palzynski

Yes I forgot the pinpoint mode , I have never used this functionality on my detectors since the beginning , so difficult for me to talk about this ... Also I forgot to mention that I always have a pinpointer with me , a ML Profind 35 that I use quite often with the V10 or V12 coils. Concerning the modes , there are 3 modes on the 340 , coins , jewellery and all metal. Actually I used the jewellery mode during this outing , I had not the time to compare it with the coin mode . I forgot to mention that I used quite frequently the all metal mode when the signal were doubtful. Most of the time they were big irons that can be clearly identified with their very low tone.

I took the 340 V10 coil and mounted it on the 540. So I have the experience of the 540 V10 and 340 V10 and I can compare them together. Both 340 and 540 perform very well with the V10. I prefer the V10 vs the V12 coil because it is lighter , more accurate , less iron masking with almost the same depth perfos .

As I like the Vanquish serie ( I already have a 540 ) 🙂, I decided to buy a 340. Over here the 340 price is 240e , so quite cheap ,almost the price of a coil ... My plan was to do some tests with the 340 and resell it later .. A few days ago I did my usual static depth tests. See pics below. I could see that the 340 had the same depth than the 540 V10 , either on a big coin at 11inches or a small coin at 6inches, so very good news for the 340. I could also check that the 340 is as sensible as the 540 V10 on tiny targets lying on the surface like small hammered coins , good news again .. So today I went to an open field cultivated with wheat. Sandy low mineralized soil. Low to medium iron trash. Actually the conditions were not ideal because the field has not yet been ploughed and I had to sweep the coil 3 or 4 inches above the ground because of the cut wheat. I found many targets , mainly 1st WW rubbish... Among that stuff I could find 2 coins , a 16th century copper coin and a tiny roman bronze coin .. Very happy with these 2 coins 🙂, the copper coin displayed 15 id and the roman coin 11 id . The 340 is very accurate and deep, the same as the 540 V10 actually , I did not see any difference in the field, the only thing there are only 3 tones for the 340 instead of 5 for the 540. Iron separation is the same between the 340 and the 540. The V10 coil is excellent for coin shooting , and very light .. The only limitation I see for the 340 , the same as the 540 and other multifreqs MLs , are high iron trash areas , so the 340 is a little too chatty and slow on these areas . And unfortunately there is no dedicated "FA" ( fast ) mode like on the Teknetics T2 ... On such iron trashed areas I prefer to use my Deus . So if you dont need wireless and backlight and you detect on low/medium iron trashed areas , the Vanquisg 340 offers a great performance for a very limited budget. Even experienced users will be happy with it ... I was thinking of reselling it but eventually I will keep my 340 for the moment .. 🙂

Looks like Nokta listens their customers , either the 8,5i or the 9X5i will significantly improve the ergonomy of the Simplex with lighter coils because the 11i coil is a little heavy ( 480grams without coil cover ) . Well done Nokta for those 2 new coils ...

Wow 1,9kg for the v3i it is more than what I was estimating ... Even if the v3i is well balanced the weight is still there and in terms of "sweeping ergonomy" the Orx will for sure outperform the v3i . You should try an Orx or a Deus , just a little try , you will see , once you are used to it it is very difficult to come back to a 1,5kg or more machine 🙂 ... An other good example is the new Garrett Apex at 1,1kg , a significant improvement compared to their prev. detectors, I think they did a very good job, this will be appreciated by their future customers ... Actually I was less sensible to this weight aspect when I started detecting 20 years ago ... I had a ML Explorer which is not known as a light detector ( 1,9kg ), this without any pb. But now it is different I prefer light machines . On the other hand some people do not bother detecting with heavier machines ,this is just a personal choice ..

Hi , Actually it was my 1st detector , I bought it in 1998 in a shop in Paris. A nice machine , very easy to operate. Just 2 things , the ext. speaker too loud I had to mount a volume knob as albert did ( see post above ), and the knobs which tend to turn too easily. So I have maintained the disc knob with a rubber band to prevent it from rotating . A fast and ultra light detector very good in open fields ... HH

Hi captain, Actually I answered to your private mail but it looks like for some reasons you never received my answer , si I wil answer here : 1. first question is why I moved from the Eq 800 to the Vanquish 540 : - because of the excellent Vanquish coil set , particular the V10 coil - because of some control box buttons ergonomy that I will not detail here - because of the excellent Vanquish telescopic shaft In mild/moderate mineralized soil the Vanquish has almost the same perfos as the Equinox , and the same audio, so I did not have to relearn a new machine , the Vanquish just sounds like the Eq ... 2. About the war in my area , in fact it is not the 2nd but the 1st world that has left a lot of rubbish here , casings bullets schrappnells etc ... because of the 4 long years war duration. The 2nd WW war has been much faster over here so less targets left in the soil. It depends where you are , in Normandy of course they have plenty of 2nd WW targets. Yes older people told me stories on the 2nd WW , most of them have passed now but I still remember their stories ...

Hi Steve , thx for your all infos .. From your pic I have counted a total of 104 targets including ( 24 ferrous + 10 bottle caps) . So you only digged around 30% iron targets of the total. So this means 70% potential valuable targets ...I am not a beach specialist but this looks very interesting ... Looks like the AQ eliminates quite a lot of iron trash... Of course with a VLF there would have been close to 0% iron targets , but the VLF does not go as deep as the AQ ...

Hi , I have tested the Simplex+ last year and I made depth tests comparisons with it on my test boxes . Actually I am not confident with some youtube test videos I prefer to do my own tests , that I know very reliable ( test boxes, see my other threads in this forum , Vanquish for example ) .. : - On a big 10grams coin at 11inches deep the Simplex has exactly the same perfo as the Deus 11i coil , Eq 800 11i coil , Vanquish V12 - On a smaller 3grams coin at 6inches depth, the Eq , Deus, Vanquish are better than the Simplex. This is due to the Simplex 12khz relatively low freq which is not optimal for small /very small targets , compared to the 20 and even 40khz running on the 800 , Deus , etc Concerning the v3i , I do not know this machine , but from the single weight standpoint , I imagine that it must weight at least 1,5kg , whiile the Orx only weights 0,8kg. For info a teknetics T2 weights 1,6kg, the Simplex+ 1,4kg ... So the Orx/Deus outperform the others on this weight criteria , this is why people appreciate the XPs , in addition to excellent abilities on iron trashed areas...

Actually I find not normal that there is a great range of coils V8 V10 V12 for the "entry level" Vanquish and not even a 10inch coil for the Equinox. I know this has already been said many times but If ML does not improve their Equinox coil set , they will probably see customers moving to the Garrett Apex , as they have already seen many customers moving to XP … ML should read a little more the forums to get their customers feedbacks ...

From the few videos done with the Apex that I saw , the Apex could be better than the MLs ( Eq, Vanquish, Etrac , etc ) on high iron trashed areas. High iron trashed areas is the little weakness of the MLs to my opinion , and Garrett could take the lead on this with the Apex . The Apex looks more reactive and more silent than the MLs on these videos . Btw this iron trash ability has been stated by Garrett in their Apex marketing stuff if I remember well . Just a guess .. Need to go in the field with the Apex to confirm that..

Ok I understand , actually I know a lot of areas over here littered with modern junk ( small pieces of aluminium , etc .. ). For example along the roads. Actually I prefer to flee from such areas … Location is the key word when detecting … Detector settings comes after. Perhaps you should try to find a cleaner place outside the big town .. Sorry I missed your last post 50 trash/ 50 coin is quite a good ratio from my standpoint. In my area with the 1st WW war it is more: 90 ww trash / 10 other (( coin and artefacts ). So over here the pb is more the 1st WW trash than the modern trash …

Hi captain , I entirely agree with Joe's answer , there are valuable targets in the 10-20 range . For example in Europe we have small/very small old coins starting from 1gram weight that are in this 10-20 tid range ... So I never use the notch on my MLs. For info I use the 50 tones mode on the Eq , with this I can easily recognize the aluminium foil with a very low tone (below 10 TID ) . So most of the time I dig all targets , except those very low conductivity alu foils. However in some rare situations I only dig medium/high conductors above 20 tid , for example when looking for 1st WW relics , buttons , buckles … which are rather high conductors Of course on the beach with a lot of trash pulltabs etc it might be different , but I am not a beachcomber , only inland detecting so I will not answer on this .. Just to finish an example showing that one must be careful with the notch function. See pic below, in my hand 2 very different targets , a 1st WW 10 grams lead schrappnel a very common rubbish in my area , and a very nice antique 4 grams gold coin ( that I bought in a shop ,not found by myself … ). Actually those 2 targets have exactly the same TID at 17 ! So if I notch 17 to eliminate the schrappnell rubbish , I will never find this kind of coin because it will be also be eliminated by the notch ...

Hi joe , thx for your pics and infos . I have a question , what is the percentage of iron targets found among the total ? In mute and tone mode … thx again ..

Yes the Equinox is a little more complex than other machines like the Xterra , Deus , Tesoros , etc .. Actually it took me one year to master its audio and settings , although I already had a good experience of the ML multifreqs with my Explorer XS. The Equinox is a little "chatty" it takes time to get used to it … Just my opinion On the other hand when you know the machine it is a powerful detector , very sensible on targets of all sizes , big and tiny . I like the ML multifreqs . For info at the moment I use a Vanquish 540 which I find as efficient as the Equinox for what I am doing ( coin hunting on mild soils ) , this with a simplified user interface.

- Using the 6" you will loose around 10 or 15% depth vs the 11"coil I think , no more. In fact the drawback of the 6 coil is its low surface coverage because of its very small size . Then the 6 coil will be great for relatively small areas , gardens , paths , etc .. and less suited for large surfaces like open fields . However it is a very light coil , so fun to use I like it … 🙂 And possibly this small 6 coil might be less sensible to EMI than the big 11 coil ... - Concerning the disc , I never changed this setting on my 800 … I prefer to change a minimum of factory settings on my machines - For info the settings I use with my 800 on iron trash areas are : . low/medium iron trashed area : Park2 factory , sens 25 , iron bias from 0 to 4 . high iron trashed area : Field2 factory , sens 25, iron bias from 4 to 6 - Dig only when you have a repeatable signal on both sides I have a 800 and not a 600 , so the 600 might be a little different .. However I am quite sure that you will find the 6 coil very good on difficult/extreme areas with your 600 ..

If you are on trashy areas the 6 inches coil is much better than the 11 stock coil , this small coil is a must on trashy areas … And it has still a good depth

One other thing would be to test an other 600 to see if it behaves like with yours … Perhaps you can borrow a 600 from somebody else ? Did you ask your seller about his issue? No other idea up to now from my standpoint , perhaps someone else in the forum has an idea ...

It would be interesting to do your test on low mineralized ground if you can ( less than GB 30 ) . Normally you should have similar depth results between mono 5khz and multi for a big coin...

This is odd , I have an Eq800 and on my test boxes I get the same depth result between mono 5khz and Multi on a 10grams copper coin ( with a very slight advantage to 5khz). Park1 or Park2 . Coin depth 11inches ..Moderate mineralized ground ( Balance at 30 ). This test is very reliable I use it since several years now . Then I always use Multi because I do not want to miss small targets that are not seen by the 5kz mono .

Hi phd_angel , I have a Vanquish 540 with the 3 coils V8 V10 V12 ( 30 hours detecting with it up to now ) and a friend who is a beginner has a 340 since a few weeks so I have a few feedbacks from him about the 340. .. And we could detect together 2 times , so I could compare the 340 with the 540 , in fact their perfos and audio are very similar , just the 540 has more functions like the wireless , backlight , etc ... My conditions are inland detecting on mild soils , coin and relic hunting … ( No beach or nugget hunting ) So my friend the beginner is happy with the 340 , he uses it more in woods / forests with low/moderate iron trash. In such areas it is an excellent machine, very accurate and sensible to both big AND tiny targets with the MultiIQ. If you dont want to miss tiny targets the 340 will be better than the F22 . The Fisher F22 uses a 7khz low freq which means that it will miss tiny targets for sure .. It depends what you are looking for ... One more plus , the Vanquish has an excellent telescopic shaft not available on the F22. It means that you can adjust the shaft exactly to your size this is very important. Also it is very compact when in a ruksack. I really like this telescopic shaft , a great design from ML ... On the other hand my friend had a little trouble with the 340 on high iron trashed areas ( in open fields with iron trash for example ). I agree with him that the Vanquish ( and Equinox ) are a little too chatty on such areas , and it needs a few hours to get used to the MLs audio , probably a F22 will be more "silent" on such iron trashed areas. I prefer using my Deus than the Vanquish on high iron trash areas .. If I had to choose , I would go for the Vanquish , even knowing that it needs a little time to get used to its sometimes "chatty" audio . Once you are used to it, it is an excellent machine you cant go wrong with it ... Concerning the pinpointer I have a Minelab Profind 35 which is the only one with a very useful iron discri . Very happy with it ... Hope that helps ...

Steve just for info , what are the soil/sand characteristics at Tahoe beach ? Is it low mineralized , is it salted ? Just to know your conditions of testing .. I saw somewhere in the forum that the AQ would be deeper on wet salt beach than on low mineralized dry ground , this is why I ask the question … Thx

I have a very similar dream team ... 🙂 ; a Vanquish 540 and a Deus ws4 HF 9in … Both great machines ..

The XP Orx is an excellent machine on high iron trashed areas , the Equinox prefers low/medium iron trashed areas . So a good thing to have both...

Someone in this forum called the Deus/Orx "bodybuilded Tesoros" . This is true the Orx is very reactive with a very good iron discri in the "coin fast" factory mode , just like a Tesoro. However it takes a long time to get used to the XPs audio and their response to ferrous targets , often several months , sometimes years ... In fact the Deus/Orx have been rather designed to perform in areas littered with little irons ( old nails ) .And it can , like the Tesoros or other detectors , give a good signal on a deep big iron . Normally it is not a pb because such big irons are usually rare . The most accurate detectors on big deep irons are to my opinion the ML multifreqs Equinox , Etrac , Vanquish , etc .. I almost never dig big irons with my Vanquish , the ALL METAL button helps a lot for this ..