Matt Wilson

Pretty exciting times.  People are realizing they can work from home/the road just as well and starlink will bring high speed access anywhere.  I think vanlife and moving to more rural areas will be a popular trend over the next decade.  I'm working on plans for a boondocking trailer so I can hit the road for a few weeks at a time.  For now, people speak pretty highly of cell phone boosters if you are relatively close to coverage areas. 

Thanks.  I ordered an XP ORX last night.  I know the NOX might seem like a more obvious choice, but I really like the light weight and higher frequency options.  I'm going with the 11" coil for general purpose and 9.5" HF coil for gold/separation.  I'll probably add one of the vanquish models as a backup/beach detector.  

On 8/24/2020 at 12:09 AM, Jeff McClendon said:

I have owned the Deus, the ORX and still own the Equinox 600 and 800. I like all four detectors. The Equinox just fits my needs better than the Deus and ORX.

So to me, it all depends on what kind of detecting you do since the Deus/ORX were not designed to be "do it all well" detectors.

If you are a beach person mostly, I cannot see any reason why you would want a Deus/Orx as a backup since they are not waterproof and you cannot even submerge the coils in water without losing the wireless connection from the coil to the remote control unless you use the waterproofing kit that includes a wire that runs from the coil to the control unit.

If you hunt in thick human produced nail and other iron trashy areas the Deus would be a great alternative to the Equinox. The ORX would be a workable alternative but it does not have adjustable iron tone volume or a pitch mode in its discrimination modes like the Deus does. It is three tones only.

If you hunt in large amounts of modern aluminum trash mostly, I cannot see how the Deus/Orx would really be a workable backup to your Equinox. To me that is the weakest part of the Deus/ORX since numerical target ID is not their strong suite. They are great tone detectors but picking through tons of aluminum trash without accurate target ID is no fun with any detector.

If you are a relic hunter in open fields with lower amounts of shallow iron or aluminum trash, the Deus or Orx would be a great detector for sifting out good targets in between the trash. The Equinox is really good at this too.

If you are a gold prospector, the Deus and even more so the ORX are excellent alternatives to the outstanding Equinox for a lightweight VLF gold prospecting detector.

The Deus and Orx are not going to become the same detector no matter what software changes are made since they do not share even the same display or button functions. They do share some coils and some DNA and features. However, the Deus is highly adjustable and the ORX has basic features. The Deus is an outstanding relic detector and the best VLF there is in thick iron nail beds, it is pretty good for coins and jewelry in aluminum trashy parks and also pretty good at gold prospecting. For beach work in the surf............I wouldn't do it. The ORX is also an outstanding relic detector with less features and adjustments compared to the Deus, is pretty good for coins and jewelry and is outstanding as a gold prospecting detector which is what it was made for originally. Again, for saltwater surf .........I wouldn't do it. Again, in my opinion there are other detectors that can handle aluminum trashy parks much better than the Deus/ORX.

The Equinox 600 and 800 are exactly the same detector except the 800 has more features and one extra button for the User Profile. In 1 tone or 50 tones, set up the same way in Park, Field, and Beach modes they are absolutely identical. 

If I wanted a backup aluminum trashy park and beach detector, I would buy the Nox 600, a Vanquish 540 basic model (since you already have bluetooth headphones from the 800 which will work on the 540), look at the Garrett APEX or the Nokta Makro Simplex, Kruzers or Anfibios. Those NokMak detectors have almost Deus-like lightening fast recovery speeds and are fully waterproof with saltwater beach capabilities including the handle vibrate mode for underwater target responses, so no waterproof headphones are necessary.

 

If someone needed do it all capability including placer prospecting, I'm curious which option you would recommend.  ORX + Simplex for beach or NOX 800 plus 6" coil.  

Thanks for the tips.  Maybe I should have posted this before buying, huh?  Haha, that's okay I would guess that I can sell it for the same price I bought it for with no problems.  If you say the Equinox 800 is better at finding gold (including very small) then that looks like the all arounder I'm looking for.  

I actually didn't realize that the vanquish models had Multi IQ.  Their pricing looks pretty attractive.  My main concern is that I don't want to miss small gold.  We go to Colorado every year and should be able to find some pickers where we already go.  I have no idea what else we will do, but beach, coin and relic hunting are all likely.  

2 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

While going with a bigger coil and lowering frequency will improve raw detection depth, generally speaking, with respect to gold, specifically, you don’t want to do this for two reasons.  First of all, the larger coil will be less sensitive to smaller targets.  99.99 % of the gold you will be chasing will be tiny.  Look at the pic below that I ripped off from Steve the forum admin.  Furthermore, even though the smaller, higher frequency 18.75 kHz coil will have less depth penetration, the higher frequency will be better able to light up shallow micro gold better than the big low frequency coil, because the higher frequency coil is better at “illuminating” small mid conductive targets like small gold (as well as brass, lead, birdshot, and micro aluminum bits, unfortunately).  But no one said gold detecting would be easy.   HTH

 

Yeah, I was thinking more like going over an area with each coil.  One to compliment the other's weaknesses.  I'm just not sure if it really makes enough difference to justify.  Just trying to figure out how big the difference is between what these two coils would return.

I chose the 705 because my understanding at least was that it would do a better job at finding small gold than something like the vanquish models.  The equinox 800 was a finalist, but a little more than I wanted to pay.  I ultimately decided on the Fisher F19 or equivalents or the 705.  This was just the first one I found a good deal on.  

I'll probably be toting my wife along on most trips so I'll be looking to add a second one.  I'll either go with a similar "value" model or get an equinox 800, or just start saving for a PI who knows.  

First, I new here so hello and thank you for contributing to this forum.  I just purchased my first detector and am excited to get started in this hobby.  I bought an xterra 705 with the 8x5 18.75khz coil to go along with the standard 7.5khz round coil.  I'm hoping to take some trips looking for gold over the summer, but I live in Texas so I was also looking for a general purpose detector for parks, beaches, dinking around.  I'm thinking this setup gives me a pretty solid all arounder to get started.  

I am wondering about the different coils for these things and how to get the most out of a singe detector.  Obviously, the 8x5 will be my best option for small gold.  My question is whether there would be a benefit to getting something like the 15" 3khz coil for larger or deeper gold?  Would it be useful in this capacity?  Would there be much difference from the stock 7.5 coil?  I suppose I'm trying to ask if there's a way to get a VLF to work more like a PI detector.  I'm guessing I also know the answer, but I'm asking anyway.   What do you guys think?  Useful or money better saved?