longbow62

I'd pay CTX money for a bigger color screen, target trace multiple targets on the screen, FE-CO, with the same recovery speed of the Equinox.

Don't they have a financial announcement in mid-February? With their two most expensive recreational detectors being so old I would think they would be announcing a new flagship soon. That's what I'm waiting on. Is the Etrac even still being made. It's not listed as discontinued, but I have not seen a brand spanking new one in stock anywhere for quite awhile now.

Very good topic, and nice easy to understand explanation. Thanks!

Good job on the silver. That looked like it was some work swinging that bank!

I just got an email from Serious Detecting saying they are back in stock.

Fantastic dug collection. Indian Head cents are one of my favorites too. Especially those one wipe green ones.

Congrats, you had a super year in my opinion.

They need to get on the ball that's for sure! I figure they got to have something in the works, but their competition has definitely one upped their build quality and possibly performance too. I was sure looking forward to a new Equinox successor. It's past overdue now.

That's what I'm wanting to hear. Keep up the good work Calabash we all appreciate it.

I have a Deus II on pre-order. I've got a lot of time on the Equinox 800. I hunt in 5 tones 100% of the time in some seriously trashy places. Most of them have both old iron and modern aluminum trash. I can pick out good targets with the 800 in Park2 and neither dig an inordinate amount of iron or aluminum unless it's somehow round and reads in the coin range. Do I just know the detector that well or is it that good at honing in on coins. All I know is I pull all types of coins coins from some horribly trashy places without that much trash or iron being dug.. I have a Deus too. No way can I do that with a Deus. In some spots I wouldn't even try. Granted I don't know it as well, but I think part of the reason is because it just doesn't work where there is much aluminum trash. Point of this post is I find the Equinox 800 close to magic at zeroing in on fairly shallow coins in horrendous trash or even really deep coins where trash is somewhat more sparse. It's like I said I almost instantly know that's a coin. Is it recovery speed or is it something else entirely? The Deus II is blazing fast, but is it going to call everything a coin? This is one of the reasons I thought XP and N/M might have trouble equaling the Equinox 800. I've dropped the coin on the Deus II, but I will be really surprised if it can do what the Equinox does in places with lots of mixed trash.

Chase I always get consistent GB numbers in the areas I hunt. If I go to a certain park and GB in PARK1 the GB number is always really close every time I hunt. Same with Park2. If I go to the mildest ground I hunt which is almost pure sand and GB in Park1 and Park2 the numbers are always lower in the sand than in red clay that's in the Park. I think there is a correlation between low numbers being low mineralized ground and higher numbers being higher mineralized. How else could you explain getting greater depth in the sand vs. red clay? If ground tracking is on and you are swinging over a iron rich area I have seen the GB number go up way higher than what I initially GB'ed to. Maybe that's a good thing? Not sure, but if I re-GB right there where I noticed it drops back down close to where it was initially. I saw on a video early on after the Nox introduction with a guy in the UK doing a Nox school. He was telling the students to leave tracking off, and not to use it. I have noticed also if you swing over a target numerous times it changes the GB and it's not super fast at dropping back down although it eventually will. I thought ground tracking was only really recommended for prospecting. I do not trust ground tracking when I can just do a auto GB when I think I need to.

I always do an auto GB first thing. I have forgotten to do it before and noticed the detector seemed off somehow. Did an auto GB and like magic my Equinox starts acting the way it should. I'm a firm believer in proper GB on the Equinox to get the most out of it. By that I mean best I.D. and best depth. I've hunted some ground that the GB in Park1 was high single digits. When the mineralization is that low you can probably just get away with running 0. When you GB and are getting in the 50's I think running 0 would be a serious disadvantage. I do not like the ground tracking feature and never use it. I have been detecting and noticed ground track is on by mistake before and been like I just wasted ever how long I have been detecting. I GB multiple times a hunt.

Any thoughts on if the Deus II FMF will be as deep as the Equinox Multi-IQ? I wonder what the optimal coil size would be? I find the Equinox very deep, and I.D.'s are even pretty good at max depth.

Hey don't y'all think it's odd you can't find a new Etrac to buy at the bigger detector sites. Same can be said for the Safari and X-terra. Equinox and Vanquish are not sold out and those are the Minelabs biggest sellers. CTX is sold out at some places. It's not proof by any stretch, but makes you wonder if those sold out detectors are being phased out. Maybe I'm just wanting to believe a new release will be sooner than later.

I purchased my 800 in early Nov. 2018. I have a gazillion hours on it. Never had a coil ear break and hope I don't. I have 2 800's now plus a Coiltek 10x5 I am leaving on one one of them for now. So I have 2 11" coils in case I do ever break an ear. Weird some people break ears on multiple coils and some folks never break any!

I hope it's not another year before they put out a new flagship detector. I had been keeping tabs on the stock inventory on the big sites that sell detectors. The Etrac is out of stock every place I look. CTX sold out in several places. Could be COVID parts shortage related or the increased sales have just depleted stock. I was hopeful it was due to a phase out of those detectors due to a introduction of a new top of the line detector.

I worry about it's depth too. It's a nice coil though. I hunted with it behind the stock 11" coil and it did well. I found several things going back behind the 11". A silver ring and an IHP that I really can't fathom how I could have missed. Not only that, but my buddy swinging his Etrac also missed them. They were solid signals with 10x5. Not iffys at all. Had I just walked away from with the 11" or not heard them at all? I definitely like it better than the Minelab 6" coil by a lot.

Mine seems to work fine. No issues so far. I'm satisfied with mine thus far. I found a nice selection of old coins, relics, and a silver ring this past weekend with mine.

How much depth loss with the Coiltek 10x5? Does it handle EMI any better?

I just got an email from Serious Detecting saying they were in stock. I ordered one. We will see if it was worth it or not. I kind of have my doubts.

You've had 3 pod replacements in how many years? I had one within the first couple of months after getting mine 2.5 years ago. Since then no issues and I have put very serious use on mine. I did trade for another 800 lately as mainly a backup because I got rid of all my other detectors. Were your issues water related or something? That seems like a lot if they just died. With all the use I have put on my original unit the battery seems to have held up well. I don't let it get very low before a recharge.

I like their products, and I had an Impact as my first detector when I decided to get into detecting seriously. It's a good detector, but when I got the Equinox 800 in 2018 the Impact went straight to backup detector status. I ended up selling not to long ago after getting a second Equinox 800. I even got rid of my Etrac because overall I found the Equinox to be superior. At this point the only company that I am super interested about any new releases from is Minelab. Sure I would take a serious look at what Nokta/Makro has to offer, but at this point it would have to be proven to outperform what I am presently swinging.

I don't think it's cell phone related. I think it's electrical. I guess I could try that, but like I said I think is caused by electric lines or equipment.

I posted this on another forum other than Detector Prospector also. I feel Detector Prospector tends to be a bit more technical oriented than the other forum so I posted it here also. I am 100% all in on the Equinox. I like it so much I have 2 800's. My biggest gripe is how susceptible it is to EMI. Some of my best spots have EMI so bad I have to turn the Nox down to like 15 or below. I used to run a Nokta Impact in 14kHz as my main detector before I got the Nox and it had EMI issues also, but I don't remember it being quite as bad. I think the Nox is a much hotter detector than the Impact is. It's sure a lot deeper than the Impact. I don't have the problem everywhere so I know it's not a detector problem. Running a smaller coil helps some, but not a lot. So I've had an Etrac and never once did I have any audible EMI issues. Is it Multi-IQ that is susceptible or what? Do power companies check for EMI issues like bad connections or transformers that may be the culprit? Most of my issues have been in the older parts of towns where the power infrastructure tends to be much older. How many other people with the Equinox notice EMI is worse on it more than other detectors they use?

This question came up on another forum and you would think these days detectors like the Minelab Equinox would not have any fluke units where one was better or worse than the next. Back in the day I'm pretty sure this was not true with analog detectors where electronic parts were probably procured at the cheapest price the manufacturer could procure them, and substitute parts with differing tolerances were probably used. I have read where people will have a vintage guitar amp recapped with new in spec capacitors and the amp loses the great tone it had before. Actually that's why certain guitar amps back in the day of the same model might have a few that sounded unbelievable compared to the rest. I would think old school analog detectors would suffer from in or out of tolerance stacking much more than today's units.