Chase Goldman

They should work great then. Didn't realize they were being shipped from overseas.

My thoughts: There are a LOT of subtle and not-so-subtle factors in play here that could contribute to the difference in signal performance. First, you pointed out the obvious - the different coil size. Remember the 9.5" elliptical is actually a 5 inch wide coil, so depth will be significantly limited compared to the 11". Basic rule of thumb - 5 inches max depth for the elliptical (the 9" length only really helps with coverage and does not appreciably increase depth vs.say a 5" round coil) and 11" depth for the 11" coil. BUT that is in neutral ground. Now I own the 9.5" elliptical coil and I know under ideal conditions it can go deeper than 5" depending on the target, but head-to-head, under the same soil conditions and target type, the 11" will have a greater depth by at least a few inches. So this, by far, would have the most significant impact. Second, because the coils have different frequency ranges and setpoints, you cannot both run at exactly the same frequency. The legacy coil runs at base frequencies of 4, 8, 12, and 18 khz. Whereas, he HF elliptical runs at 14, 28, and 80. I presume you were running at 12 and 14 khz, respectively. Even though we are talking a small difference, there is a difference nevertheless, and if the target of interest happens to resonate at 12 then the same target may have a much weaker signal at 14 khz, especially at depth. You still should have very similar frequency-based performance however for most targets at 12 and 14, and the coil size discrepancy would have a much greater effect, but it is a factor to be considered. Third, there are limitations on some parameters on the ORX that can have a significant effect on how well you hear the target signal including the fact that you cannot adjust the underlying silencer filter setting on the ORX vs. the Deus (on the ORX and the Deus the silencer automatically adjusts with reactivity setting in Coin Fast, but is turned off in Coin Deep, but on the Deus you can also just turn the silence off regardless of reactivity and program setting). Audio Response is also fixed on the ORX, but adjustable on the Deus, though I DO like the ORX fixed default audio response setting. Finally, there is a significant difference in the signal processing filters of Coin Fast and Coin Deep. Coin Fast uses "normal" Version 5 Deus software signal processing filters, which are quieter than the Version 2 Deuss software filters used in Coin Deep. However, Coin Deep tends to sound off better on deeper targets despite being chattier than Coin Fast. Finally, not a big fan of the limit of 3 tones on the ORX with fixed breakpoints. I personally prefer pitch or 5 -tones and like the ability to adjust the breakpoints on the Deus. It is still usable, but is pretty limiting IMO. Pro tip. Even if you are coin shooting or relic hunting. You might want to give the gold modes a go. It is a pitch-based tone, so there is no tone ID, only visual ID, but you might be surprised at the sensitivity that VCO audio gives you (volume and pitch increase based on how close the coil is to the target, similar to pinpoint). Gold mode is really like hunting in all metal, though you can apply some ferrous target audio rejection, it is not the same as the coin modes, but very sensitive. Give it a shot, especially on those borderline targets that your buddy was hearing clearly. Without knowing the specific target types, target depths, or site conditions, hard to say exactly what was going on, but I think the coil size discrepancy may have played a large part. Regarding the X35 coils - I have an 11" and I like it if I am going after depth with either the Deus or ORX. Great coil, with a great range of operating frequencies. The addition of the 25 khz over the legacy 11" coil is awesome, and a sweet spot frequency for me when hunting CW relics (buttons, brass, and minie's) which tend to light up at that frequency. I think picking yourself up a 9" or 11" X35 coil would be a great compliment to your HF elliptical. However, by far, my favorite general purpose Deus/ORX coil is the 9" HF round. Good depth, light weight, and just a great all around coil for relic hunting, coin shooting, or dry beach jewelry hunting. HTH HH

I bet if they knocked $550 off a 5 to 40 khz selectable single frequency version of the Equinox 800, they could make a killing. They would be more than half way there by simply not including the wireless accessories (going by what ML charges for them as standalone accessories) and it would still challenge most other selectable single frequency detectors on the street not to mention pure single freakers. But yeah, I don't think they are going to single frequency with Vanquish.

Yes. I own them and they have great, loud audio. They are not for diving or continuous under water work though since they use traditional vice piezo diaphragms. They can be fully submerged repeatedly though, so you don't have to worry about them taking a dunking if you are working the surf or are shoulder deep. Shipping seems a little steep for that particular listing but not a bad price overall. They are $129 new but out of stock at Kellyco who seems to be the only one carrying them new.

Thanks for explaining it. So you are saying, everyone who is using drain holes in covers are setting themselves up for a performance degradation in the water. That's not good! I wonder why so many do it that way, then?

Thanks, Dave. ?

I wouldn’t do anything else different, then.

What depth do they typically turn up and what TID do they ring up as? What other types of targets are you finding that have similar target IDs. Mode really isn’t going to be the issue for targets that large, so Park 1 or Field 1 should suffice.? If you want to focus solely on recovering them, setting up a selective discrimination pattern will be the key.

Actually, it was only one target, but a nice one. Congrats NC.

Dew Agree - applying it directly to the coil just gives ML an excuse to not honor warranty replacement of the coil should you encounter an issue. Have at it after the warranty period, if desired. To Dave - I still wonder if your surf detecting issues partially stem from an intermittent coil issue, perhaps exacerbated when the coil is under the dynamic stresses associated with water loading. Again, just a thought because your experiences are pretty bad compared to other folks.

Same here, no issues as long as you keep the contacts clean of magnetic debris. I recall there was an issue early on with the molded magnetic connector housing separating, but I think that was a manufacturing issue lured to a specific production run of cables. Still, the magnetic connector is designed to easily lift off from the detector charge port in one specific direction. Otherwise, if you are constantly fighting against the magnet to pull it off the detector’s charge port, I can see where you might be putting enough strain on the connector to have it eventually break. See this for more info BTW - it should be covered under warranty.

Yep, as the others have pointed out, its 40 non-ferrous and 10 ferrous TIDs. But I really wanted to just say welcome to the forum. ?

I own a PI (GPX) also, in addition to the Equinox and a Deus. But that is for max depth on land in mineralized soil. I also have a semiretired ATX PI that could be used on the beach to great effect, but it is just too easy to just pull the Equinox and start swinging away without worrying about tearing up my shoulder. Dave, the OP, has years of beach hunting experience and has “tried them all”, including PI’s, I’m sure. I think he was primarily interested in the Equinox as a versatile travel beach machine for his forays to Mexico and knew some compromises would have to be made in order to be able to travel relatively light but was simply disappointed in the wet salt performance he was personally experiencing.

It doesn't have the same problems as single frequency VLF detectors in wet salt. FBS/BBS/Multi IQ and other multi frequency detectors have the ability to balance out salt and therefore establish good stability in wet salt sand. Black sand with salt presents an additional complication and ML has presented a somewhat unique approach with Multi IQ and beach 2 mode to attemot to tackle that issue, but it is not fool proof and folks have had mixed results with it, as evidenced by Dave's and 'HardNox's negative experiences regarding target ID instability or depth. Under these challenging conditions, even small tweaks on key settings and even coil control issues can make a huge difference and can be the key to success or the cause of frustration. Just to be clear, the TDI does not have iron discrimination or iron rejection per se. The ML GPX PI's do have this feature. The TDI does have a ground balance-based breakpoint adjustment which enables discrimination between high and low/mid conductive targets. There still is no one size fits all detector for the myriad of conditions that can be encountered at the beach or in the field, so I agree with you that use of diverse dtector technologies like single and multi vlf and PI give you more options when encountering different situations. Ultimately, one of the strengths of Equinox is that a measure of versatility is built right into the Equinox as it implements a variety of different Multi IQ profiles optimized for different site conditions and target objectives. This is different than even its multifrequency cousins where user settings, discrimination profiles, and how the target information is presented to the user can be tweaked but the underlying multfrequency profile is essentially unchanged. In other words, with Equinox the different modes are not differentiated soley by different user setting presets, but the underlying frequency profile and signal processing is different between modes. This subtle but powerful difference in what comprises the various Equinox search profiles is often overlooked or misunderstood when folks compare Equinox to other detectors, including other multifrequency detectors.

My advice based on experience is that you can pretty much just go with the default on “normal” dry and damp white sand as the mineralization level is usually nil (I’ll usually pump an Auto GB anyway out of habit as that is part of my startup routine). For variable salt and/or black sand conditions in wet sand or the surf zone, I use Beach 2 and tracking just as recommended in the user guide. But as Andy and others have said, if you don’t take the 5 seconds to GB as part of your regular routine, then let your own ears be the judge. No matter what the situation, if you are getting ground feedback noise (no disc), the detector is telling you to do something about it, so listen to it.

Frankly, unlike the Garrett AT series (or CTX for that matter), in my circle of detectorists, I am actually seeing very few folks give up their Deus' for the Equinox. They are getting Equinoxes, no doubt, but they are hanging on to their Deus's. I think they compliment each other. I swing both the XP and the Equinox and have equal and excellent success with both. Just depends on the situation. Can't wait to see how Vanquish will fit into the picture (if at all).

Park 2 is going to favor nickels over high conductors based on the frequency profile FWIW. That doesn't mean it won't hit on high conductors, but might explain your target ratio.

Skate- dunno if you remember me but I was helping out Andy as an assistant instructor during that XP bootcamp, glad you found it worth it.

I provided a similar contribution. Just got my published copy and will dig into it this weekend.

Busho - agree no worries. I think the key is that you need to sweep vice pump to get GB to change when in tracking gb which is different than when doing an auto/manual gb. Ideally, combined with a change in mineralization to trigger the tracking response. Good luck.

First off, great digs Kickindirt! Owning both a Deus and now an ORX, I would have liked to have seen perhaps a pitch tone option and perhaps a 4 or 5 tone option. I am used to pitch on the Deus and the 3 tones really doesn't give me that dig me feel either but it can be utilized successfully. It performs the same as the Deus at the equivalent settings and there are just a few situations where the Deus would outshine ORX. In addition to the limited tone settings on the ORX, the inability to tweak some key settings "under the hood" such as silencer, iron volume, and audio response (like you mentioned) and lack of tracking GB are hindrances but can be worked around for most situations. If I had to go somewhere and would be able to just grab one detector, the ORX would most likely get the job done for me though I would prefer the Deus or an Equinox if it was a beach locale. The ORX is compatible with all the "newer" XP DEUS coils including the White HF coils (13, 28 and 58 khz (9" round coil ) khz or 13, 28, and 72 khz (5x9.5" elliptical coil) and all the new X35 coils (9" round, 11" round, 11x13" elliptical) which can be operated at 4 khz, 8 khz, 12 khz, 18 khz and 25 khz. Only the HF coils have the battery in the lower shaft. I think the 5x9.5" coil does what you describe as your preferred smaller coil option, it has the maneuverability and precision of a 5" coil with swing coverage of a 9.5" coil. It is like a laser beam out there. I like the HF coils for relic hunting because the 28 khz frequency hits hard on mid-conductive relics like brass, and lead. At 13 -14 khz you can do some decent all purpose coin shooting and beach hunting (though DEUS/ORX is marginally stable on wet salt sand). If you want to go deep the X35 series coils can get you that deep silver at 4 khz and 8 khz and puts you at a good place for relic and gold jewelry hunting at the 25 khz high end.

Iron bias simply increases the ferrous weighting that Equinox gives a mixed ferrous/non-ferrous target response. This is fine if you simply want to reduce the likelihood of getting fooled by a ferrous target such as a rusted nail that tends to give both a ferrous and non-ferrous response as you swing the coil across the target. I won't get into the nitty gritty of why that happens, but we all pretty much have experienced it. There are two other target possibilities, however, that will give you a similar mixed response. One is a an actual target of mixed ferrous/non-ferrous composition such as some crown caps and the other is two separate targets in close proximity, one being ferrou and the other non-ferrous. Increasing iron bias simply tells Equinox to more heavily weight the ferrous component of the mixed response giving you a more pure ferrous response and de-emphasizing the non-ferrous response. Great if you want to avoid digging nails or rusty crown caps but not so great if you are looking for partially masked non-ferrous, mid to high conductors amongst a bed of ferrous targets. In that case, those partially masked non-ferrous targets will become totally masked as far as the detectorist is concerned because iron bias will emphasize the ferrous target. I have never seriously prospected for natural gold with a metal detector nor do I have any detecting buddies who prospect, so all I know is what I have read and that has been posted by Steve and other pospecters such you that have posted on various forums. From what I know, typically a gold prospector is neither concerned about ferrous masking nor ferrous falsing, because, as you described it ferrous target density is typically, relatively low and the variability in gold target ID based on nugget mass means that desirable gold targets can fall well into the ferrous range of target IDs. Since neither masking (favoring a lower iron bias setting) nor falsing are a concern (favoring a higher iron bias setting) , the iron bias setting is largely immaterial for the prospector. Since gold does not "false" and may indeed ID around the breakpoint of the ferrous-non-ferrous range and since masking is not of great concern, then keeping IB at the default higher setting on the 800 (IB 6 out of a maximum of 9) is probably a reasonably sound choice because at least you will avoid the falsing that might occur when you sweep over the occasional ferrous target (e.g., nail) that might be giving you a mixed ferrous/non-ferrous signal and IB may help "emphasize" a repeatable signal for those nuggets that ID in the ferrous range that may be in the near proximity to a non-gold, non-ferrous target (this latter point is dubious at best but theoretically true). Seems to be pretty consistent with your actual experience experimenting with IB, Simon. That's my take, anyway based on my understanding of how iron bias works and my limited knowledge of typical prospecting conditions. Perhaps someone else with prospecting experience can chime in.

Way to take advantage of the tear out.

Great article on why coins sink on seemingly hard packed ground or on any type of ground for that matter. Multiple forces are constantly acting to push targets up and down in the ground. https://www.minelab.com/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/why-do-coins-sink

I was actually directing it primarily at the OP as a follow up to my first response. But I understand your sentiments re beach hunting.