Chase Goldman

First a comment on the Sonys. The MX3 are great audiophile/.wireless/noise cancelling headsets but they only support APTX/APTX-HD not APTX-LL which will give you some noticeable lag on fast coil sweeps (the delay results in in the perception that you have two targets in the ground separated by the distance equal to the distance the coil travels during the delay time - it can be quite noticeable above 40 ms and the APTX/APTX-HD spec is 60 to 80 ms. APTX LL tops out at 40 ms (typically around 30ms or less with the included 800 bt headset), while the ML Proprietary WM08 "Wi Stream" module included with the 800 is about 17 ms. I have a similar Sony APTX compatible set of the Wireless BT cans and the delay is noticeable and annoying. Also, I personally would have some hesitation about exposing a $350 set of headphones to the elements and rigors of metal detecting. I plan on getting a set of MX3's at some point for travel, but I certainly won't be using them at all for detecting in the rain, in a muddy field or on the beach. Regarding BT speakers, not entirely sure why that would be preferred over the built-in detector speaker, except perhaps as a personal closeup sound source with the need to wear a headset or for video purposes. However, what I have found is that most BT speakers use the standard AAC or SBC BT codecs which have delays between 100 to 200 ms which is totally unacceptable for metal detecting. Note also that BT does not work if the detector control head becomes submerged in water (just submerging the coil is not an issue). So if you are anticipating using the speakers for submerged water hunting at the beach, then they will not work. You need to use plug in headphones at that point. HTH

I know, when I saw your post and pics it was like deja vu except with you being 4400 miles to the northeast from my Chesapeake Bay beach location. The 1g 14k gold pendant made chopping through the frozen "wet" sand with my scoop a worthwhile misadventure. First finds of note with the big coil. Great coverage without sacrificing the ability to zero in on some micro targets. It was fun.

Bryan I get it now. You have eliminated the ferrous/non-ferrous breakpoint altogether and are running just notches so you have ferrous notched in which you can customize using added notches to knock out the low ferrous as desired. I basically notch nothing, use the default ferrous/non-ferrous breakpoints and cut in or out the ferrous region using the horseshoe. I like being able to cut ferrous out quickly with one button (horseshoe) if necessary in machine gun, bed o nails situations so your pattern wouldn't becessarily work for me. But your setup illustrates the awesone flexibility of of the Equinox to set up very sophisticated disc/notch patterns. Thanks for laying it out for me.

Ha looks familiar - except my frozen landscape and hunt area was a lot further south in Maryland!

Congrats, Randy. I always amazed at how well mankind worked metal in ancient times and discovered alloys, like bronze, that gave copper the strength properties needed for useful tools and ornamental items. Of course, by 100 BC, the British Isles had been using bronze for well over 2400 years. Amazing.

I know you can notch out ferrous IDs, but what I am saying is that you have to lower the ferrous discrimination breakpoint to do that (i.e., you can't notch out target ID's that are already discriminated out) which means that any of the non-notched, typically ferrous, targets between -5 and 0 (i.e., above the new ferrous/non-ferrous breakpoint) will now sound off as non-ferrous tones, right? What am I missing? Thx. Sorry, just trying to learn how this works because it is hurting my head. Lol.

Lowering ferrous volume is a good approach if you want to run AM continuously. Though, unless I am reading the manual wrong (I don’t typically go in and mess with custom tone settings), I don’t think you can notch out individual TIDs within the ferrous discrimination range, you have to change the ferrous/non-ferrous breakpoint from 2 to -6, but then you will be hearing anything above -6 all the time (even with all metal off) and it will have a non-ferrous tone in 50-tone based on the ferrous/lowest non-ferrous tone delta setting. Just a consideration if you choose to go down that route. I think lowering iron range volume is your best bet.

ORX should give you a good idea of mineralization level. Suggest run tracking GB in high mineralization or highly variable ground phase conditions. Two additional suggestions, (1) try running All Metal only when you need to interrogate a target, (2) use the threshold feature to allow you to "hear" the threshold dropouts associated with discriminated iron during normal ground scanning, that alternative approach really helps counter the ear fatigue that is common when otherwise operating solely in AM. HTH.

First of all, need to know if you are running an 800 or 600. Recovery speed of 3 on the 800 is pretty low and may introduce ground noise, however in the 600, recovery speed is max. Ground noise usually manifests as unstable -9 to -6 readings. Is that what you are observing? Also, the default for field 1 is 2-tone = low tone for ferrous and high tone for everything else. However, for field 2, tone default is 50 tones which means you will get lower pitch tones even for non-ferrous conductors. Unless you are clearly swinging over a ferrous target (repeatable mid to low negative numbers i.e., -5 to 0) do not worry so much about finding a silent spot to GB. (If you have default disc cut in you wouldn't know anyway, unless the auto GB failed because a target was actually under the coil). The different frequency profiles between Field 1 and 2 will mean they will react to the ground differently and resilt in different levels of ground noise for the same default GB setting. Regardless, after a sat GB in any mode the ground noise should abate unless there is a significant change in ground phase over short distances (which is typically the case in mineralized ground) or you have changed settings that can increase ground noise, such as lowering recovery speed or are running with very high levels of sensitivity. If you find yourself having to frequently rebalance to get rid of ground noise, you might want to consider using tracking GB. Every region of the country can have areas of high mineralization. Problem is, Equinox doesn't have a mineralization meter so you have no direct indication of ground mineralization and cannot infer mineralization solely from the displayed Equinox GB number. You need a detector with a mineralization meter, a geologist, or anecdotal evidence from other detectorists who frequent the same area to know if the sites you are detecting are mild or hot. HTH

What a dilemna, seems like a real first world problem . It often seems like the best target is either the first or last one dug. Lol.

Ha. It was not as hard core as you might think because only went barely toe to ankle deep into the the tide line slush and the air temp had risen into the balmy high 40's by the end of the hunt. But until things thawed out during midday, the tideline water saturated sand was the only place where I could get my scoop to penetrate because otherwise it was frozen solid unless completely dry. Snagged the requisite clad, sinkers, and other junk and the gold was a small locket or pendant without a stone (rats). Pretty sure it is solid and not plated, but haven't cleaned it up and looked close enough to find any markings. But the main point in posting was to commend Steve for a quality shaft that took some punishment off the bat (cold, wet, icy conditions) and came out unscathed. The overall light weight of the shaft afforded a medium to long detecting session with the large coil with minimal arm fatigue, no flex, and solid shaft locking. Still mulling counterbalance, but at least I convinced myself now it is a luxury vs. necessity in my case based on the outcome of the detecting session. Good job, Steve.

Testimonial: Quality shafts. Christened one last week in some brutal conditions, 4 hours straight with the large coil and snagged some gold in the process. I'm sure the new shaft had something to do with it.😉

What software version?

The update improved coin on edge performance in Park1 which is also the deepest mode for high conductors. Detecting coins on edge was never really a problem for Park 2 or Field 2 before the update which are optimized for mid-conductors and low profile targets like jewelry and on-edge items. Which is deeper? Who knows, perhaps Park 1.

All I can say is make sure the Equinox is truly in paring mode and not just looking for the headphones you previously paired with it. To do that you need to hold in the wireless button for at least 5 seconds. It will then look for a WM08 for about 30 seconds and then start searching for a bluetooth transmitter. Good luck.