Steve Herschbach

I only tried the WM 08 a couple times because the lag with the wireless phones is minimal or not enough that I even think about it. That being the case the WM 08 is just one less gizmo to deal with. I don’t know about the long term durability but I find the wireless phones suit me just fine - light, comfortable, decent sound. I can’t remember the last time I ever liked and used the headphones that came with a detector. This may be a first for me.

This would be more in specific reference to the U.S. I believe as shipping/customs issues are apparently causing things to be a bit slower elsewhere. Nothing much anyone can do about that sort of stuff. The point is they are cranking them out and shipping them and it will not be all summer or all year as some people have been speculating.

Good man!

Tough call. Can’t argue with Fred at all on that one. The alternative might be the TDI simply because PI detectors love ferrous targets

Holy Cow, it’s George Kinsey! Welcome George, and I am extremely curious when you have time to tell it like it is on Equinox from your perspective and personal detecting requirements. I think that is a great find but I am too ignorant to know!

Official word from Minelab, “Our goal is to fulfill all backorders by end of March”. This is not to say everyone will be waiting that long. Batches will be going out periodically with the second batch shipping shortly.

I can pass this on. Minelab is committed to have all backordered detectors by the end of March. This is not to say everyone will be waiting that long. Batches will be going out periodically with the second batch shipping shortly.

Well to be clear I am not looking to buy it myself. The point I was making is that $150 is a real giveaway price.

No, not yet Terry. If he does it will likely be either on the forum or Treasure Talk where the information first appears.

If you don’t want it I will buy it for twice that even if it is not working, get it repaired, and then sell it for $900. A recent TDI sold used for $1300 though I think that is a bit high. The old ones seem to be gaining value on the used market now that they are out of production. The rechargeable battery may very well be dead from sitting to long. The battery alone can run a couple hundred bucks. They are no longer listed on the White’s website so aftermarket options may be all that are available now. http://www.detectorprospector.com/gold-prospecting-equipment/whites-tdi-pulse-induction-metal-detector.htm

The Bluetooth has been working so well for me I have only used the WM08 a couple times.

Equinox has huge amounts of volume when set right. I have poor hearing and I actually have to turn it down.

That is not to imply the Equinox matches the GPZ 7000 for power. It is just that for where I hunt gold and the gold I generally find Equinox may do just fine for me. With less money invested and far less weight on my arm. They will ride together all summer for comparative purposes so it will be fall before I fully evaluate that situation. The bottom line is my detecting is shifting from crazy hard core to a more casual mode.

Sounds good Steve except the weird ring thing. I have no idea on that... my best suggestion is do a factory reset and try again.

For now. That is just my insurance policy. At the end of this summer I will go to round two of my weeding process. Several more units will probably go away.

I have hunted Florida beaches just a tiny little bit. Most are HUGE and hunted by entire troops of local retirees daily. My main advice - extreme patience. Targets can be very few and far between. You almost have to live there so you can take advantage of storm conditions that strip beaches of sand. Otherwise beaches get “sanded in” between storms and the only finds are what was dropped in the last few weeks - and missed by the troops. I would personally seek out weird oddball places that might be less hunted. Any big popular beaches are obvious targets and very well hunted.

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Equinox comes with a full set of different language screen protectors. Use the one you prefer and the rest are backups that can be used as is, or the lower portion with the menu options can be trimmed off and discarded. They are really just “training wheels” for people new to the Minelab icon set. People who have used models like the E-TRAC, X-Terra, and CTX will already know what most of these icons mean.

I have to bump this as it is extremely important for people who are comparing Equinox modes to understand the different modes have different ground balance settings. If you ground balance in one mode and then start comparing other modes without ground balancing them you will not be comparing apples to apples.

Terry and I and some others have a similar problem. We are getting older and we have too many detectors. When I got my hands on Equinox I had the same epiphany as Terry - I just don’t need all these other detector’s anymore, and this one is lighter and more capable than all of them so time to simplify things. If I had to get rid of every detector I own but one, I would keep the Equinox. And that includes my GPZ 7000!

Minelab actually shipped out a lot of units, and it is obvious now they scattered them around to dealers all over and not all just to a few large dealers. The reality people have to keep in mind is most detector users are not on the internet. I have gone to club meetings where 100 people were present and was quite surprised at how few people would raise hands when asked if they visit forums or other internet “groups”. When you see what happened on some sites with Equinox that should not surprise anyone. The good news is we are starting to see more reports than anticipated just a couple weeks ago as people check in.

Gold coin numbers - thanks Steve! Did you get an Equinox yet and report on it? If so I missed that.

JP did get those small bits at depth in Australian soil. That was me just tweaking a friend! Everyone says they hate hype so I have been underselling the capability of the Equinox in nearly all regards. Part of the fun of the intro has been sitting back and letting people discover this machine for themselves. I think Equinox will end up displacing most single frequency gold nugget detectors eventually but it may take a model make specifically for prospecting for that to really happen, or at least some coils made specifically for the purpose. The power is there for sure, Multi-IQ is really powerful. Just mind my caveat - it is not a GPX 5000 or a GPZ 7000. However when it comes to weight and price that’s not entirely a bad thing. When it comes to gold in Australian soil however I have learned to never speak for Aussies so I can promise JP will be saying a lot more on the subject soon. Just hang in there folks!

If you have ferrous rejected you can get high tone false signals from ferrous. Accepting ferrous so that you can hear the ferrous low tone component of the signal will eliminate the vast majority of ferrous because you will then discern the target is throwing off 95% low tones with a few high tone squeaks. Equinox is super powerful, and you will find many targets can be detected well away from the perimeter of the coil. Back the coil off center of the target, and a bottle cap that squeaks high when you are dead over it will go massively ferrous if approached from the perimeter. That said, I highly recommend continuing to dig in excess while incorporating these types of “tricks” to gain confidence in your ability to separate ferrous from non-ferrous. No detector situation is 100% predictable due to ground conditions. Mixed trash in the ground with a good item can also give mixed signals i.e. something like a dime in a hole with three nails. What I have found is I can pass on nearly all ferrous when I want to, but when I get aggressive looking for that dime in the same hole as nails my ferrous take will jump way up. There is a balance there you have to reach because digging too much trash wastes time that could be better used going after better targets. In areas pounded for decades however only the most aggressive techniques will get results. We have to decide for ourselves as individuals where that line is drawn. You just did what I would do with any new detector. Dig darn near everything while paying attention to responses and experiment with settings like iron bias. So far I have run mine at zero since it was a late addition to the feature set and I was too busy to mess with it at all. I don’t mind digging a little junk and in fact worry if I don’t!

Man, what a way to start out - congratulations! There are not too many people running the 600 and posting - see the Post about Terry Soloman. I want to reiterate to everyone that the Equinox 600 is and Equinox 800 under the hood. The main difference is the User Profile button is missing, and a number of tuning options, mostly revolving around audio customization, are kept simple. The Gold Mode really is a specialty “Pro Mode” that is of interest mainly to gold prospectors. However, if you compare the Equinox 600 to other $649 detectors to say it is feature limited would be an injustice. There is nothing like it for the price. The bottom line is an Equinox 600 and Equinox 800 that are set up exactly the same will have the exact same performance. I predict that forum denizens will flock to the Equinox 800 but the Equinox 600 is going to be the big seller in the long run. http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/4608-equinox-600-versus-equinox-800/?do=findComment&comment=48982