  That is a problem because why, exactly?  It would be great to hear why you think that is a drawback.  Few Equinox owners here have been bemoaning the lack of "true all metal" since last Spring as you can tell from the time stamp of the thread.  The 50 tone audio, mode switching, pinpoint, and other features help with target interrogation enough that using no disc is just fine.  Maybe if you could shed some more light on your detecting experiences and preferred type of hunting, that would help for context.

2 hours ago, Maltfoto said:

The 600 is not as sensitive as my F70 on small gold either when using the 15 hz setting.

If you wanted gold sensitivity in single frequency, you should have gotten the 800 which includes the single frequencies of 20 and 40 khz which has a higher affinity for gold.  Try an 800 at 20 khz vs. your 14 khz F70.  I have an F75 and the 800 runs circles around it on gold targets in multi and single (at 20 and 40 khz) using Field 2, Park 2, and of course Gold.  It gives the Deus HF variant run for its money too.  Note that while the 600 does not have 20 and 40 khz single frequency modes, it does use 20 and 40 khz in Multi.  Did you try your gold target test in Multi and in what modes vs. the F70?  Would like to know the result.

2 hours ago, Maltfoto said:

It says in the manual that single freqencies (machines)  may have an advantage over multi freqs in certain situations. That fact really Shocked me.

Yep that's true.  Why is that a shocker?  Plenty of situations where you want to zero in on a specific target type, say high conductiors at 5 khz or gold at 20 khz.  Single frequency can be used to interrogate a target to determine whether it is or isn't mixed ferrous (e.g., bottlecap), though, again, the audio usually gives it away if you have trained your ear.  Finally, single frequency can help you overcome extreme EMI situations that are wreaking havoc on multi modes.  I use single rarely because you do lose many of the advantages that multi brings to the table,  but when I do decide to pull that trick out of the bag, it works quite well and I am very glad I have the option to use it and have so many freqs to choose from.  Options are great to have aren't they?  Better yet, having enough experience to know when its appropriate to deploy them is also a great thing and lowers the shock factor so go out there and experiment with single some more, even though you are limited by the reduced feature set of the 600.

2 hours ago, Maltfoto said:

The fishers out performed the 600 in just about every test. The one exception was on wet sand saltwater beaches, The 600 was slightly better there using beach 2, but that's it! The F44 with sensitivity turned down was almost as good.

Would be great if you could provide more details including settings for each machine to see if perhaps you were really dealing with a 600 setup issue.  Again, I like that both Fishers had to take on the 600 to outperform it.  Bravo.

2 hours ago, Maltfoto said:

The F44 is lighter by a half pound, which matters a lot in all day hunts 

True statement.  The Deus is lighter by another pound.  I can swing either my Equinox or my Deus all day long and choose whichever is appropriate for the task at hand.  As I said before, I love the ergonomics of the Fishers.  Hard to beat. But remember, from a performance standpoint.  To beat out the 600 in all scenarios you would also have to lug out that F70, too.

 

2 hours ago, Maltfoto said:

The one exception was on wet sand saltwater beaches, The 600 was slightly better there using beach 2, but that's it! The F44 with sensitivity turned down was almost as good.

So I guess that's a win for the 600.  Probably would do even better in the surf with Beach 2, but not so sure you would want to chance it with the F44.

Looking forward to further discussions and comparisons, report back with more info if you can. 

Regardless, the machines you have are decent. If they do what you need them to do, it is hard for someone to refute that and convince you that the 600 or even the 800 are better.  You have swung the 600, if you are not impressed, then you have your answer.  I don't think people like me pontificating on the virtues of the Equinox are going to change your perspective, but thanks for listening.  Perhaps there are a few nuggets in what I had to say that may help you get a little bit more out of that 600.

Cheers

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4 hours ago, Maltfoto said:

. . .

The 600 is not as sensitive as my F70 on small gold either when using the 15 hz setting.  

. . .

How does the 600 compare on small gold in the Park 2 and Field 2 modes?  Some have reported that the Equinox is quite sensitive to small gold in those modes (do wide open as otherwise Field 2 discriminates out some gold).

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Hi. Gang, It looks like I created quite Firestorm.  If I knew I was posting in the equinox fan club forum, out of respect for all of your opinions I would have refrained from posting most of my comments. That said. I stand behind all my statements. In the future I will reply to most of your comments but now  I must eat dinner.  BTW I did the gold test with 2 gram 22k gold nugget 2 ways  as a air test and by burying the nugget in medium mineralized  soil at 6 ins. The F70 did a better job of detecting both times The test was done in Park 2, Field 2, at 15hz and beach 2 at multi Yes, the 600 did a fair job but the F70 was better. 

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Welcome!

As others have mentioned, the Equinox 800 is what you should be looking at, it will obsolete those Fishers and has a true threshold based gold prospecting mode.  If you check the Detector Prospector forum here, you'll see that the EQ800 has been doing quite well holding it's own, even against many gold machines that are priced higher than the EQ800.  

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Hi Michael,

No problem with creating an interesting topic for all of us. Most of us here are well acquainted with the F70/F75/F19/Gold Bug Pros and like them very much, so you are not in a hostile environment. Once again, if you could give more information about the settings for the F70 it would be easier for those of us interested to get a good idea of how the different detectors are being compared. My F19 would blow my ears off on a 2 gram nugget if it is not too porous, buried at around 6" in medium soil in roughly full gain All Metal mode. In disc it would probably make a few good squeaks. My 600 would definitely hit that in multi or 15khz in undiscriminated Park 2 at full gain. My 800 would scream at me in either Gold Mode with the 6" coil on that target.

Jeff

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On 12/2/2018 at 6:08 PM, Maltfoto said:

Hi. Gang, It looks like I created quite Firestorm.  If I knew I was posting in the equinox fan club forum, out of respect for all of your opinions I would have refrained from posting most of my comments.

That can happen when you drop into the Chevy forum to let everyone know you prefer your Ford! :laugh: This topic has been moved to appropriate forum. Welcome to the forums Maltfoto.

No worries, I sure don't want you refraining, just that this forum is the better venue for "this versus that" type of discussions. Neutral ground, so to speak. :smile:

 

 

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