carl6405

Just found my first gold ring a week ago at a swimming lake park that is closed for the winter. Have found many silver rings mostly around side walks, 1 right beside a set of bleachers behind a high school, 1 silver ring in the end zone of a football field, 1 ring next to a fence that overlooked a football field. Hope that helps.

Last weekend I found my first Gold ring with my new to me ML EQ800! Wife and I celebrated the day. But on to my comments.. Just wanted to add another 2 cents worth to this conversation. Because of living in suburbia, my main hunting sites are parks and schools, and for a detectorist, translates into.. a lot of trash in the ground. Also, I have been using only Whites detectors over the past 3 years and mainly the V3i over the past 1.5 years. I have been using the ML EQ 800 solely over the past month and am coming to know this detector quite well now. My biggest problem with this machine is I wish it had more Target ID numbers like the Whites with +95 Target ID numbers. To me this is a problem because I have found too many trash items under the nickel ID of 11-13. On the Whites V3i a 19 target ID will almost always guarantee a nickel or a ring. ML EQ 800 - TID 11-13 I have found (Gold Ring, nickels, can slaw, rolled over pull tabs, condiment packets, foil) Would have never found foil or can slaw in the nickel range with the V3i. I have notched out the TID 14 which does help a lot with most modern pull tabs, but not all. With the ML EQ 800, I have had to change the way I detect and pay more attention to the way a target sounds when pin pointing. Listening for the quick drop off in sound as I wave the coil over the target.

Think the EQ is better at really trashy sites with its super fast recovery speed and think the V3i would be better at hunting for gold jewelry at sites not as trashy. Also, think the V3i is better at telling a nickel from can slaw. For relic hunting, haven't used the EQ800 yet, but from the reviews i am seeing, this might be the better detector because of how deep people are saying it can go. I think the weight is better proportioned on the V3i, even though it is heavier. Coil on the V3i weighs less than 1 pound and that is the 13" Detech Ultimate coil. The EQ800, most of the weight is in the coil, so not distributed evenly. I do not like the power button being on the side with the EQ800. The EQ800 seems to be better with it's ID's. I have had issues with the V3i mis-identifying targets occasionally. The pinpointing is better on the v3i, however, I have been getting better with the EQ800 and most cases, dont even need to use the pin pointer option. For me, think I will keep my V3i and the EQ800 just because of the spectrograph feature on the V3i though, will be selling my Whites DFX in the near future.

You guys that still have your V3i. Try this test and you will see what I'm talking about. Set up the machine so that in analysis the machine uses the sizing feature. Flip the switch forward. Then get a piece of can slaw and pass it over the coil. Then take a ring and pass it over the coil and notice the difference in the wave pattern. You will see the can slaw has jagged lines where the ring has a nice smooth rise and fall displayed. Now, the problem with this is it works on shallow targets and not as good when the target is 5" or more in the ground. To me, this topic "ML EQ-800 vs Whites v3i" is like comparing a sports car to a SUV. Over the last couple days, I have been working the school yards, over ground that I have worked with my V3i. I found targets that was missed before with my V3i. The big plus I think is the fast recovery speed. With that being said, I have not tried boosting my recovery speed on the v3i. Some targets "Quarters", that I did find with the EQ800, I felt would have probably missed with the V3i, because there was trash right next to the target, but I do think the V3i is better at analyzing the target before you dig, mainly because no other detector has this feature. Better question.. Is the ML800 the best waterproof detector on the market? I think so.

Wanting a waterproof machine, I recently purchased and just received my new ML Equinox 800 this past weekend and have been using it every day to hunt school yards. Also, I am a proud owner of a Whites V3I and have owned this great machine for almost 2 years. I'll tell you this, if Whites would make a water proof version of the V3i, there would be no contest. You guys are completely missing the spectrograph capabilities of the V3i. With this feature, you get the option of viewing how the object in the ground reacts to the frequencies. I dont know of any other machine on the market that has this capability. Yes, it takes time to learn and doing your own testing, but you can clearly tell can slaw from a round object, such as a coin or ring. Also, the V3i has many more VID numbers and object icons which is very useful. I know with the ML nox 800 I am digging more trash just because its really hard to tell when you only have a number to judge the target by. There are things I love about the new ML nox 800 and some things I dont like, though will not go in to that for now.