Chase Goldman

Had the name mixed up. Here's the link: 66 AUDIO - BTS Pro - Wireless Bluetooth 4.2 Headphones https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M8M4PU7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_2LQ6Bb4TQYHV5 Don't get the newer (blue) model, it is not APTX LL. Update the headphone firmware per this post to get the BT+ symbol on your Equinox:

I know you directed your questions to Steve but allow me to pitch in with some conments as I recently acquired the 15" coil: Coil Shape/Depth: The elliptical shape simply enables 15" swing coverage while conserving weight vs. a 15" round coil. ML was going for a high coverage coil that provides slightly more depth performance than the stock 11" coil (which is a fairly deep coil for its size already) with a MINIMAL weight penalty. Having swung this coil for a few hours, I would say "Mission accomplished!" The depth performance is subject to SO many variables that in fact you may find that under certain conditions for certain specific targets you may actually find the 11" gives better depth. So you can say that in general you would expect to gain an inch or two perhaps in depth over the stock at best. In beach mode (most sensitive to high conductors), not sure there would be that much difference between the two coils in depth on your heavy mid-conductive (gold) target. But would have to explicitly run a test to be sure. Chatter and recovery speed: The interaction of recovery speed, proper ground balancing, swing speed and sensitivity is complex. If you find you have to lower recovery speed to reduce ground noise chatter due to black sand mineralization which is what I think you are describing, that is actually odd because lowering recovery speed usually tends to increase ground noise effects. Are you running GB tracking? In your case, lowering recovery speed is not otherwise detrimental, you don't run a high risk of missing masked targets since your trash is low density. But if I was getting a lot of chatter I would ensure I: had a good noise cancel; had sat GB or use tracking; and perhaps back off on sensitivity; with lowering recovery speed last on my list. But that's just me.

At about 20 ms the WM08 indeed does have less latency/delay than the APTX LL at about 30 ms, but am hard pressed to be able actually perceive the difference between the two vs. even wired headphones. But APTX and non-APTX BT headphones are really not useable for detecting because of the 100 to 200+ ms delay. I like the WM08 for the ability to use any wired detecting headset but wish it used a 1/4" plug so an adapter wouldn't be necessary.

So you have a pair of walkie talkies/FRS radios that are compatible with this BT receiver/transmitter gizmo you previously mentioned as this in itself is not a standalone walkie talkie? Care to mention the specific model, because the Baofung ht mentioned in the Amz listing of the gizmo requires an amateur radio license to be legal. Would be convenient to use with a compatible FRS/GMRS ht when out of cellular range, I suppose. But since I wouldn't be continuously talking on the radio, just having a wired speaker/mike clipped to my shirt/jacket would probably work just as well as this thing, with less claptrap (additional batteries to be charged for the receiver/transmitter/ptt unit etc.). Interesting gadget, nevertheless. Let us know how you like it after you put it through its paces in the field, CC. Thanks. While I applaud the ML designers on the multitude of built-in wired and wireless options in the Equinox itself, I, like Dubious, do not count myself among those overly enamored of the ML BT headset (or more accurately, the mass produced clone/knockoff headset that ML chose to stick their logo on) so pardon me if I get real for a minute or two with some constructive, real-world criticism, even though I am an unabashed lifetime member of the Equinox fan club. Lol. It works, true, with good, low-latency audio, ok comfort, and decent battery life as others have said, and I like that you can use it in wired mode should the battery die in the field, but it also has several drawbacks for in-the-field use including: - No IP rating for dust and weather/moisture resistance. These will last about as long as the Wicked Witch of the West if you are caught out in a drenching downpour without a means to quickly protect them from the rain drops and forget about chancing it in shallow water hunting (one inadvertent dunk or slip off your head and they are done). While this is true of many wired detecting headphones, I would think that ML might have gone with a third party model (or even an in-house designed model) that had some moisture resistance (they do exist, but are hard to find - see below), since the Equinox itself is designed to weather the elements. Granted this might add to the overall cost, but based on where ML has priced the headset as a separately purchased accessory, I think it really could have been done without moving the needle on the Equinox 800 MAP/MSRP. - There is practically no tactile feel from the control buttons, even bare-handed (fuggetabouttit with gloves on) and if your hands or gloves have any dirt or mud on them, God forbid that you get debris lodged in the button cavities as this will cause them to cease functioning properly. -The charge port seems a little flimsy too (thin plastic shell) and may not be able to take several years of even non-abusive plugging/unplugging for charging at this high stress point. Certainly, not as beefy as the Equinox and WM-08 charge ports, though those are proprietary vs. using the industry standard micro USB or USB-C plugs which, itself, is a drawback. Balky control button and charge port issues have been previously reported by a couple forum members. Thankfully, ML covers the headset with the same warranty as the detector so you can get it replaced (perhaps repeatedly so, if necessary) within the first three years and if you are beyond the warranty period, you can get the 3rd party clone/knockoff branded version for about 1/3 the price of the identical ML branded accessory. So while not exactly hassle free in terms of having to ship stuff back, etc., ML is standing behind their BT accessory headset, and that is a really good thing, especially in this case, and it can be replaced, relatively inexpensively, out of warranty if you can stomach not having the ML logo on your headset. As a result of the issues cited above and for warm weather comfort, I chose to go with the relatively more expensive (and slightly more rugged) Audio 66 APTX LL BT Pro back phones, recommended by another forum member, that are IP rated for dust, sweat and moisture resistance (but not immersion proof) so should stand up better to field use and they also boast great comfort, and audio as well as positive control button engagement. I will save the ML BT headset for occasional cold weather use in those situations where they will be less subject to in-the-field abuse from the elements and my dirty digging gloves. Perhaps they will outlast the warranty period if I use them in this occasional manner. When I'm covered head-to-toe in wet, red Virginia clay next week after 6-days of relic hunting, hopefully I will still have a functioning set of ML branded BT headphones at the end of it all (it will likely be a little too cold for my Audio 66 backphones and a perhaps a little too wet for the ML BT headset on some days, so I will likely mostly go with my waterproof wired phones for next week's adventure when I'm using the Equinox instead of the GPX). In any event, kudos to ML for giving us no less than four built-in audio options with the Equinox 600/800 (speaker/wired/low latency non-proprietary bluetooth/ultra low latency/multi-user wi-stream wireless (WM 08)) which provides amazing audio flexibility that far outstrips just about any other detector out there and should be the audio template for all future ML detectors (i.e., hoping ML does not come out with yet another model-specific, proprietary wireless solution and perhaps more rugged wireless headphones for their next detector model). This flexibility provides you with the ability to use at least a couple of alternatives to the wireless BT headset should the conditions preclude you from using the headset (e.g., rain) or if they do break. It is because of this overall audio design flexibility provided by ML with the Equinox that I have basically not bothered mentioning the admittedly relatively minor flaws of the provided BT headset (until now) and is also probably why ML was willing to cut a few minor corners in their BT headset choice, which mostly gets the job done.

No worties. I just thought it was notable because his was the first in water report I had seen of the big coil, especially addressing coil drag, so it struck me when you said you hadn't heard any. It is going to be Spring/Sumner for our friends Down Under so we should be getting some additional reports of water usage from them. Only the real hard core US and UK/European users getting in the water at this point, so that could have something to do with the sparse water reporting in addition to being few coils on the street at this point. Wish I had one for my upcoming Central VA relic hunt in hot ground.

Well, Dew, you posted right in NSC's thread and he discussed actually using it in the water...so at least give him some love...or acknowledgement. Perhaps you just missed it when you read his post...

Steve - here is my thought - why aren't you hitting that spot with the 6 inch coil. Lol. It is on my to do list to do some side by side comparisons of pre and post update firmware. I donated my 600 and have 2 800's now and can do some true side by side. Some non-exhaustuve side-by-side testing indicates differences between the two firmware versions both good and bad. Want to do coil comparisons too. In addition to the swing angle of attack as pointed out by Sinclair and the detect ability variations that come from using different detectors, other factors that keep sites from being hunted out include the different moisture content of the soil on different days, target corrosion rates, and the fact that targets in the ground ARE CONSTANTLY ON THE MOVE due to frost heave, tilling, plowing, fertilizing, aerating, rain, and root action as well as other reasons. Not only does this change the depth of the targets or their relative locations, it changes their orientation in the ground (edge up to flat up) or their proximity to masking junk. So even if a site us not being refreshed, if it has absorbed a lot of targets, it will be difficult to fully clean it out. A "proclaimed" hunted out site is usually a fallacy.

David, thanks for linking back and reminding me about your original test thread. Good info. I think it is a good reminder that if you are going to use tracking GB at a site, be mindful of where GB is initially set in the mode that you are going to use as it may indeed take awhile for tracking GB to "catch up" if there is a huge disparity in the actual ground balance vs. the setting when you start to swing. So it DOES make sense to always do a manual GB before you start if you are using tracking just to make sure tracking starts at a number near the actual ground phase for the site you are detecting. But as long as you start tracking near the actual ground phase reading, even in highly mineralized ground, I have not seen huge swings in ground phase that would result in the inability of tracking to keep up. I base this on two experiences. I rarely get canary noises or ground noise grunts (in All Metal) when using tracking in mineralized ground. If I forget to use tracking in mineralized ground I do start to get the ground grunts or canary sounds, switching into tracking gives me a much smoother "ride" and keeps me from having to constantly rebalance. Your experiment and test results also made me think of a lot of questions: 1) I know that we have always treated each of the search modes like a separate detector (requiring us to EMI noise cancel and ground balance each search mode separately when using at a site) particularly, as evidenced by the different ground phase readings each mode generates on the same plot of ground when doing a manual/auto ground balance (e.g., Park 1 may generate a 10 while Field 2 may generate a 35 when GB on the same patch of ground). That tells me that the Multi IQ "personalities" may have some effect on the GB algorithm either due to the unique mode signal processing algorithms or the frequency weightings, so I wonder if tracking works "better" on certain modes vs. others. 2) I wonder why it takes so long for GB tracking to catch up the "real" GB number if there is a huge, say 50+ point< difference in real and "starting" GB number while auto GB seems to be able to readjust after just a few pumps. 3) I wonder if recovery speed has any effect on GB tracking responsiveness. 4) Finally, I wonder if tracking performance is affected by single frequency ops. Might have to try some experiments and welcome your thoughts. But as far as tracking is concerned, in general, under real life conditions in mild to hot soil, I have found it to work out just fine. I think it is prudent to always do a manual/auto GB before starting out in tracking to normalize your initial GB setting close to the actual site conditions. Thanks!

The other thing the elliptical shape does is make the coil lighter. You trade off 15" coverage at a lower weight for a small decrease in depth performance vs. a 15" round coil.

Slow season? As a fellow relic hunter, the season is just starting to ramp up for me. November is my ideal relic hunting month as the weather cools, thickets thin off, the creatures thin out, and the crops are harvested. Would like to get my hands on that large elliptical for plowed field coverage.

FWIW, I have personally not found GB tracking on the Equinox to be too slow for proper tracking in rapidly changing ground phase conditions of high mineralization sites (e.g., Culpeper, VA). It is designed to handle fairly rapid changes in ground balance due to both rapid salinity level changes and varable levels of high mineralization from what I can tell as ML recommends using tracking in salt surf detecting and tracking is the default GB mode for the Gold modes which presume you are in areas of high mineralization which is typically (but not always) the type of ground where natural gold is found. In other words, if you are finding that you are constantly having to re GB the detector at a site, do not be afraid to use tracking GB. That being said, I don't doubt that TNSS has found particularly nasty ground situations where tracking was not ideal. As always there are limitations in the responsiveness of any automatic control system that relies on feedback from sensed conditions. However, even if auto tracking is laggy, Equinox Multi IQ algorithms do an excellent job of compensating detector performance for less than ideal ground balance settings so the result is typically not loss of depth performance as you might typically see with other detectors but increased ground noise when in all metal (the canary sounds TNSS refers to) which show up as rapidly changing high negative numbers on sweeps. That is why ML suggests you only need to ground balance if you are picking up ground noise (i.e., it is not a "required" quick start step if you refer to p. 11 of the manual). So what I am saying is that the downside to using tacking GB in most situations is minimal. Bottom line, for me, I often use tracking GB if there is some level of moderate mineralization present which I determine using my Deus as it has a mineralization bargraph or site familiarization. Note that you cannot directly infer site ground mineralization solely by the ground balance readings on the Equinox, though high numbers can roughly correlate to high mineralization, without a mineralization meter you cannot be totally sure. I would only advise against using tracking on non-mkberalized ground like white sand beaches as auto tracking algorithms typically work by continuously sensing changes in ground mineralization. If there is no mineralization present, tracking will not work well or may give erratic readings under those conditions so I typically just use the default GB setting or do a quick auto GB. As always with such things, YMMV. Another thing, as Multi IQ is what facilitates the ability to detect with minimal degradation in performance with a less than ideal GB, I do recommend doing a manual/auto GB whenever operating in single frequency mode. HTH

Tony does top notch work. He modded a pair of Gray Ghost generic amphibians for me and went beyond the original quoted workscope on his own dime and replaced additional hardware to make sure I had a usable set of phones for the detector. Quality work and customer service.

The gain is likely more in coverage vs. depth and to some detectorists that is worth the money in saved time when searching a site because you may only have limited time to hunt it.

Most of my relic hunting is done IN plowed fields vs. woods or trails. Just the way it rolls out my way because we are generally detecting CW camps/engagement sites vs. remote outposts and those mostly happen to be located on farms 'round here. That being said, I am in your camp, we really need something that falls between the 6 and 11 inch round coils, preferably an elliptical form factor, closed coil. Yep, this is strange. Either someone got their dimensions mixed up or a fourth OEM Equinox coil is in the works and has yet to be announced.

Since it's a tone break and not a notch, I wouldn't overthink it or lose too much sleep on precisely setting that mid-to-high breakpoint unless you truly have the discipline not to ever glance at your display if you get a solid mid tone and walk on. No way I could hunt that way, the more TIDs binned in a tone the more I am dependent on using visual TID as a crutch because the tone will sound more stable in that case, unless it just happens to cross the tone break, so I will be looking for a bouncy visual TID to make a dig decision. BTW if you do get that flutey tone because you are crossing the high tone break, that's a big audio clue in and of itself (something Zincolns often do with the default 20/21 default high break fo 5 tones ). So what I am saying is that even if you don't have that high break optimized, you will still have visual TID to back you up and may hear the tone jump the break to alert you to the fact that you may want to pay more attention to that target. 50 tones gives me a better audible feel for target ID stability which factors into my dig decisions. (Bottlecaps are typically flutey in 50 and sometimes even in 5 tones, but so are coin spills). That's why I usually just default to 50 tones and be done with it unless I am taking a leisurely stroll through a park and punch up Park 1, default settings. As I've mentioned previously, I'm inherently lazy and don't really like to spend a lot of time customizing tones. That's just me, tho. Again, I am not saying 50 tones is better than 3 tones. It's better for me because of the way I use audio. Not better for others who are looking to create more "stable" audio. It is a personal choice based on how you hunt (VDI vs. Tones), where you hunt (salt beach, fresh water, hot soil, parks, plowed fields, cellar holes, woods), and what you are hunting for (coins, relics, jewelry, gold).

Necklaces, pendants, love tokens, some were strung onto strings sewn into pockets so as to make it more difficult to lose your coins.

Thanks. What was the metallic composition of the test targets?

That will be like night and day. Way to train yourself for the benefit of the 6". There was a situation that I wish I had that 6" coil (restricted maneuvering) where the 11" was just too big. Dunno if I will ever get back there but I was forced to use a PI with a small coil which worked, but was a bear to deal with, especially with the slow recovery. I probably could have recovered a lot more targets in the same time frame with the faster Equinox (the targets were mainly shallow minie balls around old tree stumps, so the PI depth was not necessary, but the only tool I had for the situation).

Actually, its Russian. If you link back to the MD-Hunter blog and associated You Tube channel, you'll see MD Hunter has a second channel that has videos posted in Russian. Regardless, it only took me a few seconds of reading the review to realize that I had just lost a few seconds of my life that I will never get back. Lol. I appreciate international reviews because the perspectives are so diverse due to the different types of target objectives and conditions encountered, so I have no preconceived notions based on where the review originated, but this review was so shallow and frankly bizarre (e.g., why is someone trying to tear apart a waterproof, factory-sealed housing and expecting it to remain intact?) that I just had to dismiss it and move on.

I take it you won't be getting the large Equinox coil then. Lol. I like the 6 inch coil as a specialty coil to exploit high density hot spots and restricted areas, but I can't imagine using it most of the time because I am typically relic hunting in large fields which favors coverage and depth over pinpoint separation. I do enjoy hearing about all the different styles and types of hunting and the different approaches people take to detecting and use of their detectors.

I think you're right. Thanks.

Come again on that last one, Clive. You lost me on the shorthand. As a matter of fact, even though you and Dew have the ESP going, would you mind expanding what you were driving at with that last sentence without the shorthand? It has me curious and though I think I deciphered some of it, I do not have it all figured out. Thanks.

Using the metal arm cuff that came with the Anderson shaft. I like it.

I saw somewhere where someone used a mounting adapter that enables items to be attached to motorcycle handlebars as an adapter that can be used to mount the Equinox head unit to any diameter rod. Search motorcycle parts shops to see what you can come up with.

Seems like you are doing fine with swing coverage with the 11", Andy (3 hammered's). I would not get too emotional over it, frankly. The price is what is probably going to make you cry more. Lol.