Chase Goldman

Agree with Steve. I had the exact same (negative) experience when I went for the 15" coil package deal when I had FT do the DST mod to my T2. Loved the new T2 firmware but just could not swing that T2 for any appreciable length of time with the 15" DD boat anchor. For the F75, the various 13" and up 3rd party coil options are much better bet in terms of retaining some balance on your F75 with some usable performance gain. Hopefully, the ML large coil will be a much more positive experience.

Congrats on your first silver with the Equinox but...I am surprised that your big take away from what should be a positive experience is that the Equinox does not discriminate. Huh? 28 is pretty much in the high conductor range so why quibble over a few digits. I would dig that all day long. Are you saying that because it rang up at 28 instead of 30 you wouldn't dig it or that it sounded like borderline iron? As others have pointed out there are a myriad of of factors that can contribute to slight variations in VDI for a given target including soil moisture, mineralization, nearby targets, and target orientation, target corrosion. I really having trouble understanding how you jump from a slightly low VDI on a high conductor to the Equinox "doesn't discriminate at all". If you mean the VDI range is narrow, well that's true, but that helps with stability. Coming from Deus that is welcome as the VDI numbers on Deus are far less stable so I actually prefer Equinox in this regard. But even with the narrow VDI range, I can certainly tell the difference between small gold (single digits), pull tabs (teens), nickels at around 13, brass relics in the mid teens, minie balls in the high teens, Zincolns around 20, Memorials around 22, Dimes around the mid 20's, Quarters high 20's to low 30's, Large Silver low to mid 30's. Not even close to your "iron or not iron" assertion. And I personally don't really make my dig/no dig decisions based solely on VDI numbers because they actually tell you much less than audio can about the nature of the target, especially at 50 tones. Some might argue that 50 tones tells you no more than 50 VDI numbers, and that is far from the truth. A digital VDI display as implemented on the Equinox can basically just flash up a number. You might be able to glean additional info from fluctuations, but that is about all you get. The audio on the other hand gives you more than just a tone corresponding to the VDI, it also has other attributes that give you clues as to the nature of the target such as steep or shallow rise times, tone duration, "solidness" of the tone, tone distortion all help paint a more detailed picture of the target in your brain. A nickel, gold ring, bent beavertail, and crown cap that all ring up around 13 will each sound different even as they give off the same base tone. Also, I have found that with both the Equinox and Deus you can get an accurate whisper tone on a weak signal target that will only show double bars on the display. Anyway, my point is that despite the "narrow" vdi range of the Equinox, the audio really opens up the door on target ID. Getting hung up on VDI numbers or tripping over the fact that they are subject to some slight variations will tend to keep you from unlocking some of capabilities of the Equinox especially regarding the benefits of tone ID. As a fellow Deus user, I found that I was able to pick up on the Equinox audio nuances pretty quickly. I thought this issue sounded familiar and I see I gave you similar info back in July when you thought Equinox was basically a dig it all machine. Seems your opinion regarding Equinox has not changed much after three months, so perhaps Equinox is not catching on for you and may just not be your cup of tea. Nothing wrong with that. If you still have your Deus, as I do, that is a great detector to fall back on. And hopefully though my thoughts may be of little use or consolation for you the second time around, perhaps others can get some useful information from the discussion. Good luck and HH.

Exactly!

Not so odd, probably finishing up performance testing and then they want to run production for awhile to build up inventory so they can avoid the small coil issue where dealers were only getting one or two coils per shipment. I think it's pretty obvious by now that whether or not ML realized how popular this detector was going to be, they simply did not invest in capitalizing their production facilities in advance to be able to meet that demand for the detector or its accessories. They let marketing get too far out in front of the designers and production folks, probably because they have never had a detector as popular as say an AT Pro and were really unprepared to deal with the worldwide demand. Getting inventory ramped up on the small coil probably squeezed production capacity for the large coil also.

What was your ground phase number? I have seen the coil exhibit bump sensitivity if ground balancing results in a high ground phase number. Posting mode, settings, and sensitivity information would help also. Unlikely you got water into the coil and if you did it would likely not be quiet at all (i.e., you would likly experience more than just bump sensitivity) and it would probably result in a coil failure fault code.

Nuke - Maybe you could do some A - B comparisons pre and post update comparidons on some test targets and let us know if you see a difference before you update that 2nd 800.

Even though I'm a hear it all 50 tones guy, if I do go to "multi" tones, then 3 tones just makes more sense to me than 5 tones (or 2 tones).

The non-ferrous, single target TID should be the same between the two coils. But that is something I will check on when I do some before and after update tests on with both the 6" and 11" coils.

I will have to look into these reports of compressed mid-conductor TIDs now. I will probably get a chance to do something next week at the beach. If true, this is concerning. I have not had a lot a run time on the new software other than to confirm that something has indeed changed on edge-on performance. I was somewhat fearful, however, when I heard that ML was being responsive to addressing this outlier situation that something more mainstream might be adversely affected. It is the nature of software, especially signal processing software, to be subject to unintended consequences of "fixes". If there is really something to this, it would be unfortunate, because I am not really keen on rolling back to 1.5.0 and being subject to that annoying User Profile reset bug. It would be nice to have the choice of rolling back to 1.5.0 performance but with the user interface tweaks of 1.7.5 intact. On the flip side, fortunately, we are talking about pretty nuanced performance tweaks here. In the grand scheme of things, it does not appear that the update in any way, shape, or form, makes the Equinox significantly worse for the wear. Time will tell. The good news is that ML is putting updates out there and if there is really a new problem introduced, they will likely address it.

I thought you would have figured that out by reading my post with the exact same experience. Lol. Glad you got it to work, finally.

Great tip, Tom. I am going to have to try that. I must admit, I do not "sift" (reduce sensitivity to umask non-ferrous in thick iron) as much as I should. Regarding iron bias, I try to avoid filtering that masks (even discrimination) because it ties up precious miliseconds of signal processing time, which effectively counters the recovery time advantage of this machine. I like to hear what is in the ground and let the audio paint the picture in my brain. In some cases, judicious use of disc helps to reduce signal blending and even down averaging and in "casual" coin shooting situations (i.e., a walk in the park) it's nice to give your brain and ears a break and let disc do its thing but, like you, I really have found no upside to invoking iron bias and, frankly, some significant downside as far as masking is concerned.

Welcome to the forum. Great general purpose review links, unfortunately, these reviews are geared towards general wireless earbud usage and lack information in one key spec/parameter that probably matters most for detectorists. Namely, whether the buds are APTX or APTX low latency which is extremely important as latency is perhaps even more important and noticeable to detecting as it is to those using wireless phones to watch video. Bookmarked the links, nevertheless, thanks.

Yeah, wish we could use gold mode audio in wet salt sand, but that ain't happening. Advantage of freshwater hunting.

Now, about that concentric for the Equinox....Lol. That would be a definite maybe from ML. I reckon.

You win. Congrats. You should contact ML and have them quit calling it a monoloop. Lol. Nevermind - Steve aptly covered below why the terminology usage is hosed up. Blame the marketing departments. You know, the folks who aim to make ALL metal detecting technology obsolete. Lol!

Well, closely spaced coaxial, yeah. Even though Garrett would call it mono and apparently so does ML? Weird.

To catch folks up (who are still with us and haven't lit themselves on fire yet for the thread hijack), the ML Go Find specs Simon (Phrunt) linked several posts back, ML causes the these coils "Monoloop(s)". Lol.

Lol. Deja vu all over again. We know it's not a mono because it's not a PI so we were speculating on what it could be because it looks like a two-winding "mono" as described in the Garrett tech document I quoted two posts back (but more accurately described as a square coaxial coil with the two windings co-located vs. separated as in a traditional concentric/coaxial). I also considered that the supports were part of the coil, but a DD 90° sideways can't work because detectorists naturally swing side-to-side, so in that orientation it would be like taking a normal DD and pushing it back and forth like a rake. Not very effective. They coud be "squarecentric" as you put it but concentric/coaxial coils usually maintain symmetry by keeping the inner and outer coils a set distance from each other. I am pretty sure they are just supports. My money is on the co-located outer Tx/inner Rx windings (dubbed psuedo mono by Steve).

Um, exactly, that's why we are wondering why the coil looks like it does. It does not look like a DD nor a concentric. It looks like the pseudo mono thing discussed above. In other words, it has to be dual windings but not in the traditional concentric coil configuration we are used to seeing.

I've seen kind of a mixed bag response to the depth meter improvements. Some have said it is indeed improved and some have provided test evidence. Others have reported no improvement or even degraded performance. But yours is the most positive response I've seen. No one else has stated that they thought depth meter was accurate on coins other than the purported dime depth meter calibration reference. Interesting.

Thanks, Steve. In my statements regarding Mono coil variations having two coils, I was relying on information contained in the Garrett link I posted earlier in which Garrett states the following (emphasis added by me), "Mono A mono-coil is available only on Pulse Induction detectors and is a variation of the concentric configuration. The mono-coil can be manufactured with the TX and RX coils located together or as a single coil acting as both TX and RX. The detection and performance characteristics of the mono are essentially the same as the concentric in that it provides the maximum possible sensitivity, but suffers some performance in mineralized ground." And shows the accompanying "mono coil" diagram (below) as the example showing two distinctly separate but colocated windings. I agree with you that it appears that the Go Find coil is likely "pseudo mono", but the Garrett description describes both single and co-located dual windings as "mono". Though it seems more technically correct to describe it as "pseudo mono" since it is a dual winding coil and probably more accurately classified as a concentric coil special case than a mono coil special case has Garrett has done in their coil basics literature. Thanks and sorry for the confusion, but that's what happens when there are multiple "definative" references out there on MD tech. Lol.

Agree Clive - B2 for salt (will have to give 2 - tone a go sometime) and G (unlike the other modes I think (i.e., a theory we have on the forum) Gold 1 and 2 are the same just with different settings) for freshwater. Would like VCO as an audio choice for the non-gold modes. A little off topic, what do you think about Field 1 - 2-Tone. I really have no idea what to do with that mode.

I understand what Derek is saying. Iffy targets where some aspect of it said dig me and I have been rewarded as a result. Problem is the cynics will say that is one step from essentially a dig it all machine which of course ups your gross finds rate, but lowers your keepers to trash ratio. I do not disagree with what Derek is saying, but it is one of those things the naysayers can easily flip around and portray as a disadvantage.

I have no doubts that ML has the technical ability to deliver a concentric (provided the Equinox is compatible, which is an unknown). All I am saying is that their track record especially on their latest detectors including a dedicated gold machine, indicates that they will not bother doing so. Whites is pretty consistent about offering both DDs and Concentrics as accessory or stock coil options for practically all their machines. Would be nice if competion from Whites on the 24K spurred ML to do the same, but so far there is no indication ML feels threatened by the new machine. Hope ML surprises us with a new coil announcement.

Interesting but I wouldn't use it vice a pinpointer for normal detecting recovery from just normal plugs. Perhaps as Alluminati said for underwater work. Otherwise, overkill one-trick-pony for the effort and cost and you have to figure out what to do with the extra coil cable because it isn't going to be instantly as short as shown (though you can cut it and reconnectorize it but then the coil can't be used on a conventional length Equinox). Some other issues you have to deal with, the nipple on the head unit mount interferes with how far you can retract the coil stem into the upper rod, but I guess you could fashion a coil mount onto the end of the upper rod or fashion a new upper from scratch, but the upper OD needs to be maintained sufficient for the head unit to clamp onto unless you used a handlebar mount as an adapter for an upper rod with a different diameter. But it does appear doable. In the end, there are cheaper approaches to more sophisticated pinpointing. You can use Detector Pro's PI Uniprobe already attached to a dual purpose headset for about $250-300, but then you don't get iron discrimination or tone ID which appears to be your objective. The one situation for me where having a pinpointer on steroids or at least a short shaft VLF is when scanning the "tailings" pile and side walls of an excavated CW hut or pit for relics. That dirt is usually inundated with square nails and ration can pieces from the deteriorated structure which makes using a traditional pinpointer an exercise in frustration. To the rescue comes my wireless Deus. Where I detect, I am typically using a GPX PI to punch deep through mineralized soil for CW relics, so I just carry the lightweight and compact wireless Deus strapped onto my day pack and use it as as the situation warrants. If I am in a restricted swing situation (e,g., in a dug out pit) I can just wave the small HD elliptical coil around using the lower shaft and the light weight wireless back phones and can get tone ID and iron disc all day long. Sure it's not cheap, but I already own one and do not have to make any modifications whatsoever to use it in this manner. Used price is really coming down though due to the Equinox and the latest Deus coil release which is obsoleting the legacy Deus LF coils. You can probably pick up a Deus Lite setup (coil, stem, wireless smart headphones) for less than $500 which would be less than a 600 at this point.