Jeff McClendon

After owning my 600 since they were first released I finally recently sold it (upgraded to a second Equinox 800). It did everything I could ask for from a detector and I used it at least 15 hours per week for almost 3 years with zero problems whatsoever. That's over 2000 hours of use!!!! If you don't need the gold prospecting modes and some of the more advanced features, the Equinox 600 is hard to beat for the money if buying new and buying one used with some warranty left is an incredible deal for around $400 currently. I made some amazing finds with mine and paid for its original price with

The AT Pro with its smaller Elliptical DD coil would have similar results against an Equinox 600 in stock Park 1 with the 6” coil according to my testing in more mineralized dirt. They have very similar prices. I look forward to a test with the Vanquish and it’s 8” elliptical DD. I think you will be very surprised.

I have tested the Nox with the 6” coil, Vanquish 10 x 6” coil against the Deus/ORX 9” coil and Multi Kruzer 11x7 DD, 7” concentric, and 9x5 DD and the Simplex with the 11” coil vs the Nox with 11” coil. Nox has the best target ID accuracy at full depth of detection, 11” for 11” coil and 8” on the 6” coil on wild US coin targets in my area and the Vanquish is right there with the Nox. The Deus comes in second. The Multi Kruzer was a distant third for target ID accuracy on ALL targets, shallow to deep in my area. The Nox vs Simplex was a toss up for overall depth. The Nox had far bet

I am one person who has owned and used a Deus, ORX, Multi Kruzer, Nox 600 and Nox 800 enough to know which ones I have confidence in for the places I hunt which have hot rocks, moderate to high mineralization, and some coal/forest fire burned areas which can cause issues, along with high amount of aluminum and iron trash. For me, there is no relatively lightweight, full featured, waterproof detector that can give me the accuracy for tone and numerical target ID throughout its detection range like the Equinox 600 and 800. After thousands of hours and targets I generally have a very good i

I often use my Equinox in Beach 1 in pinpoint mode to check for extra deep targets. It will pick up targets clearly that are very iffy at best in Beach 1 detect mode. Beach 1 and Beach 2 are definitely not the deeper search modes on the Equinox. I’ve never used an Excal.

With the Nox 600 you have 25 levels of iron volume, you can raise or lower the iron pitch and instead of running with nothing discriminated you can accept part of the iron range instead of all of it so you can get a decent iron response. Lots of square nails and older big iron will give an iron response of -3, -2, -1 and even 0. So accepting say -5 to +40 will let plenty of iron responses happen in the negative number range and in the mid teens, mid 20s and high 30s to 40. Lowering the iron volume to 4 to 6 will let you hear iron grunts clearly but won’t wear out your ears and your headphones.

I got to see and hear another APEX in action recently and compared signal response accuracy with an Equinox. I know I have mentioned this and I am a user and not an engineer, but why on earth does Garrett have such slow responding audio which lasts forever in its discrimination modes? Does Garrett want to have some kind of signature audio sound that is not based on performance? I personally have never liked the tone audio on any ACE or AT series detector. I just thought that was my own personal problem. Anyway, having owned and used a Simplex, all three Vanquish models and both Equinox mo

I have hunted there...........super hot, humid, the horseflies are gigantic and mosquitoes and chiggers were on me day and night. I preferred to work my material wet so I was covered in mud for three days and it rained all three days. So, don't go in the summer. Fall or early spring is better, before it gets too hot or the local insects say hello. Definitely take a teenager or younger person along, especially someone lucky who never gives up so you may actually find a diamond or two. For a geology loving person, the park is amazing. Digging in a kimberlite pipe in the middle of a v

Thanks for the excellent review Walt. I agree with your assessment especially after being at a group hunt this past weekend where one person had an APEX. They purchased it for the reasons Chase mentioned plus a few more. Being elderly, a woman, and very experienced they wanted: something that was lighter weight and more ergonomic than their AT Pro (this was a big reason) a Garrett detector that could use the Garrett wireless headphones they already owned (big reason) a detector with a really big display (this was also a big reason) a detector that worked well in saltwater s

The earlier Racer 2 and Gold Racer models did not have the wireless module plug in slot. Only the later ones had it. If you don't see a slot on the left side of your Gold Racer it cannot be paired to the Green headphones or any Nokta Makro wireless headphones. No slot, no plug in wireless module capability. Buying a wireless transmitter and headphones from Quest, Garrett or getting the Nokta Makro one is a possibility. So is buying a bluetooth wireless transmitter and headphones by Trond or several other companies. I tried to steer you towards the Gold Kruzer instead of the Gold Race

The three people I know who have an Apex said it just comes with a quick start guide. Maybe the manual was not finished yet OR Garrett is pulling a Minelab and is becoming more environmentally responsible and making us decide if we want to print out a hard copy of the online manual or not. Or maybe that manual costs a lot more to publish and ship out than we might imagine.

We can update that chart for the Equinox now. It should say 4 to 143 kHz.

That was basically what Quest's owner said in their defense. The Chinese circuit boards they purchased included the processor which already had some code installed...........which turned out to be pirated FTP proprietary software!!!! Sounds pretty iffy to me.

It looks igneous to me. I have found some coarse grained pegmatite with hornblende and pink feldspar that looks similar with the easily weathered feldspar making the harder minerals (in this case the dark mineral) look more prominent. I have also seen some extrusive igneous rocks that come close but yes it is pretty strange. It almost looks slightly waterworn or eroded from some means. It would be nice to know if the dark colored stuff is magnetic/metallic or not. The High and Middle Atlas Mountains have lots of folding, faults, anticlines and synclines that have brought basalts, gabbros and o

As was already mentioned, their pinpointers and headphones and 2.4 gHz wireless transmitters that go with them are excellent. Their headphones specially made to accept the XP Deus WS4 and XP ORX WS audio modules are outstanding. Their detectors (at least in the USA) have a bad reputation. Not because they are bad detectors but because their top of the line original Quest Pro was proven to have pirated software from First Texas Products Teknetics T2. Whether this was by accident, ignorance or on purpose who knows. Several lawsuits have been settled, refiled and are in limbo. As far as I kn