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Equinox Vs Tarsacci. Does This Equal More Nuggets?


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Hi Steve, I did get a Tarsacci. I posted the following on this forum on February 6th in a different thread-

"I pulled the trigger and bought  a Tarsacci MDT 8000. Like in the Johnny Cash song I drove right down to the factory and picked it up. Well, not quite, but close. I was only about 100 miles away from Merced vacationing so I made arrangements and drove down and met with Dimitar, the designer. I spent  a couple hours with him. First, learning About the Tarsacci, then discussing its mineral handling capabilities and prospecting possibilities, then trying it out. We did some air tests on coins and nuggets and detected some test bed targets. I had my Deus with me so we did some comparison testing. The weather sucked and I needed to haul my carcass up to Oregon pronto so we did not do exhaustive testing but we did enough that I felt confident buying the machine. Dimitar did not pressure me to buy his detector. The detector sold itself. A week previous to this I was looking to buy an Equinox which I am no longer interested in at this time. In the interest of full disclosure I do not intend to use this machine only for gold nugget prospecting. I also enjoy relic hunting so the capabilities I witnessed that applied to both types of detecting made my decision for me.

This machine has been marketed as a beach machine. I had about one hour of beach detecting experience up until yesterday. Now I have about 3. I played around with it on a beach in Oregon with a fair amount of black sand and see some decent performance( I think). What I am seeing on the beach is making me all itchy to go some where there is some bad dirt instead of sand.

The Tarsacci is an interesting machine. The build quality of the rod is the best I have ever seen, top notch. I hope the rest of the machine lives up to that standard. I don't want to say much more as I just have so little time on the machine. And of course there is the human factor. I just paid a fair amount of coin for this detector so I must have liked it. Not being perfect I am likely wearing rose colored glasses now when it comes to my new toy.

If some of you guys are like me where you have just reached that point in life where you have no interest or physically can not dig every target on God's green earth then this machine may be one to follow its journey through the gold and relic fields."

Since I posted that I have not been out detecting with the Tarsacci very much. When I have I was at "bed of nails" locations doing some relic hunting, which is not exactly the Tarsacci's forte but it actually does fairly well in that circumstance. Once, I did take it to a pounded nugget location for a couple hours. I would classify the mineralization as medium at that site. I did not find any gold but neither did my partner with his GBII. The Tarsacci seemed to run good at this location. It will be interesting to see it's performance in some really hot ground.

I did do some testing of the Tarsacci against the Equinox at Stricks' test bed site. We recently planted this test bed. The soil is medium mineralization in an area of bad EMI. Strick and I planted a half dozen coins at depths which are challenging for the Equinox at this location. We also planted another half dozen coins at shallow depths in co-located with iron scenarios. On every coin that was planted with out iron co-located the Tarsacci was able to generate a better response to the signal versus the Equinox. On every co-located target the Equinox did a better job of separating the targets. I am not saying the Tarsacci could not detect the majority of the co-located targets. Just that the Equinox generated better signals when coins were co-located with iron.

I know this post is very sparse in content about gold hunting with the Tarsacci and I don't anticipate having much more to contribute for a few months due to demands of work, and continuing education. One of you retired gents should pull the trigger on a Tarsacci and really work it over in a review.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Merton. I probably saw that but am going in a million directions at once these days so getting scatterbrained!

I am glad they are working on this machine but personally I am not seeing enough to make me pull the trigger. I need a PI more than a VLF and don't need one of those enough to buy anything currently on the market.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello Goldbrick,

     Recently picked up the MDT and like you drove to Merced,  a short 105 mile drive from my area. Dimitar was great, very friendly, helpful and never pressured me. 

     Haven’t used the MDT in water yet, and it’s really designed for tough water mineralization but it does well for inland hunting which I’ve already experienced.

     Used the MDT on a few relic hunts, with very favorable results. Is deeper over all my non-Pi detectors, out in open ground is that is .  Doesn’t do well in areas with a lot of iron, but in open areas especially with poor soil is definitely deeper a good 1” to 2” inches.

     The GPX 5000 is wearing me out, Have been waiting for a non-Pi to come providing a stronger signal than other VLF in poor soil.  After viewing David’s and another Tarsacci users videos, decided to get one.

     Yes it’s no GPX, but it’s very lightweight and does get better depth over other top end Non-Pi detectors in my area. Sure has it’s weaknesses, but it’s strenght outweigh the negative. 

     Appreciate you sharing the MDT, not too many MDT post out there glad I found yours.

Good luck, and enjoy the MDT.

Paul

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Hi Paul. Congratulations on your Tarsacci purchase. My limited experience with this detector closely mirrors your own. While not my number one choice for either relic or gold nugget hunting I think this detector will be used on a regular basis by me in scenarios that utilize the strong points of the Tarsacci. I don't have enough experience in iron infested relic scenarios to have a definitive opinion about it's performance there. I do think it has much better separation than many may think but depth wise in iron no detector does well so I think I will stick with my Deus in the nail beds.

Near the end of May I hope to have the Tarsacci in that hell hole of mineralization, Plumas County, LOL. It will be interesting to see how the Tarsacci  performs on steep, blasting cap infested tailings. The ones a GPX will work you to death on. Also in hydraulic mines and in areas hot rocks may be bothersome.

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  • 9 months later...
On 2/9/2019 at 1:09 PM, Ridge Runner said:

Maybe it would be best to take a look at the cost of each detector first before doing a comparison.

 You said the Tar. got 13” on the quarter and the Nox hit it at 10”

  Let’s look at it this way the cost of the Nox is 899.00 divided by 10”= 89.90

 It cost you 89.90 per inch on the Nox to detect that quarter 

 What’s the cost of the Tar. about 1500.00

1500 divided by 13”=115.38

cost you 115,38 per inch on the Tar.

 The thing is the Tar cost lots more and for your money you should be getting more depth,

 This based on what was said the original cost of the Tar.

 Chuck 

Nox price was to suck in buyers.  They could have sold them for way more. I don’t think it is new technology just refined. That’s why price is so low.    

A 3 inch difference to the Nox is a big jump in depth. What if that quarter was a rare one.
Your comparison to price per inch cracks me up reminds me of buying a house.😁

HH

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32 minutes ago, Denny said:

Nox price was to suck in buyers.  They could have sold them for way more. I don’t think it is new technology just refined. That’s why price is so low.    

I suspect then that you might be surprised when you actually get to see a refined version of Multi-IQ instead of what we have now. But you are right, none of this is technically new, including Tarsacci. Time domain processing applied to frequency domain detectors, so-called hybrids, started with Minelab BBS detectors, if not before.

I also agree price percentage analysis makes no sense. Gold prospectors will pay thousands of dollars for just one more inch of depth. You have to consider that extra inch might get a one pound nugget. Or in the case of Tarsacci a large diamond and emerald encrusted platinum ring.

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