Jeff McClendon

As long as you just use an 800 or 900 for single tone Gold Mode gold prospecting where you dig it all.........no problem. Great prospecting VLFs.

Your post sounds familiar. These two bullet points from my review are specifically about clad dime and copper Memorial penny target ID instability. - 4”+ deep flat laying clad dimes and copper pennies were triple beeping during left/right DD coil passes as if they were on the surface. - Target IDs for those 24 high conductor coins were ranging from 68 to 98 during normal sweeps circling those coin targets whether they were 4” deep or 8” deep with very little possibility of telling the difference between a clad dime and copper Memorial penny.

Instead of this being a one-time issue, like I said in the write-up, I have seen this behavior since hour number one of coin and jewelry hunting use in at least 20 different area parks that are in 4 different cities with 4 different staffs and ground maintenance strategies. This was not an isolated occurrence. Also, there were no EMI issues at this park today. If there had been the display would have been going nuts with lots of target IDs showing up when I was not moving the coil. I would not have been able to run this Equinox 900 at 25 sensitivity if there was an EMI problem.

Minelab, What the bleep did you do to my Equinox? This is going to be a rant. Hopefully I will be able to keep it clean and factual. Today, April 25, 2023 I completed the first 100 hours of moderate to high iron mineralization turf hunting for coins and jewelry with the Equinox 900. I also have 30 hours of gold prospecting and 10 hours of saltwater beach hunting so far with the Equinox 900. I thoroughly enjoyed gold prospecting with the Equinox 900 using the 6” and Coiltek 10X5” coils. It performed like I am used to with the Equinox 800 using its two Gold modes set for multi frequency operation. My saltwater beach hunts at Los Angeles and San Diego area beaches were inconclusive, mostly because of bad weather (very few people out) and sanded in conditions. So I am going to try to give a review of the Equinox 900 from my experiences with it on land for coin and jewelry detecting in moderate to high iron mineralization at local parks with varying degrees of steel alloy and aluminum trash where even modern coins can be down to 8” deep. I really like the upgraded shaft system, new hand grip angle design, new arm cuff, thicker 11” coil ears and hopefully the new waterproofed control housing of my Equinox 900. I also really like the vibrating hand grip feature along with its customization provided on the 900. Plus, I really like the seemingly improved iron handling and the definitely improved target separation and recovery speed. Depth seems to be a bit better. Sensitivity has been increased from 25 to 28. EMI mitigation is similar to the 800. The ML85 headphones are a slight improvement to me as far as being less muffled and bass heavy compared to the ML80s. They do not offer the best ambient noise prevention compared to some other manufacturer provided wireless headphones or the most balanced sound quality. They do pair easily. I do notice some wireless signal drop outs if I turn me head quickly, etc. The display, backlight (red) and user interface are mostly unchanged from the 800. I still wish the 900 had more than one User Profile. The onboard pinpoint function is much more stable than the wonky pinpoint activity built into the 600 and 800. It does have a form of real-time target ID also while in pinpoint mode. The addition of Depth Tones or ferrous/non-ferrous 2 tone VCO audio for the Park, Field and Beach modes seemed like a nice addition. I have no problem with the VCO ferrous tone. The VCO non-ferrous tone sounds really bad through my ML85s with lots of incongruous drop outs and strangled, inconsistent, ridiculously high tones. Alright, anybody that knows me personally or knows me from these forums knows how much I like to outright rabidly love the Equinox 800 even with its questionable waterproofing, stock shaft build quality, pinpoint function/non function and its compressed low to mid conductor target IDs. I hunt in many public areas that are drought prone so these municipalities only allow coin popping/screwdriver target recovery. Big fines and possible confiscation of equipment if a person is caught digging with a shovel of any kind in these public areas. Accurate target IDs are essential for me in these areas along with accurate tones and accurate tone quality. So, I spent another 3 hours of my life today, using the Equinox 900 at a very modern trashed park that I have repeatedly hunted over the last four years. I will give the Equinox 900 credit. I did find 11 clad dimes and 13 pre 1982 copper Memorial pennies which were in the 4” to 8” deep range. These could have easily been silver dimes and earlier pennies. I have pulled many silver Roosevelt dimes out of this park along with some Mercury dimes, wheat pennies and Indian head pennies. I also found 6 modern nickels that I had missed. I will chalk those finds up to the improved Equinox 900 target separation and recovery speed. Did I have a good time using the Equinox 900. Absolutely not. If I had been blindfolded and someone handed me a detector that I could only use 5 tone audio for target ID, I would have guessed the detector I was using was a Garrett Apex or the new X-Terra Pro in 5 kHz. Target audio was all over the place even on shallow targets. The actual numerical target IDs were too of course, even on shallow targets. I had my 900 setup for 5 tone operation with tone breaks set at -19 to 0 for iron, 1 to 23 for low conductor aluminum foil, small can slaw and small gold jewelry, a small US nickel bin from 24 to 27, all sorts of pull-tabs and aluminum trash and zinc pennies from 28 to 69, and the rest of the US high conductor coins and silver jewelry bin from 70 to 99. I also double checked many of the clad dimes and copper pennies before digging using the AT full tones audio setting. I was using Park 1 Multi, sensitivity 25 of 28, ground balance and EMI noise reduction performed, accepted -9 to +99 target IDs, 5 tones, threshold tone OFF, iron audio volume level set high enough to clearly hear it through headphones, recovery speed 5, iron bias 1 which was enough to make most steel crown bottle caps have some iron tone audio and tonal breakup. This is what I experienced…….. - 4”+ deep flat laying clad dimes and copper pennies were triple beeping during left/right DD coil passes as if they were on the surface. - Target IDs for those 24 high conductor coins were ranging from 68 to 98 during normal sweeps circling those coin targets whether they were 4” deep or 8” deep with very little possibility of telling the difference between a clad dime and copper Memorial penny. - Those target audio responses were crossing over a user set audio tone break. - The wide target ID range was not caused by co-located targets…..it happened on every one of the 11 clad dimes and 13 95% copper pennies. - Soil conditions were slightly moist but nothing unusual. - Surface to 4” deep US nickels had target IDs from 23 to 28 during sweeps around the targets so tone audio encompassed three user set tone bins. - Switching to full tones had zero effect on tone accuracy or target ID accuracy. - Similar audio and tone behavior happened on various types of pull-tabs, can slaw, aluminum bottle caps and of course steel alloy bottle caps. Basically, I could have had similar results using the Equinox 900 set on 10 kHz. Target ID and tone stability were non-existent compared to the Equinox 800 in Park 1 with similar settings. The kaleidoscope of sounds produced on beginner level basic targets in 5 tones or all tones was a joke. Single digit notching might as well have been 5 digit notching since basic targets had at least 5 or more different but repeatable target IDs instead of the 1 to 3 standard target IDs seen detecting the same targets using the Equinox 800. Sure, I wanted a slightly expanded target ID range update on the Equinox 600/800. Nokta got it just about right by adding an extra 10 target IDs between the ferrous/non ferrous tone break (ID +11) and the mid to high conductor tone break around +40 on the Legend. Minelab, why did you instead go from 50 total target IDs to 120? Whose bright idea was that? Who field tested these detectors for overall target ID accuracy and stability? This hunt today WAS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT or one off. It has been this way for me since hour number 1 of coin and jewelry detecting in my area. I still have an Equinox 800. I have used the new, improved coil ear 11" coil that came with my 900 on my 800 with no issues. Using the 10X5" Coiltek on my 900 does little to improve target ID accuracy and multi tone stability. There have been rumors and some indications that a software update may be in the works for the Manticore. For heaven sakes Minelab, offer one on the Equinox 700/900 too for target ID stability! I am not looking for answers or advice from anyone on this forum about what I wrote and experienced. If you want to agree or disagree with what I have experienced, that is totally fine. Just don't try to theorize, pontificate or otherwise tell me I don't know what I'm doing. Even though I only have 100+ hours on the Equinox 900, I know how to use this detector. Minelab, you are welcome to write a response explaining this detector behavior. thanks for reading if you made it this far. Sorry for the long post and the rant.

Welcome to the forum! I would buy a gently used MXT Pro or an MX5 if they came with coils that I liked right now. Two great single frequency detectors that to me are worth owning and using in the right circumstances and are also worth owning (especially the MXT Pro) just for sentimental reasons for me anyway. I sold my White's VLF detectors before they closed or before I even had an inkling that they were shutting down operations. Some of the latest detectors just outperformed the Whites detectors I had where I detect. But I still enjoyed using them. I hung on to my TDIs for awhile but they too were eventually sold in search of a gold prospecting/relic "do it all well" PI that didn't weigh 5+ pounds. I picked up a Garrett/Whites 24k and plan to keep it since it is basically a gold prospecting specific 48 kHz MXT Pro. Good luck with your decision.

If it was really a "junk" chain, depending on which discrimination pattern and search mode you were using it could have been giving ferrous range and non-ferrous range target IDs and somewhat broken up audio. Running max sensitivity in Beach MW may have improved signal strength enough to give it a decent non-ferrous response. Thanks Bill for the great write-up. I am seeing much the same on land. The Legend is just a really good detector. If temps would stay above 50 degrees F long enough, I would take my Legend out to a nearby freshwater beach for a shallow hunt. Weather here in Denver has mostly stunk for all of March and April however.

Back when I only used a VLF detector for gold nugget/follow black sand prospecting (I just didn't even consider coin/jewerly relic detecting...duh!), I used a Tesoro Lobo, then a bit later a Lobo Super Traq, then finally my first detector with a display-Garrett AT Gold. The Garrett AT Gold was also the first VLF detector I owned that had any kind of frequency shift. At the time, that feature was advertised as being added to help with multiple detector cross-talk. I also had a Minelab GP 3000 pulse induction detector for many years since I thought analog was just better...........it had an AutoTune feature that was specifically used for EMI mitigation even back in 2003. Other detectors may have had features like that before then. I just don't have any experience with them. So, addressing EMI has been going on for a long time in detector land for those of us that use pulse induction detectors. Completely eliminating the presence of EMI in the return signal. I don't know if that is possible or even synonymous with high gain-highly sensitive detectors. Has recent/current detector EMI mitigation engineering had trouble keeping up with the huge proliferation of human produced EMI? Absolutely. Most detector manufacturers are making VLF and Pulse Induction detectors that are more versatile in terms of the wide range of target size and conductivity that they will detect along with the wider range of soil/beach conditions that they can handle easily. Some of that wider range of soil and beach handling is done automatically in the background by adjusting sensitivity levels like with the Equinox Beach 2 and with the GPX 6000. Then there are all of the soil timings, etc on some Minelab PIs. There are other detectors that can do that too probably that I don't know about. The GPX 6000's Auto and Auto+ automatic modes do regulate sensitivity without any input from the user. Reading through the GPX 6000 manual however and from my experience, the only tools for EMI mitigation are frequent use of the Noise Cancel button, lowering sensitivity and switching to its DD coil which automatically puts the GPX 6000 in Cancel mode with atmospheric interference versus salinity interference being the recommended nuclear option. I rarely use the GPX 6000's Auto mode unless I am relic hunting in an area with lots of mineralization and EMI and I am just after multi gram sized objects. Using Auto is definitely a form of target size discrimination. If Auto and GeoSense by themselves were specifically designed to reduce EMI, I can't find any mention of that in the GPX 6000 manual or literature. The fact that Auto/GeoSense adjusts sensitivity to ground conditions is well documented. Turning off the Threshold tone can also reduce overall signal strength from any type of signal including EMI. For me anyway, getting the GPX 6000 speaker mod done and using a smaller third party mono coil for shallower gold targets/shallow bedrock areas has made a big difference in EMI mitigation so I can stick with using the GPX 6000 manual operation instead of having to use its Auto modes and/or its lone, huge DD coil. For extremely versatile simultaneous multi frequency VLFs that have gold prospecting capabilities, I want the hottest detector I can get. The hottest inherently means the most sensitivity to really small targets which automatically means EMI. These detectors already use DD coils for many reasons including ground handling benefits. They have frequency shifts- 13 (Legend), 19 (Equinox) and 49 (Deus 2 but its really only seven per main frequency/mode) (don't know about the Manticore) depending on the detector model being used and the mode being used in order to try and find a less EMI effected frequency range. Most of them have smaller coil selections for reducing "antenna" surface area which can help with EMI. They also have the ability to lower recovery speed settings which can help with EMI too and can somewhat offset lowering sensitivity. In some instances where I was dealing with electric fence or underground wireless sprinkler system EMI, using single digit notching has really helped so I didn't have to either switch to a single frequency or notch out all ferrous and most low and mid conductor non ferrous targets. Sometimes just switching to a much higher frequency weighted mode really helps too. So, dogodog, Jasong and Digalicious: I don't have any answers. I just use these detectors and try to find ways to get around EMI. I am sorry if some of my responses seem like I am ignoring you, don't want to talk about EMI or just don't care. EMI definitely is an issue. On the other hand, I am not getting any younger and I am going to detect every day that I am physically able weather permitting whether there is EMI or not. I have "it" really bad and probably need some therapy.

I mostly use the stock 11” coil for sites where depth is as or more important as target separation. If I am deliberately not concentrating on depth I use the LG24 elliptical. Gold prospecting, I use the 6” coil.

Scott and Calabash both stopped using or even having a Legend in their possession for several months. So, they did not have much if any experience with V1.09 or 1.10. I experienced a big performance boost with V1.09. So far I am not seeing a gigantic change since 1.09.

Scott complains about the Fisher F-Pulse several times in the linked video. As a person who has thousands and thousands (not an exaggeration) of hours using an F-Pulse and hundreds of hours using one with the Legend, there are two things that he was doing that I absolutely don’t do. I never put the coil right next to the dig hole when I am using an F-Pulse/Tek-Point. I also never put a shovel or any other large metallic object near my F-Pulse/Tek-Point when turning it on or using it. These are extremely sensitive pinpointers. So, his complaints in my opinion were operator error. Not criticizing him for the sake of criticizing. I just want other users and potential users to know that what I saw in that video was totally normal pinpointer behavior for that brand of pinpointer.

I hadn’t watched any of his videos lately either. I think he hunts somewhere in Maryland most of the time???? I watched the hunt part of the one I posted and was calling those targets too before he dug them. Sometimes a detector manufacturer really produces a stunning detector both in the really positive, WOW category and sometimes in the ugly dog category. The Legend continues to really impress me every time I use it and has done so since I first used it back in March of 2022. I didn’t want to get too excited about it at the time in case I was wrong about it or some huge flaws appeared later on. After over a year it has totally blown me away with its outstanding performance.

Cold and snowing here in Denver on April 22, 2023 so no hunting today. I got bored so I thought I would check out what is new on YouTube for the Legend. For all of you Legend lovers or potential Legend buyers, this is a recent wild target hunt video from last week by Scott from Mental Metal using the Legend, 11" coil running V. 1.11 software at a site that Scott has hunted with Deus 1, Deus 2, CTX 3030, Equinox 800, Equinox 900 and the Manticore. First time hunting the same site with the Legend and its newest software. It's a long 30 minute video. First 20 minutes are hunt footage and the last 10 minutes contain an indoor USA coin program setup. Scott makes pretty good videos. The hunt results, target IDs and depths shown in this video are very similar to mine here in Colorado using the Legend V1.11.

I have already sent bigtim some info via private message on another forum. I own and regularly use the Equinox 900 and Deus 2. Anyway, I can see a few reasons why bigtim might want to use an Equinox 900 versus Deus 2 which he already owns. One is the really easy to read display. If he is having trouble seeing the Deus 2 remote display I personally can understand that along with the ease of use of the Equinox 900 versus Deus 2 interface in general. I also really prefer to be able to switch from SMF to single frequency within the Park, Field and Gold modes by just hitting the frequency button. I definitely prefer the easy, unlimited single digit notching on the Equinox 900 compared to the weird, cumbersome, very limited notching of Deus 2. Small target sensitivity difference especially using the Equinox Gold modes versus Deus 2 Goldfield and Relic modes has already been mentioned. Finally, for occasional water use such as I am at the beach or at a lake just working the shoreline and I decide to just get the coil submerged a bit, hopefully I brought my Deus 2 antenna wire. No worries with the Equinox 900. Conversely, I could make a substantial list of the things about Deus 2 that I like better than similar things about Equinox 900. Weight for me would be near the bottom of that list by the way. These are all very lightweight, easy to swing detectors depending on the coils being used. Otherwise, so far for me anyway, there is no way that I would sell my Deus 2 and replace it with an Equinox 900. That does not mean one is overall better than the other. They both have strengths and weaknesses that do not match up and instead support each other. If bigtim said he wanted to sell his Deus 2 and buy a Manticore.......that would be an entirely different discussion.

Added to the list below.

On the scale used for my other weights above: Deus 2 with stock shaft, remote and 11” coil is 1133 grams, 39.97 oz or 2 lbs 8 oz. Deus 2 with stock shaft, remote and 13X11” coil is 1233 grams, 43.49 oz or 2 lbs 11.5 oz Added these to the table below.

Nice projecting Digalicious.

💤

Like Chase mentioned, I would rather detect than make a video and suffer the consequences of having someone critique it the way Simon's was above. I am not seeing anything wrong with Simon's videos by the way. They do show a noticeable reduction in audible and visible effects of EMI. Thank you Simon for posting them.

I can run them between 70 to 90% of maximum and they will be quiet enough to detect with using most of their SMF modes. Running Deus 2 at 90% using the 9" coil is like running my Equinox and Legend at 80% using their 11" coils as far as the EMI interference experienced. I can run the Legend and Equinox up to 85% using their smaller elliptical coils at those sites. All three detector models do not have the same base sensitivity/gain just like they don't have the same sensitivity increment levels. The Equinox models in general are much more sensitive to actual smaller sub gram targets (which includes EMI and ground noise) with the Legend being a little less sensitive to the same targets and Deus 2 even with the 9" coil being significantly less sensitive to the same sub gram targets. So, it doesn't surprise me to hear Deus 2 users reporting less EMI compared to the Equinox and Legend. Whether that is because Deus 2 has better shielding, lower overall gain, a combination of both or some other X factor.......who knows.

I don't like how metal detector companies have used the words Noise Cancel for a process that at best is only Noise Reduction. I have owned single frequency VLF detectors that operate at 15 kHz or less that were absolutely unusable at some local sites even 10 years ago. These detectors only had very slight frequency shifts which helped very little. Using them now would be a joke. The same goes for all of the pulse induction detectors that I have ever owned. If you think EMI is bad using a VLF at a site, try using a pulse induction detector with a mono coil at that same site. The only recourse is to try an Anti Interference DD coil which will significantly reduce EMI interference but also overall sensitivity too. I have used all of the Vanquish models, the Equinox models, the Legend and Deus 2 at the same sites I referenced in the previous paragraph. If I insist on running them at maximum sensitivity, I won't be able to distinguish between random EMI audio responses/target IDs and actual target responses no matter how many times I do a noise cancel (reduction). I can switch to 20 or 40 kHz single frequency and crank up the sensitivity some BUT due to ground mineralization, I will lose a ton of depth and target ID accuracy. So, instead of freaking out or thinking a bunch of negative thoughts, I just lower the sensitivity and stay in the most quiet simultaneous multi frequency mode available that I can find and start detecting.

The Equinox 600 and 800 have a Bluetooth transmitter inside the control box that pairs up with many current Bluetooth headphones and earbuds. How much audio lag there will be between your friends Bluetooth hearing aids and the APTX Low Latency Bluetooth 5.0 (?) chip in the control box if they pair is the question. If there is too much lag, an external transmitter that better matches the latency of his hearing aids can easily be plugged into the 3.5mm audio jack on the back of the control unit.

That depends. I have had areas where I detect that neither one would ground balance on. The ground conditions were too extreme for both detectors. Those same areas were no problem for the Legend, Equinox and Deus 2 because they have user initiated ground balancing like the AT Max BUT they also had simultaneous multi frequency operation which the AT Max does not have.

I am not bashing the AT Max here on this forum. It is a great detector for the right persons, right targets and the right conditions. It's limitations are its single frequency operation, extremely high gain that is hard to control for some people and it is old tech which Garrett will replace soon. The Nokta Legend, Nokta Simplex (new 15kHz version), Minelab Equinox 600 (new under warranty only, not used), Equinox 700 or the new Minelab X-terra Pro are really good options along with the Vanquish models.