Chase Goldman

45 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Chase, Gold Mode started as having only the 20 kHz and 40 kHz options. That was reported on before you became a member here. Then MF was added as an option.

Thanks, Steve.  So Gold Mode has gone through at least 3 “visible” iterations, then (single frequency only, single frequency default with multi option, and finally multi freq default with single freq option), correct?  I say visible meaning an obvious user interface tweak vs. whatever else ML is tweaking under the hood with the Multi IQ implementation algorithm for Gold Mode.

Great report.  Just getting the machine to run stable under those conditions is an accomplishment, not to mention being able to recover legitimate targets (desirable or not).  I believe that if the default frequency mode under gold mode was multi IQ, then you were likely running the latest sw version.  Steve can correct me, but I don't think gold mode was ever precluded from running in multi IQ, but the default was single frequency (20 or 40 khz) originally. I believe the only mode that is limited in that regard is beach mode which is limited to multi IQ only.  Thanks for the report.

4 hours ago, Nuke em said:

The AT and Deus would out sell the CTX anyway , they are a different price range . The CTX only sells so poorly compared to many because of the price . If the price here in the UK wasn't the price of a small house i might have kept mine . Even if i didn't like it much . Other reasons for its lack of sales are the weight and complicated menu and many people kept moaning about lack of updates . Though i always thought the Exchange 2 was for downloading programs . I doubt that the Equinox will get many updates unless the machine has issues after release .

The Equinox is going to have the Deus and AT types for dinner and any others in that price range if successful . 

Agree AT series is toast with Equinox and Deus will take a hit too, but mainly because of what you have to pay for it.  In some respects (e.g., HF) it may still outperform the Equinox because its frequencies are much higher than the Equinox max frequency.  No one (even Minelab Go detectors), touch Deus on lightweight, low profile detecting.  But will users be willing to pay the Deus price for these fringe benefits?  I would say very few once Equinox comes out.

Gerry,

Thanks for giving the dealer's perspective.  Believe me, I know that dealers need to protect themselves from unscrupulous buyers just as buyers need to shop around and of course business is business..  My only point was glad I was in a situation where I did not have to worry about what list I needed to get on based on money exchanging hands.  I am lucky to be in a situation where the dealer and I have mutual trust that does not need to be confirmed with a credit card number, if I say I am going to buy it, I buy it and doesn't have to tell me to "step aside".  I do not know what volume my dealer moves so I cannot compare with your situation but I know that the playbook changes when you have a larger customer base.  So perhaps, I will have to wait longer than your prepaying customers, but my sense of loyalty to my dealer because of the good product recommendations, personal service and instruction he has provided will keep me coming back despite wait times and despite knowing that his prices are not necessarily rock bottom.  Some nationally known dealers will not give you a choice, its either prepay or no detector, so I appreciate those dealers that give the customers that choice (just as I'm sure some of my dealer's customers would prefer that he run a long and short list).  The mindset of buyers and what they are willing to tolerate in that regard varies across a wide spectrum, that is why it is a good thing (and yes good business) to have competition and for the buyers to have choices with respect to being able to have some influence over when they get product even if it involves a prepay.  

It's all good and I dare say, since I am sure you know that the product Minelab is producing is not going to be an AT Max situation (even if someone comes up with a new product announcement, I cannot see it even touching what Minelab is offering in the Equinox), this thing is going to sell like hotcakes and dealers will not be taking any baths with unsold inventory, I'm sure of that.  They are just going to be dealing with whining buyers (like me) who are wondering when their 'Nox is going to show up and having to deal with people who say "'Nox."  lol.

Thanks again for responding.

PS, anything you can share with us from the dealer's meeting?

2 hours ago, dewcon4414 said:

Steve do you think this statement has changed?:  is more sensitive to high frequency targets and slightly less sensitive to low frequency targets.

I believe this was a comparison of BBS/FBS...... seems the low freq part may have based on the nuggets you guys have found.   High freq like silver may be nothing more than the depth........and since they say its just slightly less i dare say here on a Fl beach its going to be insignificant..... HOWEVER this latest turn may well have improved the gold performance for us beach hunters.

 

 

I think you are mixing up frequency and conductivity terms in some parts of the discussion above (e.g., “high freq like silver”).  Large and High conductive targets (e.g., silver) are typically better detected at depth with low frequency and small and mid-conductive targets (e.g., gold) typically better detected with higher frequencies.  There are no absolutes and other factors such as soil and salt conductivity, iron proximity, and target size come into play.  Hence the advantages of Multi IQ AND high recovery speed become apparent.  Overcoming the instability that results from the varying salt concentration/  conductivity in surf/wet sand is the overriding consideration in beach mode which tends to favor low frequency weighting and may limit small gold detection capability in wet sand surf.  But having a stable detector at least gives you a fighting chance and should also slightly favor higher conductive targets like silver.  Gold mode should excel on dry beach and with Mult IQ should make a decent general purpose dry beach mode.

Was this the statement you were referring to:

“Multi-IQ uses a different group of fundamental frequencies than BBS/FBS to generate a wide-band multi-frequency transmission signal that is more sensitive to high frequency targets and slightly less sensitive to low frequency targets. Multi-IQ uses the latest high-speed processors and advanced digital filtering techniques for a much faster recovery speed than BBS/FBS technologies. Multi-IQ copes with saltwater and beach conditions almost as well as BBS/FBS, however BBS/FBS still have an advantage for finding high conductive silver coins in all conditions.”

Now its a guessing game for us.  Would be better if you could enable or disable this feature (so the unit worked as before or you could turn it on an tweak and play with it).  I think I am going to stay away from 4.1 for awhile until you and others get a handle on how to set it.  I'll be watching your posts to see what you come up with in the comparison, in the mean time its 4.0 for me.

51 minutes ago, Tyran said:

Good catch Chase. I have attached below the OLD (4901-0248-1)  and NEW (4901-0248-2) "Getting Started Guide". Note however that the Iron Bias icon was already on the OLD version of the guide's picture of the Equinox, but it was not underlined, maybe because it had not been enabled yet on the early machines??? But like Steve said, we will soon find out about it.

4901-0248-1 GSG, EQUINOX 600 800 EN_WEB.pdf

4901-0248-2 GSG, EQUINOX 600 800 EN_WEB.PDF

The Iron Bias icon is a variation on the recovery speed icon  - recovery speed becomes iron bias when you add the underline just as the Reject/Accept icon becomes tone break with the underline.  So the underline makes it a new icon.

26 minutes ago, tsunamiscott said:

I looked at both and "Iron Bias" is new, as well as the icon under the advanced (800) column.

Correct as explained above.

This change really bugs me.  Seems like now we have a setting that can really screw up performance if it is not set properly and really have not been provided with the tools to properly determine the optimal setting.  Its kind of like saying manually set ground balance based on the height of a bargraph without any units shown.  Any scientific method at setting this parameter consistently and optimally?

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Detect Speed (Recovery Speed or Reactivity) ranges from 1 to 3 on the Equinox 600 and 1 to 8 on the Equinox 800.

Here are how the Detect Speed settings map one against the other:

600                    800

  -                          1

  1                         2

  -                          3

  2                         4

  -                          5

  3                         6

  -                          7

  -                          8

All lack of function or adjustments on the Equinox 600 is intentional to create a simpler to operate, less expensive alternative to the Equinox 800. The settings on the 600 could be described as the most common likely settings. The additional range in settings as offered on the Equinox 800 are less likely to be used due to the extremity of the machine response at those levels, and as such they can be regarded as “Pro” settings.

Thanks, Steve.  This info is as valuable as the gold the Equinox will find.  The way this is laid out,  I conclude the 600 will be slower than 800 at its fastest setting and cannot be the throttled back as much as the 800 to trade recovery speed for depth.  Where 90% of users will typically set the machines, however, the recovery speed performance will be the same.  On the Deus I have never used either extreme recovery speed (0 or 5).  That being said, like having the additional options “just in case”, therefore, yet another reason I will be getting the 800 and one of the more significant performance differentiators that further justify the price delta.

50 minutes ago, steveg said:

That's what I wondered...I wondered if they "ran out" of all the units Minelab told them they'd have available initially...

Steve

 

Or ML pushed back the ship date even further and Cabelas couldn’t take the grief from their customers.  Interesting though that you can still supposedly order by phone.

15 minutes ago, Wayfarer said:

My guess would be that like with the Recovery Speed settings, it gives both a wider range higher and lower as well as finer in-between settings.  So 1=2, 2=4, 3=6 or something similar. 

My other guess is that the Iron Bias setting is a filter setting that allows some of the iron signal to bleed through even though it is being discriminated against.  When slow hunting for deep coins, for example, you might want to opt for a higher level of "bleed through" to get stronger signals on deep high conductors that have both a tendency to wrap and read as iron.  The opposite situation would be cherry picking in heavy iron where depth is not as important and you can adjust to make sure the iron gets fully disc'd out.  Just a guess, of course, but it's probably something along those lines.  This would be a very useful adjustment.  This is yet one more reason to choose the 800.  

At least as far as recovery speed adjustment is concerned, I am hoping all you are getting is fewer settings (less fine control) and not a compressed range because this would potentially mean that the 600 couldn’t achieve the recovery speed of the 800, which to me seems like unnecessary artificial crippling of 600 performance, though I suppose you could say the same about lack of Gold Mode and 20/40 kHz indivusl frequency selection, as well.

17 minutes ago, steveg said:

OK, tn, so would it be correct to say that it's sort of a "fine tuning" of the discrimination, down in the iron ID area?  In other words, more "resolution" or "control" or "precision" with respect to exactly how much you disc. out the iron, versus letting a partially masked non-ferrous target "bleed through?"  Or is it just a more artificial audio "enhancement" of sorts...do you know?

Steve

Silencer is def a target signal processing filter vs. a pure audio signal mask like notch.  What is weird is that XP tied it to the Deus reactivity setting (XP speak for recovery speed).  I don’t know if there is something to take away from the proximity of the Equinox iron bias setting to the recovery speed setting on the guide.

I’m guessing iron bias on the Equinox is more about mitigating iron wraparound and the tendency for big iron, especially flat and/or round big iron to ring up high.  But a silencer like iron reject filter that compliments discrimination is also a possibility.  

Steve, as a more general follow on to Mike’s question (once you get the gag order rescinded) can you speak in a more general sense how Disc is implemented in the various modes.  I assumed you could manually set disc as required for any mode, but did not think about the default disc setting that would be applied in each mode out of the box (assume the answer is not “no disc”).  Any enlightenment in this regard would be appreciated.

6 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

It took 30 hours for it to be noticed . I will be leaving it to Minelab to provide an exact explanation of this control. Soon.

Ha. Everyone was shining the bright light on Gold Mode and the other new mode descriptions, of course we latched on to that diversion.  Lol.

I only noticed it when I was reviewing the guide again to recount the 600 vs. 800 feature deltas.

Can I get a gold flake star on my forehead for being the first to notice.  Lol.

Yay. Equinox Tech Part 4.  Can’t wait!

8 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Interest is extreme, somebody no doubt said “get them in the website” and it went from there. Just typical company confusion on details.

I keep saying to ignore all product status reports from anyone but Minelab. Still true.

Agree, though Cabelas was willing to go “on the record” with a 29 January backorder date do I reckon that came directly from Minelab and is not inconsistent with ML’s public announcement or the info that was passed to dealers yesterday.  

I’m personally resigned to the indisputable fact that it will get here when it gets here.  Lol.

1 hour ago, dewcon4414 said:

Chase.... ive been told even with those very low freq combos the machines seems to operate like a 15khz with their tweaking.   Did you see the chart doing comparisons to other detectors?   Pretty general as to the high points.   Not sure they were fair to Deus on gold hunting  since it does have 2 higher freq or beach since the dry sand is more than half of beach hunting.   BUT..... obviously ML feels they have a winner as an overall machine.   Battery could be the weak point..... depending on its durability to last.

In dry sand, if I were trying to concentrate on picking up gold targets, I'd simply go to one of the Gold Modes or Park 2/Field 2 rather than either of the beach modes which ML states should be used primarily in wet salt sand or surf.  Coming from Deus, battery should not be an issue at all.  Dr. Tones was basically swinging an Equinox with a dead battery during his entire beach video, lol.  And yes, the Deus HF coils may still have an advantage in some situations where 58 or even 74 khz can get the job done which is one of the reasons the Deus will stick around in my arsenal even after Equinox shows up.  Deus users are finding those high frequencies are enabling some amazing relic recoveries in highly mineralized dirt.  I am anxious to bake the two off in real world nightmare mineralization this spring.

10 minutes ago, Judy said:

Ok ok I get it ( best machine ever ) I AM going to wait . Just wish someone would take my money . 

End of January, Judy, at the earliest.

Took a closer look at the NEW quick start guide and noticed a menu setting/adjustment I hadn't seen before called "Iron Bias".  600 allows three step adjustments (0-3) while the 800 appears to allow 9 steps (0-9).  The icon/brief description is across from the adjustable recovery speed setting on the guide on the bottom row.   Can Steve or anyone else explain this setting?  Thanks.

58 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Steve,

I wish you were at the meeting!

Mitchel

I second that emotion...

17 minutes ago, goldrat said:

So much to read and take in !! I seem to be grasping the majority of the technical talk , but I can't be sure about the new gold mode Is it multi frequency in the 5 frequencies or just 20 kHz & 40 kHz . 

Thanks and Cheers

goldrat

 

 

Will be hard to get an exact answer at this point, but I think in very simplistic terms it is Multi Frequency in all 5 frequencies with the signal processing favoring the input from the 20 and 40 khz signals.

A more in-depth discussion can be found in this thread: 

Got a message from Cabelas, backordered by Minelab until 29 January and they gave me the option to cancel so I did.

10 minutes ago, Redneck said:

Steve, can you say what freq you were running?  Single or Multi? Thanks. 

He states up front he was using the new multifrequency (MF) algorithms for gold mode.

8 minutes ago, Redneck said:

Steve, can you say what freq you were running?  Single or Multi? Thanks. 

MF = multifrequency, I believe.

25 minutes ago, dewcon4414 said:

It is confusing........ i noticed it used very low freq.... surely it doesnt mean the same to me or it would seem counter production to finding gold.... unless in some way it does some wrap around.   Hey... .... if it finds gold.... ill take it.   I look forward to you nugget posts Steve..... will we get a picture and a bit of info ..... approx depth and weight?   Yes im asking for a lot lol.

Which mode (s) are you referring to?  All the non-beach gold finding modes (Park/Field 2 and Gold) use higher weighted Multi IQ meaning favoring the higher frequencies which is more favorable to small gold detection.  If you are referring to the both beach modes, then yeah, those are both low weighted and would not seem to be conducive to detecting small gold.