Chase Goldman

The phone has plenty of processing power. The problem is everything else running on the phone at the same time and ensuring compatibility of the detecting software across a huge array of hardware and operating software configurations.

Congrats. Smart move. Minimize your investment until you are sure about the hobby. Once you decide to take the plunge and upgrade as you become more serious about detecting you can always use the Vaquish as a decent backup.

Read this...to your point, the depth reduction at higher recovery speeds is not really that significant...

Wow, I can't begin tell you just how impressive that all sounds. Shouldn't we be the ones who are asking the questions then? Since it seems you got your TDI question answered I'll pile on dragging us off topic...I too want know just how you managed to setup the Nox to get that kind "depth" on that quarter? You can't possibly tease that without sharing at least a snippet of your vast Equinox knowledge with us. I'm a slow learner, still picking up things nearly 3 years after getting the Equinox. Would love to learn more from someone who has completely mastered it. So throw us a bone...

This post by Steve highlights some methods to minimize impact when recovering targets from turf or other sensitve areas.

Both the Simplex and Vanquish can be set up to "skip" most conductive "random trash" at beaches that consists of aluminum pull tabs, bits of foil, condiment pouches, juice bottle foil freshness seals, screw caps, crown caps, beer and soda cans, sunglasses, e-cig parts, fishing tackle, zippers, snaps, tent stakes, toy cars, bullet casings, and countless other odds and ends including junk costume jewelry. Clad coinage is the next most common "trash" item encountered by hard core beach jewelry hunters, including the dreaded corroded modern zinc penny - affectinately known as zincolns. Furthermore, lower valued tungsten and stainless rings abound as well as lower conductive precious metals like platinum and palladium. These and gold chains all also tend to ring up like like low conductive ferrous trash (e.g., steel tent stakes and some crown caps) which can also be inadvertently discriminated out. I usually set up my detector to not discriminate or filter out anything and let my ears and brain do the "discriminating". On the beach I mostly scoop it all if the signal falls in the gold jewelry range but more often than not it turns out to be a pull tab, freshness seal, or nickel. The problem is if you set the machine up to skip most "random trash", especially by notching out aluminum trash which comprises a good percentage of the above list, you will also be notching out gold jewelry which also happens to ring up in the aluminum range. Just a cruel little trick the detecting gods have decided to pull on us detectorists. So the realty check is that you are going to have to scoop a hell of a lot of aluminum trash signals before that gold ring finally pops out of the sand. Just comes with the territory. There are no real shortcuts and "skipping random trash" is not realty part of the equation. Beach detecting is a lot more nuanced than you might think. It has more to do with being able to read the beach for signs of erosion, follwing the tide tables, knowing where people usually lose their stuff (most jewelry typically gets lost in the water than in the sand when cold water and sunscreen or wave action causes rings to slip off fingers or earrings and chains to be broken off and lost, other areas to focus on are the towel line, beach entrance areas where they are taking off their flip flops, and concession areas and lifeguard stands). Being able to get clues from the trash you scoop can also point you to the more productive areas on the beach where the heavier gold objects may have collected. It takes (a lot of) patience and if you are going to brave the surf for gold, means you and your detector are going to take a lot of punishment. Dry and wet sand detecting timed around low tides can be productive and avoids the need the need to have a fully submersible detector. Bottom line is that either detector would suit the beginning beach detectorist. If you plan on getting the detector submerged, then obviously the Simplex is your choice. However, despite being waterproof and touting beach modes, the Simplex suffers from the drawback of being a single frequency detector and its stability will be limited vs. the multi-frequency Vanquish in the wet salt sand and shallow salt surf. The lower stability of Simplex in wet salt conditions can be countered by lowering sensitivity but that obviously also lowers its wet salt depth performance vs. Vanquish. If you plan on doing a lot of wet salt sand detecting, Vanquish is a better bet. If you your beaches also have a lot of ferrous black sand, then going higher end to the Equinox 600 would improve performance over both the Simplex and Vanquish. Also, unless you are just going to prowl the dry sand, look into getting a decent long handled, heavy duty wet sand/water scoop. Good luck out there. Hope you get some of that shiny yellow stuff. HTH.

Chuck - You are right from a math standpoint but the scale is not exactly linear across the entire range, especially when you throw TID high conductor compression into the equation associated with jamming the high conductor TIDs into a fixed 100 point scale when the TIDs want to increase with operating frequency. I found that using a ratio of 55/13 to "fudge" the TIDs in my example actually gave more realistic TID numbers (i.e., numbers that I have actually seen in the field for the targets I was talking about) than if I used straight linear match 55/23 (i.e., 13 +10 for the iron range). I don't know why but I think it compensates for the non-linear nature of the scales, especially since I am comparing a normalized scale (Nox) vs. an un-normalized scale (Deus). Anyway, I think it illustrated the points I was trying to make if not true to algebra. But that just goes to show that TID just has so many variables that it is hard to compare different detector scales on an apples-to-apples basis. So scale "linearity" also needs to be thrown in there as well as the other attributes (accuracy, precision, repeatability).

I actually use Nox pinpoint frequently for reasons other than pinpointing (e.g., tracing the target footprint to determine target size if I am getting an iffy signal that could be a very can or quarter). For pinpointing in big fields it is probably less than 50% usage because it is natural and faster for me to just wiggle off the target without having to punch a button (sometimes annoyingly multiple times as you described due to the wonkiness of it) when I have the luxury of digging a big plug, so I don't bother and waste time with it. For more surgical removal, I will use pinpoint but then I am digging a slit or small turf flap for removal and am quickly shifting to handheld pinpoint. At the beach, if I've spread the scoop contents on the top of the sand, I will use pinpoint to zero in on the target. But like I said, I usually use detect mode and not pinpoint to scan and figure out if the target is still in or out of the hole in the field. To the OP's point, it appeared that he was using pinpoint on the plug and that could be problematic in some cases (I could be misinterpreting what he was saying though because it was a little hard to follow what he was actually doing). Using detect mode also gives you the advantage of determining the nature of multiple targets in a hole. And like you, Chuck, I am using no disc so that I can discern between ferrous and non-ferrous especially during target interrogation and recovery, that's a good point.

I use the same watch. The app shows you where you've been on the map too so you can determine site coverage.

Sounds like you may be either overthinking this or making it harder than it has to be. First of all, I rarely use pinpoint mode on the nox to actually pinpoint a target before digging a plug because it is so quirky. I usually use the wiggle off the toe method once I have the target locked in with a wiggle. Regardless, whether or not I have used pinpoint mode, once I cut the plug and plop it out, I sweep the plug and hole in DETECT mode not pinpoint mode to see if the target is in or out of the hole. Nox pinpoint mode is quirky enough under static conditions that I find it unreliable to be used to check for the target after I have disturbed the target and ground by digging a hole/plug. I would only use pinpoint mode again after re-acquiring a target in detect mode first, if I have disturbed the target by digging. After I have determined whether the target is in or out of the hole using detect mode, I usually go after it with a handheld pinpointer. (I am usually only digging plugs in plowed fields or backwoods btw, otherwise I use a more surgical slit or flap on turf and go ar it with a handheld pinpointer right away).

Now we know...

Let the games begin. Great news.

That is an excellent point. I am personally lazy and do not futz with customizing tone breaks which is another reason I normally go with 50 or Full tones or pitch. But that tone break customization ability makes a case for using 3 or 5 tones and I get that works well for many folks. I will use 5 tones in a pinch, especially on the beach, but still never futz with the default tone breaks.

I think it is an interesting discussion from a detector nerd sense and when considering detector features but not sure it really plays into day-to-day detecting much from the standpoint of having to commit it to memory. I only put it up there because of the repeated "dissatisfaction" I hear regarding the 50 segment ID scale of detectors like the Nox vs. 100 segment scales [not in this thread but elsewhere on the forum]. It illustrates that one is not necessarily "better" than the other because of the combination of accuracy, precision, and stability which can vary and "more numbers" can actually be a drawback on certain detectors that don't filter well. I also find it interesting that I hear a lot of people complain about compressed scales but are perfectly happy to work with 5, 3, or 2 tones vs. 50 or Full tones. You typically get A LOT more information from audio nuances than numbers on a screen. Tone purity, duration, variation, how the tone rises and falls tell you a hell of a lot about the target. A lot more than you can get from a 2 digit number on a screen. I hunt mostly by tone and use the screen as just another data point or to back up what I am hearing. I don't care as much about the specific number as I do about the range it falls in (ferrous, mid conductor, high conductor) [that's why I never bother with memorizing TID charts] and how stable a repeatable the number is and whether I can manipulate my coil swing into a wiggle to lock onto the desirable tone/TID. It is almost as if (but not quite) having 50 tones is more important than having 50 numbers. Could I get away with 5 numbers. Maybe, if the tones were good but a 50 seems perfectly fine to me and 100 doesn't seem necessary. On a different note, I think 2-D 4 digit TID on the FBS+ machines (CTX, eTrac) is very useful because you are getting a conductivity number AND a ferrous component. These two numbers together tell you a lot more than conductivity alone and enable very sophisticated discrimination patterns. Also to be clear in 50 tones on the Nox or full tones on the Deus, I couldn't tell you the difference between a nickel and pristine pull tab from tone pitch alone (where pitch defines tone ID) but I might be able to better tell you if the tab were bent and causing tone ID bounce (Nox flutey tones) or distortion (Deus full tones) vs. 3 or 5 tones on the same machines combined with a visual target ID to make a dig decision, if that makes sense. In other words 50 tones + 50 visual TID segments is more useful to me than 5 tones + 100 visual ID segments. That is not to say you can't get that nuanced audio information from 2 or 3 tones, you can, depending on the detector - but if you want as much info as possible, I think having the choice of more tones or highly variable tones on the right detector gives you that more than target ID numbers. In fact, I like to use VCO pitch on my Deus and Gold mode VCO (or even pinpoint tone on the Nox) on my Nox which gives zero Tone ID info but plenty of info about the nature of the target (depth, shape (symmetry), and footprint (size)). In that case visual target ID becomes "more" important in a sense, but I am still looking for ID ranges rather than precise numbers. The key is getting the right combo of audio and target ID working together to help you make the dig decision. To tie this back to the original thread topic, the Equinox and Deus, for me, have the ideal combination of tone options and visual ID information, and I have not seen that optimal combo on really any other detector that I have used, and I have sampled many brands of detectors. Maybe that's why I use those 2 detectors the most.

Family is a very close second to a detecting nerd out.

OK - you are going to be sorry you asked, Chuck. This will probably raise more questions than it answers but I will give it a shot. I am sure there are going to be parts that are confusing but I will do my best... Let's say we have the Nox at -9 to +40 and the Deus at 0 to 99 (it actually goes from -6.8 to 99 but I am just going to ignore that for this discussion). I chose Deus because it is a 100 point detector for which I am most familiar. So lets compare these two detectors against each other using the defined terminology below: Accuracy is the ability of a detector to give the correct target ID under the greatest range of conditions and targets that work against the detector giving the correct ID. Mostly, depth is the biggest culprit here. At some maximum detection depth, the detector knows a target exists but cannot give a definitive ID. It will either just give an audible tone with no ID or give a wildly inaccurate and/or variable target. Other factors influence accuracy including nearby targets that might cause down averaging (typically iron) or ground conditions such as mineralization that will affect depth at which an accurate ID can be obtained. The other thing that affects target ID accuracy is the composition of the target itself. Most hobby detectors are designed/calibrated primarily to most effectively ID symmetric, coin sized objects. Differences in metallic composition, shape, and orientation in the ground will affect the accuracy of detecting say an aluminum "coin" shaped object or an irregularly shaped aluminum object of similar metal mass. Square pull tabs are notoriously difficult to discern as junk due to their compact square symmetric shape and the fact that they ring up similar to gold jewelry (rings) or nickels. Resolution/Precision is the total number of segments/pixels/or points used to define the ID range. The more points the higher the resolution and precision. Just like high resolution displays have more pixels. High resolution can enable a detectorist to more readily discern the difference between two different targets that have similar IDs (e.g., a nickel and a pull tab) In the extreme case of a 0 to 99 resolution vs. a 0 to 9 resolution range, if a desirable target rings up as a 53 on the high resolution display, if you swapped the display out for lower resolution (0 to 9) it would show up as "5", but so would a target ringing up as 46, but a 57 might ring up as 6 on the low resolution display. This is typically manifested in tone ID where folks can be perfectly happy with 5 tones others swear by 50 tones. So you can see the advantage of precision But precision does not necessarily mean accuracy. A high precision ID display is worthless if it displays a target at 57 when it should accurately be displayed at 53. Stability - stability is the ability of the detector to provide an ID that does not bounce around. It is somewhat related to accuracy but stability can also be a function of resolution/precision. Typically higher resolution detector scales - e.g., 0 to 99 suffer more severe ID stability issues than lower resolution detectors because the numbers will bounce around more due to whatever might be causing the stability issue (depth, nearby targets, target orientation, etc.) Repeatability. The ability of the detector to give the same ID for a given target repeatedly under the same or even variable conditions. Again, similar to precision, a repeatable ID is not necessarily an accurate ID. Let's look at some practical examples: Nickels and pull tabs. On the Nox a clean nickel will ring up 13 if the Nox is accurately detecting it. On the Deus let's say it rings up as 55. Let's say that it is also detecting a pull tab at say 15. On the Deus, say 63. Notice how the higher resolution of the Deus spreads out the ID numbers between the Nickel and Pull Tab, making it much easier to ID the pull tab vs. the Nox. Presuming they are both displaying accurate IDs, you can see where precision/resolution has an advantage. A look at stability: Now let's presume we are at the edge of ID detection and we are getting some variation on the nickel signal and the pull tab signal. Say on the Nox the nickel is varying between 12 and 14. This would equate to a variation of 51 to 63 on the Deus. A much higher variation. Let's also say that the pull tab is varying between 13 and 16 on the Nox and which would correspond to 55 to 68 on the Deus. You might still say more highly varying pull tab signal is still a pull tab, despite the fact that it is dropping into the nickel range but if you are getting a lot more discrete numbers popping up at you due to the bouncing, it might be more difficult on the Deus to get a good reading because of the higher resolution. In these examples I was assuming a direct ratio of target IDs between the two detectors and also assuming the filtering was the same, resulting in the same relative variation in target ID. Improved filtering combined with other signal processing can improve stability up to a point. But lower resolution target ranges just inherently look more stable. A look at repeatability - let's say that you have a stable detector but it is not highly repeatable. You may have a situation taking the above situation where a nickel on the Nox reads 13 in one spot, then 12 in another (exact same conditions, orientation etc.) and then 14 in another. That would certainly not be desirable. On the Deus that might look like 55, 51, and 63. So with the higher precision detector but high variability (low repeatability), the numbers vary greater (just as they would in the stability examples). So a higher resolution display with poor repeatability is worse than with a lower resolution display. I rarely need the precision that the 0 to 99 scale provides. The fact that the Nox can reliably differentiate between a pull tab and a nickel is good enough for me and I will take the smaller variations in target IDs under conditions of lower stability. Most modern detectors have pretty good repeatability, so that is not typically an issue, but it can be and here too, the lower resolution display works for me.. If I could be guaranteed rock solid stability, than the higher precision would be welcome. That seems to be what the FBS detectors provide and that is enhanced by the use of a two-dimensional FE-CO target ID number. On the Deus things get really complicated when you up the frequency but don't normalize the target IDs to a specific frequency (18 khz IDs is what Deus will normalize IDs to if you select ID normalization). In that case IDs get shifted up with higher frequencies. The problem is that the scale endpoints do not change (still 0 to 99) so the higher conductive/higher ID targets start getting jammed up and compressed at the top end of the scale. BTW ID normalization is not an option for the white HF Deus coils so things get really interesting at the super high 56 khz and 72 khz operating frequencies.

You are mixing up accuracy and stability here. The nox will appear more "stable" because it has less resolution/precision therefore less variation at the edge of ID detection because it can only bounce between a smaller range of IDs. Accuracy is simply whether or not the displayed number is correct for the given target vs. up or down averaged. I personally prefer stability and repeatability to resolution/precision (i.e. the ability to discern between different targets with similar target IDs.) as long as the ID is accurate.

Jeff pretty much said it as well as I could have regarding those two detectors. Not sure how close you are to Ft. Bedford Metal Detecting, but Keith Leppert is familiar with all the detectors you are considering and should have some available for testing. If he's within 2 hours of a dealer that's a lot closer than half a day's drive. But I'm always up for a road trip and demos if there's some detecting to be had at the destination.

The Simplex is an excellent value as far as single frequency detectors are concerned. If you understand the advantages of simultaneous multi-frequency vs. single frequency and hunt primarily where single frequency is meets your needs (i.e., not on a wet salt beach, are ok with more variation in your visual target ID) the Simplex has some "pro" features that are absent on Vanquish. I go through a detailed features comparison here. Bottom line, the choice depends on your primary type of usage and hunting requirements because on features alone, Vanquish and Simplex are in a virtual tie. I don't have any first hand experience with the Apex as I do with the Simplex and Vanquish, so cannot give a recommendation on it other than the features rackout in my linked post. Search on Apex here as there are many good first hand review posts on that detector.

Sigh. Not sure where you got the notion on Vanquish using 3 frequencies, that has never been published as a spec by ML. Regardless, # of frequencies used in MF has no bearing on performance (i.e., more does not equal better in this case and in fact the opposite can be true), that has been debunked by Minelab themselves in their published writings on Multi IQ and there is a some controversy surrounding the underlying marketing approach that ML took with FBS and touting 28 frequencies. Bottom line is that ML is somewhat opaque on their secret sauce and what is actually under the hoid with these multifrequency detectors so A to B comparisons based on objective specs are difficult if not impossible. What is key is how the signals are processed and Multi IQ used by Vanquish and Equinox is ML's latest generation multifrequency standard in terms of signal processing and destroys FBS on target separation due to its superior recovery speed. FBS may have a slight edge on super accurate IDs on deep silver (kind of a narrow capability to hang your hat on), but both detectors will detect targets just as deep. The Equinox 600 at $650 would run rings around the Safari in terms of versatility and has threshold control, so too would the 800 obviously, with even more features. But you only have $500 to spend, so I recommended the Vanquish. My recommendation would be to not reinvest the $500 into the aging Safari platform, but to consider saving up for a more modern and versatile Multi platform like Equinox.

Funny, I just made this exact point in this thread regarding Equinox. Specific feature differences/omissions between Orx and Deus are almost essential to me but other Deus features I can live without. Regardless, the value proposition of the compendium of missing features does not justify the huge price delta between Orx and Deus. [Although if you consider any single feature essential, the value proposition could be considered infinity - you will pay whatever is required to ensure you have that feature].

Seriously though, ideally they should have provided the with and without bundle options as I stated above but you didn't include that when you quoted me. The problem was they decided to market the 600 which probably cost them the same to manufacture as the 800 leaving little room to differentiate a bare bones 800. In effect, the 600 was destined to be the bare bones alternative to the 800, but the 600 was missing some key features which was less attractive to enthusiasts. They should have just offered a 800 with no accessories at say $699 and the accessory bundle at $899 and eliminated the 600 altogether. Bet they would have sold a ton at $699. It was all a marketing strategy not unlike what many automobile manufacturers do with trim tiers where you have to give up more features than you want to in order to not pay for the features you don't want, and yes, frustrating to many. I understand your point.

Ok but I do recommend using a coil cover.

What would anger me (and plenty of other folks) is if they didn't include them and then I would have to pay their ridiculously inflated accessory prices to obtain them . If ML did not include those accessories and subtracted the cost to obtain them separately ($398!) from the price of the Equinox, then the 800 would actually cost LESS than the 600 by $150! So don't be angry, just sell them if you don't need them and defray the cost of your detector. Better to have options than to be boxed into a corner because accessories are not provided. Agree though that the best scenario woud be to include a bare bones version and a bundle savings version and let the consumer decide which to go for. Again, options are good.

It's the only ML multifrequency machine you can buy for $500 or less, otherwise I would recommend an Equinox.