Cal_Cobra

Might as well add a bit of fuel to the fire, wouldn't want it to die out

So happens that Tom Dankowski (aka NASA-TOM) was also a field tested for the Equinox, and he recently posted that he was the cause of a 6-week delay,.  An inquiry as to when that delay timer kicked of was met with deafening silence:

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
((Although I'm to blame for the 6-week delay.))

Tom when you say you're responsible for a six week delay, can you share when this delay incurred? Is that six weeks from when you made your post? Six weeks from January 1?  Just what are we looking at here? Another month or two to wait for the equinox?

10 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Two Words "Makro Kruzer".  I know you are kidding around, but in fact Steve has been actively posting about it, just not in The Equinox Fan Club forum, for obvious reasons.  Folks should get some fresh air and venture into some of the other DP forums and take a well deserved break from Equinox before they suffer from 'Nox intoxication syndrome. 

Ah hem....it's THREE words Makro MULTI Kruzer

 Ironically I'm on a little road trip right now field testing another vendors machine at some of my better "hunted out" relic sites.

I was really hoping to have the EQ800 in hand by now so that I could do some side-by-side comparisons for relic hunting in heavy iron, sea of nails, and around that rusty tin that drives every machine I've ever used in my life crazy.  

I don't know whoever coined the phrase "Patience is a virtue" because I'm not seeing it 

Now that the Prospecting Mode supports multi mode, wondering how it will work for relic hunting in heavy iron?

Can't wait to test one of these and do some head to head testing between the EQ800 and the Makro Multi Kruzer at my iron infested relic sites 

8 hours ago, Cabin Fever said:

Charger Gate!  The lack of supplied charger has for some reason became a big deal on other forums. I thought everyone had a pile of these things lying around..  I didn’t think anything of it and am surprised at the discontent..

Unless you're still using a flip phone, and driving a 1985 Honda Accord, you should have a pile of USB chargers around... 

I assume there's no mic in the ML wireless headphones, so if you pair them to your smartphone via bluetooth, then you're just getting the incoming call announcement correct? 

I'll likely not use this for a couple of reasons, it's nice to have the "sorry I couldn't hear your call cause of the headphones" excuse to the wifey BUT more importantly, with BT enabled on the phone the battery discharges noticeably quicker.  

Now if the wireless headphones had a built-in mic, that would be very cool   Actually I suppose you could use some BT gaming headphones with a built-in mic and that would work...just make sure they support aptX low latency.

7 hours ago, Skate said:

I have a long history of trying to be smarter than the directions.

Everyone knows reading directions is a last resort, it's like asking for direction when driving

And so it begins.... or does it 

Looking forward to using the EQ, and reading how everyone gets along with it 

I absolutely enjoy reading Steve's well thought out posts, and the no-nonsense culture of this forum.  It's a breath of fresh air coming from some of the other forums where the EQ implosion is completely out of control.  Not only that, but Steve has a great way of communicating his knowledge, thus creating an almost classroom like environment in which the teacher/master and students have an open and respectful venue in which to learn from each other, and share ideas and lessons learned. 

3 hours ago, DestinEngineer said:

...They never said it would be in anyone's hands Jan 31st. People are assuming that and bitching because it didn't happen.

Agreed.

This is what ML posted on their site:

Minelab is pleased to announce that the new EQUINOX Series of detectors is expected to be available for purchase worldwide from late January, 2018 onwards*.

*Initial availability will be limited in all regions due to the very high pre-release demand. Please contact your local dealer for specific price and availability information. We will be doing our best to get detectors into the hands of our valued customers as soon as we possibly can.

Definitely a bit of ambiguity / wiggle room in their wording as it doesn't per se indicate whether the "available for purchase worldwide" necessarily means it would be in your hands or in dealer stock.

I suspect, if you read between the lines, that it means it would start shipping end of Jan 2018, and by "shipping" I suspect from the manufacturing plant to the distributors, not necessarily to dealer or end users.  It's anyone's guess whether they'll go slow boat or air, as air transportation obviously has a premium attached to it.  Perhaps they're doing both so that the pre-orders can be fulfilled, and slow boat additional inventory to seed stock as they see fit to build their pipeline. 

One way or another, everyone will receive theirs in due time

14 hours ago, jhuntph said:

 

Minelab's Facebook response to a question posted on jan 24th concerning release.

 

Minelab Metal Detectors Hi ***. We will have more information in the coming days! As stated in the product notice, the EQUINOX is scheduled to be available starting in late January/Early February. Fortunately, production has been well underway throughout January! Please note, December was never announced as the release date.

6d

Nice that they posted that BUT that was a week ago.  I guess "coming days" is a somewhat undefined term, but days would imply less than a week no?

@DestinEngineer Not sure if your comment " To be pissy and have an attitude about their distribution process is self imposed. They haven't broken ANY deadline, messed up any shipping schedule; all they did was generate enough interest to drive people to the point of insanity about the Equinox's release. This effectively drives some people's anxiety through the roof and they pop off about it. " was directed at me, but for the record, wasn't being pissy at all, just trying to extrapolate a timeline in the absence of transparency from ML.   Although I'm as eager as anyone else to see what the EQ can do at my own sites, I have plenty of detectors that, although deemed obsolete, still seem to work pretty well to tide me over until this Unicorn materializes 

My obsolete machines live to fight another day 

At this point only Minelab knows.... hopefully they share an update, transparency goes a long way in this day and age.

It doesn't really matter to me I have plenty of detectors, but a lot of dealers are posting that their detector sales have been halted since Detectival, that's brutal.

I purchased the Impact Pro Pack and didn't have any issues with it.  Seems like something other then a coil issue if they've already replaced four coils, perhaps ask to see if they could swap out the control unit.

In the words of the late, great Mel Fischer "Today's the day!"

Here's how things seem to be going with the EQ shipping from what I gather:

Another forum posted that ML said at the U.S. ML Dealers meeting this month that the EQ would be delayed.

Strictly looking at the shipping logistics to the U.S., I have doubts anyone in the U.S. will receive a production unit until March, perhaps even April depending on the delay.  If they ship via container shipment from Malaysia to the U.S. that's a good month or so, then they need to be processed through customs (unknown time delay), then shipped to the distributor. Will the distributor ship to the dealer to reship to the end customer?  Or will they drop ship it to the end customer on behalf of the dealer and save a bit of time? 

Hopefully ML will surprise us and everyone will have their pre-orders in hand sooner

Are you able to customize and save your tone options per mode?  Say for example that for relic hunting you only want five tones, yet for park hunting you want full/50 tones?  Or do you have to readjust the tones manually each time you select a mode?  I'm assuming on the EQ800 you can save whatever settings you want, but might be wrong...

1 hour ago, Ridge Runner said:

Remember people this contest is free .All you have to do is make a guess as to what day and time of the day I Ridge Runner will receive my Equinox.

If you live anywhere in this world ? I’ll ship free too .

So we need more people to jump on the bandwagon and make a guess.  Nothing to lose but a lot to gain.

Chuck

PS If you are the winner and the scales you would want so be it and that goes for the running up if we have one.

Chuck it's very generous of you to run the contest.  One question, if nobody gets the exact date/time, will you select the closest match?

HH,
Brian

8 hours ago, Jackpine said:

I ran the Racer 2 strictly in DI2, but could not get past the effect the blendy bleedy tones had on my hearing after 15 or 20 minutes of use hunting around old homestead field sites due to the small iron and rusty nails.  TMI that confused rather than helped only slowing me down due to constant resweeping.  I will have to wait for more reports on the audio before I can make the Makro leap again.

Tom

I wouldn't view the blendy bleedy tones as a negative, it's just another clue that you can use when detecting.    I'll give you an example, I was out again Sunday testing the Multi Kruzer.  One of the spots I went to for a couple of hours I previously found two wheaties and two silver mercury dimes, this is a spot that's been pounded to death, but in 4-TONE the silver sound was unmistakable.  So yesterday, I got a couple of those aluminum 40 OZ beer caps, and they sounded OK, but come in around 72.  I dug the first one, and got the same signal a while later and was able to predict it was the same thing.  Then I got the same sound I got on the two silver dimes I previously dug there, just a pure audio tone that jumps out, with an 82 TID.  I was detecting with my buddy and he had his Racer 2.  The silver sound was so distinct, that I almost called him over to have a listen with his R2 and say that I was confident that it was going to be a silver dime, but then I decided against it in case I was incorrect, but sure enough it was another mercury dime.   If you were park hunting, the pure tones are going to be coins, the raspy, thin, multi-tone signals are going to be something else, so you could cherry pick out coins no problem IMHO.  Now if I was at one of my old ghost town sites, I could apply the same logic, but then you might miss some cool relics.

12 minutes ago, Jackpine said:

That 14 kHz version has my name written all over it for fresh water hunting. 

Just watched Shellton's video review and he mentions a couple things that piqued my interest.

1.  The audio is not the blendy bleedy  of the Racers 

2. he claims 3 tone is faster than the Deus.

One note to Makro, The adapter for using it with regular headphones needs to be much longer.  From looking at the picture it would be totally useless for wading. Perhaps a choice between  short and long cable versions would be appropriate depending on use.

Tom

On the Multi Kruzer the audio has been enhanced from the Racers and Impact.  I didn't care for the 4-TONE mode on the Impact (Di4) as the audio had that harsh digital/artificial response, but on the Multi Kruzer I am loving the 4-TONE mode audio, it still has that bleedy/blendy audio and it's a bit akin to analog audio IMO. 

The 3-TONE mode has a fast reactivity setting with GAIN settings of 89 and lower (not 90 as Shelton stated).  These units already have fast recovery times, but the fast reactivity mode on 3-TONE is something to behold!

Note all comments are from testing a pre-release beta unit, features may be subject to change on the production units. 

3 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

What gets me is how FAST Nokta/Makro is moving. In just a couple years they went from oddball FORS type units to the Racers, then Impact, and now Kruzer series. They have done more in three years than everyone else in the last ten years. The U.S. manufacturers in particular need to pick up the pace. If this is where Nok/Mak can get in a few years then think what the next couple years will bring. If Nokta and Makro had the marketing muscle of Garrett, for instance, they would be crushing it. Outside the forums however I am not convinced many people have heard of the company. That will change however as they are laying quite a foundation for future success.

I agree, they are one of the few (only?) detector companies that actually listen to what their users want and do it!

I expect that we will continue to see innovative, new detectors from them in the future as they work on covering their basis based on customer wants and needs versus what they think we need.   

I won't mention any names, but I am so tired and disappointed in one of my originally favorite detector companies as I see them continue to lag behind everyone else, continuously re-release/re-package/re-brand their ten+ year old detectors.   I guess their not obsolete, but man how many times can you re-packge the same old thing over and over and over, and simply slap on a new decal and call it "new".  They've starting to become the laughing stock on the industry.   The American auto industry tried that, and it didn't work out too well for them.

HH,
Brian

21 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

My only real issue with the Nokta Impact was the ergonomics - the hand grip and armrest did not get along well with my hand and arm. Unlike some people I have no issue with S rods and so at a pound less than the Impact the Multi Kruser looks to be a significant improvement to me. Waterproof is just a bonus. Thanks for the report Brian!

Pretty much in the same boat.  The Impact is a great detector, one of the best I've used for the kind of detecting I enjoy, but your ergo sentiments echo mine as well. 

Dilek at Makro has given the go ahead to share field test information on the new Makro Kruzer series.  I was asked to field test the Makro Multi Kruzer.  I only received the detector last week, so I've been working hard to test the machine as much as possible at various sites (salt water beaches, relic sites, parks, etc).

Here's a quick video I did of some of the testing, hopefully this will answer some questions you may have:

HH,
Brian

11 hours ago, Redneck said:

Darn Cal, you beat me out as the official Tractor Supply detector tester!    

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/barska-pro-edition-metal-detector?cm_vc=-10005

Shhhhh.....don't tell anyone, but that's going to make all other detectors obsolete!!

11 hours ago, D&P-OR said:

Dodge Ram?

Dodge Ram??  I'm more a Ford kinda guy (even though I drive a Toyota FJ Cruiser)....

Hmm.....I'll say:

1) First EQ to land will be Feb 12th @ 9:39AM.

2) Ridge Runner will not get his until April 1st, because the original one shipped to him will get "lost" in the mail and the ironically the UPS driver has a new hobby 

3) I'll get mine.....whenever the darn thing gets here - lol  No worries, I have another new toy that I'm playing with....hint, it's not a ML device,  but I cannot (yet) talk about it 

The Nokta/Makro wireless headphones are really good IMO.  Excellent audio quality, comfortable, they charge fast, and you can go for a few days of detecting (full days) on a full change.  They spoiled me on my R2 and Impact so much that I'll never consider another detector that doesn't have wireless headphone capabilities.  

11 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Well I did not say it has no advantage, just that compared to BBS and FBS Equinox seems to struggle more with flat steel. Unfortunately I can't make any better comparison than that because of last minute tweaks (Iron Bias) and my lack of any real time using the Equinox directly compared to the units in question under conditions that would allow me to comment with confidence. I was confident enough that the final version Equinox was going to be at least as good if not better than the competition that I went all in with it personally, selling my Impact and even my CTX. I have a lot of respect for the NokMak detectors however and know they can get the job done in the right hands. One area it would appear NokMak has the edge for the foreseeable future is coil selection, and that more than the detector itself can provide the edge needed in dense trash. I know it's not fair to compare an Equinox with 11" round DD coil to an Impact with a small concentric coil but I have never been one to play fair with detectors.

I have two ghost towns on my hit list as soon as I can make the time for it - hopefully soon. The thing is at this point I am no longer testing Equinox against other detectors, as I did enough of that already to be able to decide which direction I wanted to go. From here on out I am just taking Equinox detecting and doing the best I can, but how it fares against other detectors is now in the hands of others to sort out. I am recusing myself from all that both due to my direct involvement with Equinox plus an actual lack of interest on my part. Once I make a decision I am not one to second guess myself and so while how Equinox compares to other detectors is of burning interest to others for obvious reasons, it is not on my radar. All I honestly want like everyone else is for the thing to wrap up and ship!

Steve I hear you. 

If you need any help with those ghost towns, let me know