Cal_Cobra

Steve I've said it for years, far before White's and Tesorro faded away, that the U.S. detector industry seems to have appropriated the playbook from the U.S. automotive industry in the 1970's -1980's and beyond. We all know how well that worked out for them while the Japanese, and even Korean's slowly took note and started taking market share to the point where two of the big three were on the brink of self destruction had the government not bailed them out (so much for capitalism). Although they are still in business, I view FTP as the largest fiasco to date for all the reasons you've noted, not to mention they just invested a massive amount of funds into a new production facility, and for what? To continue building low end detectors? That's a race to the bottom, and for a manufacturer that's not a profitable business model. Works great for Walmart and Costco, but the vendors will fail if that's their playbook. I was a FTP fanboy for years, but finally saw the light after having a great amount of success with their contenders products.

if I had to read between the lines, it sounds like Steve knows something's coming 🤔

Congrats on the bust liberty half dime, you don't see many of those being dug!!

I got hooked on wireless headphones when I first acquired them on my Makro Racer, from then on I never wanted to go back to wired/tethered headphones. I was really pleased when the Equinox 800 was announced as coming with the ML80 wireless headphones, which I personally think work great. My only criticism is that the physical construct of the ML80 headphones is cheaply made. I've had to use black electrical tape to secure the ends of the headband (for lack of a better term) where the plastic intakes the metal band as both of the plastic keepers where the metal band inserts have cracked/broken. Aside from that, for me the audio is great and they work fine. I have had a couple of instances whereas the headphone bluetooth didn't want to pair up with the Equinox, but that hasn't happened for a few years.

Over the past 21 years I've worked with slews of Indian people, and when they get together they are typically speaking their native tongue, which really depends upon which part of India they're from. Due to their former British rule they are taught English in school, so yeah I'm surprised he'd make the YouTube video in his native language versus English as it would certainly reach a lot more people.

Nice job, always great when you can eek out a find that's been masked and walked over by other detectors, but you got enough intel from target to investigate it.

Nah it's not fill dirt. This is a spot that I have detected for eons, starting back when I had my Minelab Sovereign (which for me wasn't a great turf hunter, but was a great beach hunter). I really didn't make a breakthrough at this site until I acquired a Fisher CZ-70. First trip there with the CZ-70 was magic. Then as I acquired subsequent detectors, they were taken there to get a feel for how they'd perform compared to the success the CZ-70 provided. For many years I was a hard core Fisher fan, and used a Fisher F75 LTD/LTD2 for a decade, but it was easily displaced once I started using the Makro Red Racer, Racer 2, Makro Multi Kruzer, etc (I actually had my best hunt there with the Racer 2, digging 12 old coins in a single hunt whereas for years my F75 struggled to locate a single coin per hunt, it was an eye opener and the trend followed to my other hunt sites as well). It's an old site, goes back to around the 1870's and given what I know about it, I am very methodical when I do detect it, gridding in multiple directions, and anything that makes a peep is investigated. The days of five star easy button signals is long past.

Strategically speaking, ML could hold all the cards. Why do I say this? We saw ML tie up market share by jumping out of an airplane at Detectival and announcing that the EQX would obsolete all other detectors. As crazy as it seemed at the time, it worked. Here's what I suspect, the EQX has been, and continues to be, such a high demand popular selling detector that they could easily have the EQX2 already in the can, there's no reason to rush it out the door and they could simply be waiting and watching to see what NM is going to do, and disrupt that release by showing their hand on the EQX2, even if it was only a teaser product announcement. That said, I've been nothing but impressed with NM starting with the Red Racer and I'm routing for NM to make a SMF that can equal or exceed the EQX in performance, features and build quality 👍

Congrats on the successful hunt!! I have a little spot like that whereas the top 6" have been hoovered, but anything past about 6" is an old coin. It's drying up though, but I know there's more there lol

Probably the same reason there's no production DD coils for the Fisher CZ series.

That's an awesome haul of silver!!! Were you mostly using the EQX or the Exp2? Surprised some older silver didn't show up 🤔

BIG silver and from 1837, man you can't beat that!!!

A five silver day with big silver and taco money to boot, can't go wrong there!

Kind of what I'm thinking, else why would they need another one 🤔

I'm hoping they do a BT wireless pinointer that integrates the inline audio from their new SMF.

Now that's a proper hunt, nice job!

The way I see it, their SMF project was let out of the proverbial bag 3-4 years ago when they admitted they were working on one, BUT it wasn't a priority [at that point in time]. Subsequently when they announced and showed the Simplex at Detectival a couple of years ago, Dikel stated they'd use it's physical housing package for their SMF product, but no further details surfaced. The Simplex housing was now a test mule in a high volume product that would surely get any kinks worked out over the next couple of years Since then they had a naming contest, and have continued to tout that it's focus is to dethrone the EQX800. More recently Dilek has said it will be very competitively priced, less then the EQX800. Stated it would have a 11" stock coil, and a 6" optional coil. Also will be offering a "Pro Pack" no doubt bundling both coils and some other accessories (perhaps a wireless pinpointer that integrates with the SMF???). I suspect if they want to hit a serious home run with their foray into the SMF arena, assuming they have a good product [no doubt they will have something] they should price it around the same price as the Apex. Equinox 800 performance and capabilities for the price of an Ace Apex, wow that would be a home run IMHO. Perhaps the Pro Pack priced around the same as a Equinox 600. Who would by a EQX600 when for the same price they could get two coils [pinpointer?] and a better[?] detector for the same price.

I stood by my F75 LTD/LTD2 for ten years, once I started testing the Red Racer, my sites that dried up w/the F75, came to life with the Red Racer, and every subsequent model (Racer 2, Impact, Multi Kruzer, etc). Although I think there could be some minor improvements (such as a trigger switch, the pinpoint/trigger button is kind of lame IMO) I think overall the MMK is a fantastic machine, best of the Racer series and the Impact combined in a light weight, well balanced water proof unit, wireless, etc. Mine punches deep, and does great in iron. Between it and the EQX800, I believe the two machines can sanitize a site 🙂

Most things Bluetooth will allow two devices to connect simultaneously, so in theory you should be able to do as you seek as long as all of the gear is compatible (same BT protocols for example).

Gold ring and 1870's silver, way to go!!

Impressive that the Simplex is scored almost as well as the Deus 👍 These are the kind of findings which place such high expectations on their new SMF machine. They'll figure it out.

I have been a NM consumer since the Red Racer and that machine made a huge impression on me. Prior to that I was a hard core F75 user, and found that frequently my hunting friend would out do the F75 relic hunting with his Exp2. That changed when i started using the NM machines, hunted out sites were productive again, and I could keep up or surpass the Exp2 at relic sites 🙂 That said, although I get the gist of what you're saying as far as new machines from NM, I would disagree that "they wrap up the same technology and sell it again and again as a new machine but in the core it's always the same without real improvement. " No none of them went significantly deeper, they hit the same debth wall everyone else has reached in the VLF arena, BUT each successive model had refinements and enhancements, and in my experience that equated to more finds. The MMK is sparky in 4-tone mode, but 4-tone @19kHz is my go to mode. I can hunt through the noise, which in my experience is generally not bad, and I've used it in the city before with good success. The 3-Tone mode is brilliant, yes you get less depth with their hyper-speed mode, but it's really for hunting in sea of nail iron environments where unmasking is more important then depth, but it also works great at EMI infested sites. I had a particular intercity demo in a historic area with EMI so bad it was unhuntable in 4-Tone, but 3-Tone @ 89 sens worked perfectly and finds were made. All said, I actually have high hopes on the NM SSF detector, I suspect it'll exceed expectations and push ML to make their EQX-Pro even more competitive. We shall see.

All great analytical dot connecting BUT perhaps one oversight if I may. At this stage of the game they don't have to be better then ML, just FTP and Garrett. The bar's not high at this point IMHO. Now if they're going for the juggler with a stretch goal to take out the Equinox, which has been alluded to, great, but the battle's already won if they release a better SMF then FTP and Garrett have in their lineup IMHO. If their SMF is as good as or better then the Equinox, then it's game on and it will be very interesting to see Minelab scramble to release an Equinox Pro with more features and capabilities then their Nokta competitive counterpart. This will certainly be interesting!

You've mastered the deep turf capabilities of the EQX, congrats, it proves it's a very deep silver slayer in a junky park setting!!