Wayfarer

Cliff, I was all set to keep the Tronds, until I realized they didn't fit.  If you have a way of trying them on first, then I'd still give them a try.  The fit was the only reason I didn't like them, otherwise they would have been great.

Chase, thanks for the heads up on the Miccus SR-71's.  They sure do look like the exact clones of the Minelab headphones without the logo (and likely the price).  The Minelab headphones fit very well with plenty of adjustment and don't have the small size problem that the Tronds have.  Good suggestion too about trying one of those little bluetooth transmitters that will plug into any detector's headphone jack and make a poor man's wireless setup.  I did just that very thing this week for using my new Audition Pros with my old MXT and it works great.  Those little transmitters can be had for under $30 bucks and can turn anything with an audio output jack into a bluetooth capable device.  Just make sure that it is actually making the connection in aptx-low latency mode, since it can be tricky to pair in LL and sometimes pairs in SBC mode.  The Avantree's and Tronds have an LED that shows if it's indeed in LL mode, but unfortunately the Minelabs do not.  The latency is so obvious, that all you have to do to check if wave a target back and forth in front of the coil, and you can tell right away if there is a huge lag, then it isn't paired in LL mode.

I just added some photos of the bluetooth transmitter setup on my MXT, attached with velcro.  As a bonus, the Minelab Equinox headphones work great with this setup and can now be used with any of my detectors.

I received the Trond TD-BH01's today and was able to make a direct side-by-side comparison with the Avantree Audition Pro's.

They are both very similar in size, function and sound quality.  The Tronds do have a bass boost feature but you can turn it off and then they sound no different from the Audition Pro's.  The Tronds also have a hard gloss black shell that looks like it will be more durable and better resist dirt and hard outdoor use.  

The Audition Pro's are lighter and more comfortable.  They have a deeper ear cup that, for me anyway, means my ears aren't mashed against the inside foam.  Both ear cushions have a big enough circumference to go around the ear comfortably, it's just that the Audition Pro's are deeper.

But the big difference and deciding factor for me, is that the Trond's headband doesn't adjust enough to accommodate my head.  I have a normal sized head, but the Trond headband doesn't lower the earcups enough even when fully extended.  I can barely have them fit completely over the ears, but then the headband is pulling down tightly on the top of my head and is very uncomfortable within minutes.

So there it is, I will keep the Audition Pro's simply for the main reason that the Tronds don't fit my head.  If they adjusted just a little bit bigger so I could pull the earcups down just a little further, they'd be the ones I would pick because they do seem a bit more durable and better suited to detecting use.  But alas, they just don't fit.  The Audtion Pro's are totally comfortable for me and the ones I'm keeping.

Bottom line, if you don't have a medium to small noggin, I'd recommend the Tronds.  But if you are medium to any larger, then I'd say you'll have to go with the Audtion Pro's.  Buy both and see which which works and return the ones you don't like. 

It's just nice to be able to choose from a large number of aftermarket headphones.  

I don't have the 6" coil yet, but I'm "on the list" with my dealer for whenever they become available.  The little coil ought to make the Equinox shine even brighter and play to its strength of being a great separator.  I can't wait to try it out in heavy iron, including in Gold mode, and see what setting work best to find all the non-ferrous stuff.  Hopefully the 6" coil will arrive in time for the WTHO group hunt in May in Nevada, where we'll be hitting several old ghost town sites.  It's clear one of the Equinox's great strengths is separation, and in iron in particular.  I plan to really put the Equinox to the test, and trying to figure out which modes work best in the heavy iron.  Field mode probably, with its Iron Bias set at 0, but now we're starting to hear that Gold mode may actually be the winner here.  Time will tell, and it's the exciting challenge of all of us collaborating, comparing notes, and figuring all this out with a new powerful detector like the Equinox that is most of the fun.    

I really appreciate the positive comments on my little mini-review.  There are lots of more technical reviews and tests out there, and this was only meant to be a broad overview from a typical end-user's perspective.  Lucky for me, I write in layman's terms because, not being a technical person myself, that's about all I can understand.    I do understand a little about DSP from my other interest of ham radio, and that's partly what has me so excited about Multi-IQ.  I've seen what good software engineers can accomplish and Minelab has a great crew of engineers that are really starting to dive into everything modern technology has to offer.  And that's really the most impressive thing about the Equinox to me, is the obviously VERY thoughtful engineering that went into every aspect of its design.  We hobbyists are lucky there is a company out there putting so much effort and resources into giving us good products.  

Steve's forum is quickly becoming the best out there.  He strikes a balance between keeping it clean and thoughtful on one hand and letting his forum become a free-for-all on the other, a very difficult task for any forum owner, and he does a GREAT job.  It's also great because of all the great members who make the effort to contribute thoughtful posts in a positive cooperative manner.  It's a group effort.  So thanks to everyone else who makes this forum succeed.  

Work has me heading overseas for the next little while and I won't be able to detect again until sometime in April, but I'll still be reading, lurking, and chiming in where I can.  I bet I'm like most here, that we just can't get enough reading every little tidbit about the Equinox, so please keep all the great posts coming. 

I was one of the lucky first recipients of the Equinox 800 and now after a couple weeks of use here in Boise, I figure I'll go ahead and give my rundown of my impressions of the machine. I agree with several other users that the TID is jumpy on deep silver (or other deep coins) certainly compared to the CTX. I never had an etrac but I did have (and liked) a CTX, and the CTX did better on deep coins, there's no doubt. Minelab said as much in their releases regarding the Equinox and Multi-IQ, specifically that FBS is still going to be superior on deep high conductors, and my experience with the Equinox is that they were right. 

The Equinox is a very good, but not great, detector for deep coins. For deep isolated coins, the CTX still reigns supreme. However, the current thinking is that the vast majority of yet-to-be-found silver coins are still there not because they are deep, but because they are masked. The Equinox unmasks far better than the CTX does. So you may actually have a better chance of coming home with silver with the Equinox because it unmasks so much better than the CTX (or, I'm assuming, the various other FBS machines which I haven't used). Park 1 with iron bias set to 0 and Recovery Speed set to 3 or less, seems to do best on deep coins. Despite the talk of Beach 2 being best on deep coins, I haven't found that to be the case, but everybody's soil and local conditions are different, or maybe simply because Beach 2 operates at a reduced transmit power level. Set up right, my V3i and MXT with the 10x12 SEF and Ultimate 13 coils, get just as deep and with just as stable TID on the deep coins in my test garden as the Equinox, the MXT maybe even a bit better. The MXT separates as well too, but that's probably because I have many, many, hours on the MXT and know just the right coil control techniques to use with the MXT, and I'm still learning the Equinox. 

And on mid to low conductors, like most gold jewelry, the Equinox does far better than the CTX. What really are the main types of targets that most of us would like find? I would suggest that gold jewelry has become the main target for most of us, whether it be on the beach, sports fields, or wherever, and for these targets, the Equinox does a fantastically good job. 

A couple more thoughts after using the Equinox for a couple weeks. The depth gauge does not work very well, for whatever reason. Not useless, but not very accurate, and it's slow and reports targets deeper than they really are. It seems to be calibrated for quarter or larger sized targets which is different than almost every other detector out there, so it takes some getting used to.  The inaccurate depth gauge is compounded by the lack of much audio modulation.  From the audio, it's easy to tell a 2" deep target from a 8" deep target, but not much else in between.  The pinpoint VCO audio is much better for determining the depth of a target, but that means you have to go into to pinpoint each time to get a good read on target depth.  Also, I wish the depth gauge and TID worked in pinpoint mode, and this shortcoming seems to be a step backward in technology after having used most other modern detectors with that capability. I expect some tweaking in a subsequent firmware update. 

The audio is great. Smooth, stable, very pleasant to the ear. Unlike most detectors with a lot of tones, the Equinox actually sounds really nice in full 50 tone mode (my V3i is almost unbearably horrible when used with many tones, in comparison). Maybe it's the stable TID or lack of a lot of TID segments, but the tones are very stable and communicative, and it's a great detector for hunting by ear rather than visual TID. One of the first adjustments I made was adding a threshold tone, which is very useful for determining when targets are disc'd out, as the threshold goes silent for an instant. This is kind of a good middle ground between totally silent search and all-metal "horseshoe" mode, so you get some info but without the chaos of too much noise. The threshold is a great feature. As I mentioned above, the modulation isn't great, but at least it errs on the side of letting you hear the deep targets.

The audio does get very busy in trashy environments with a lot of shallow targets. The DD coil design causes very strong signals on the edges of the coil, so you actually get three strong "beeps" as you sweep the coil over a shallow target. The strength of the three beeps is almost the same intensity, so it sometimes gets very hard to locate a target in a target rich environment where targets are less than a coil width apart. Out in the open, it's easy to tell you are sweeping over one shallow target, with a distinct rhythm of three beeps that you soon learn to recognize, but with lots of closely-spaced targets, it gets confusing fast.  I know this is inherent in the nature of DD coils, but on the Equinox, for whatever reason, the edge targets are very strong and frequently difficult to distinguish from the main center target response. I found this to be still confusing even after several hunts. Going into pinpoint and examining the individual targets clears this up, but it makes hunting in disc mode where there are lots of targets to be sometimes quite tedious as you have to stop, go into pinpoint, and slowly separate out each closely spaced target. Other detectors with DD coils have the same issue, but it just seems a lot worse with the Equinox.  I expect more time with the Equinox will help me learn to better separate out the false edge signals from the true center signal.  The Bluetooth feature is great. One you go wireless, you don't go back, and Minelab was good enough to use the widely available aptx-LL codec, so that users can pair any number of aftermarket headphones with the detector, as I have already done with the Audition Pro's I bought on sale on Amazon. 

Build quality seems good. It's just so light and small, it just feels light duty, kind of along the lines of my old Gold Bug Pro. For the price, however, it is excellent and is very well designed, using a tough feeling plastic and nice connectors. Cost of production must be very low, as there are so few components. Picking up my V3i, it feels like a multi-thousand dollar beast in comparison, the screen, the heft, the buttons, everything about the V3i is heavy duty and high-dollar feeling compared to the Equinox. The CTX, too, feels decidedly high-end in comparison, with heft, thick housings, heavy-duty connectors, and the color screen. The Equinox screen is functional, but very simple, not a lot of info, just the basics. The Equinox is a mid-level detector after all, so I'm not faulting it, just making an observation that it has a definite mid-level feel compared to the top machines. And balance:  it's so light that it is nose-heavy.  Not bad in practice because it's overall so light, you're basically just feeling the weight of the coil itself, but it definitely does not balance well. I'm thinking of adding an external USB battery under the arm cuff mainly just to try to balance it out better. But again, it's so light, that it's not really a problem, just an observation. I have a 6" coil coming, and I'll bet it will be a lot better with the smaller coil. 

The Equinox does everything very well, including finding deep coins, in one detector. Minelab markets it as an all-purpose detector, and for this, it is the best ever built. But for detectorists who are focused on one type of hunting only, they would still probably be better off with a detector specialized for just that one purpose. I'm not bashing the Equinox. I love mine. But don't expect a silver bullet that will do everything better than every other detector out there. I actually think that Minelab has very nicely filled a hole in their lineup, so that the so-called "well-equipped" dectectorist would have a CTX for deep coins, an Equinox for heavy trash and beach and jewelry hunting, a Gold Monster for VLF nuggetshooting, and a GPZ of some flavor for the die-hard semi-professional prospectors. (If Minelab released a good closed 5x10 coil for the Equinox, it could probably substitute for the Gold Monster). Being fully waterproof opens it up to a lot of different uses for a lot of people. So it fits nicely withing their product line, and if someone wanted just one detector, they would do very well with the Equinox. 

Overall, I really like the Equinox, but it's not a miracle machine. I will happily keep this detector for its waterproofness, its separation ability, simplicity, cost-benefit ratio, and overall fun factor. It's amazing that Minelab was able to pack so much capability into such a small and inexpensive detector. Bang-for-the-buck factor is the best of any detector.
 

1 hour ago, DetectingMO said:

they sound same as wired phones to me.  no clue on bass issue.  iron tone is fine.

Thanks for the follow up.  Based on what you are saying, the bass boost is probably not noticeable then with typical detector audio frequencies.  I’m going to go ahead and order them and see how they compare.  They definitely do look more rugged.  

It’s just nice that we have so many aftermarket choices.

P.S. I just ordered the Tronds you recommended and will compare them side by side with the Audition Pros and will report back.

2 hours ago, DetectingMO said:

these are great!  more rugged than avantree.  similar weight and feel as makro/nokta

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B075VLWPXF/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1519433188&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=aptx+low+latency&dpPl=1&dpID=414mRSlypwL&ref=plSrch

I looked at those too and would have bought them, but the reviews said that it has a very heavy bass boost "feature" that can't be adjusted or turned off.  If anything, I need a "treble" boost to compensate for some hearing loss I have and to better respond to the typical frequencies in detector audio.  Too much bass and you could get hum, pop, and loud low iron tones.

I agree the Avantrees aren't super rugged.  Very light and comfortable, though.

Is it possible to turn off the bass boost?  The reviews said no, but maybe you found out differently, because these otherwise look like great headphones.

I bought some Avantree Audition Pro headphones off amazon for $60 and they work great.  They are aptx-LL.  I would strongly urge going ahead and buying the low latency versions of whatever you decide on.  The regular aptx is 100-150 milliseconds delay, but the low latency is only 40 ms.  Some people notice the higher latency.  I’m a real stickler for fast audio, so I didn’t want to take any chances and went ahead and sprung for the low latency.  Pairing is very easy since the Equinox was designed to work with the aptx protocol.  

51 minutes ago, Mountain Mike said:

Wasn't there a thread somewhere in which the person did some tests analyzing the frequencies being transmitted in certain modes? Although that would not account for how each mode is processed. Testing and learning will be the key.

Yes, but the test showed the same frequency transmit weighting in all the Multi modes.  The conclusion being that whatever the differences are between the modes, they are being done in software.  Inside the "Black Box" of programming algorithms is where the magic happens.  

11 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

I see you have bagged up your control box to protect it from ??

Mitchel

Dirty fingers.  I always put a control pod cover on all my detectors to keep them looking new.  It's amazing how quickly the pod becomes grimy and worn with dirt and sand being rubbed into them all the time.  Since there are no control pod covers available yet, I fell back on my old standby, the Glad sandwich bag and a rubber band.  

It didn't take long for you guys to expose my OCD ... 

"I have been eying those very phones to use with my GPX.  Why did you decide to go with those vs. the stock supplied pair?"

Good question .  I wanted to have a spare set of Bluetooth headphones regardless, and now I'm thinking I might as well use these and keep the Minelab's as a spare.  That way the original Minelabs stay new and all the wear and tear go on an easily replaceable (and probably cheaper) aftermarket pair.  And I've found all sorts of other cool uses for the headphones, like watching TV without disturbing the wife, listening to music on my iPhone, pairing with my PC, not that I'm going to regularly do all that, but it's kinda cool if I ever wanted to.  

30 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

The good news is that the Equinox is designed to give you plenty of possible audio solutions for various detecting situations.

Minelab was smart in making the Equinox compatible with a large number of Bluetooth low latency headphones. 

Here are my Avantree Audition Pro's, $59 with free shipping, that I got Friday.  40 ms aptx low latency that pairs up perfectly to the Equinox and really work great. I can't perceive any audio lag all.  Of course, they will run out of juice at the most inconvenient time, hence the search for a wired backup.

This gold plated Radio Shack 1/8" mono adapter works great.  It properly silences the external speaker, and, conveniently, it fits nearly perfectly inside the metal ring without hardly any gap so the horizontal pulling stress is transferred to the inside of the metal ring rather than to the headphone jack itself.  

Until Minelab finally releases their adapter cable, this is an adequate solution for being able to use wired headphones.  I just want to be able to use my old Jolly Rogers as a backup to the Bluetooth setup and this ought to do fine.

I've had my 800 out three days and to about a half a dozen locations and noticed that it is indeed somewhat sensitive to EMI.  Also, the coil on the Equinox because of its double D design has extra signals at the edge of the coil, in fact much stronger "edge" signals than any other DD coil I've used, and this makes for a very chattery audio especially when sweeping over numerous shallow targets. 

At one location, a park near a federal building, the EMI was so bad that I had to switch out of Multi and go to 10 kHz to quiet the detector down.  The EMI seemed to be coming in through the 5 kHz channel, which was very noisy, but all the others were quiet.  This is a location I've hunted many times with other detectors and the only other detector besides the Equinox that was this sensitive to EMI was my V3i.  I guess that is the downside of a sparky detector running many frequencies simultaneously with a greater chance of picking up EMI.  But it's not un-tamable.  You just have to make sure you do a good noise cancel, drop the sensitivity, and switch to single frequency if absolutely necessary. 

This is a "hot" detector.  It's good that Minelab didn't dumb it down just to make it more stable.

5 hours ago, Mark Gillespie said:

There is a lot more going on with the Equinox than just a transmit frequency.  Internal program processing is as important as about anything else.  Signal manipulations through their proven Algorithms (program instructions).  I don't mean to jump to soon, but the 800 is proving to me, personally, it is superior to other machines I've had over the past 20 years. 

 

You are absolutely correct, Mark.  The magic is in the DSP processing algorithms where nowadays they can do just about anything.  The radio receiver I used for this test, the RF Space SDR-IQ (yes, the same IQ as with Multi-IQ, or Inphase and Quadrature) uses the same general technology to change the analog signal into digital.  Once it's digital, you can manipulate the signal in practically any way you choose to by software programming.  

The Equinox is really just a purpose-built radio transmitter that uses a Software Defined Radio (SDR) radio receiver.  Going SDR is really just the next step away from analog and toward more complete digitization and computer manipulation of the signal.  What's really exciting about the Equinox, is that since the software is where all the "Magic" happens, and the hardware is just an analog-digital converter, then the detector can be easily reprogrammed via USB as further refinements and advancements are made.  Minelab had to get the Equinox out the door in a reasonable amount of time, and so they had to cut their programming short at some point.  But now that the product is out the door and in the hands of actual users, reports from the field will come pouring in and tweaks can be made.  I would be very surprised if Minelab doesn't offer a firmware upgrade after 6 months or a year to address any issues that come up or just to make the detector even better.  And this can be done for years to come as the basic hardware isn't likely to become obsolete for many years.  Exciting times!

39 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Interesting.  How are you capturing the frequencies (i.e., conducted or transmitted using an antenna and rf receiver)?  And in the Multi IQ spectra, what about the prominence a few clicks under 20 Khz?

I just edited my post to include the possibility of a third fundamental frequency at 18 kHz as you noted.  The two biggest spikes (the two most powerful frequencies) are still at around 7.7 and 38.8 however and in keeping with Minelab engineering tradition, it's likely that those two are the main frequencies.  There's probably some engineering reason that there are two fundanental frequencies, but I don't know enough theory to understand it much further. However you can see there are also several other frequencies being emmitted, just less power.  Whether the Equinox uses those extra frequencies in its DSP algorithms is anybody's guess.

I'm using a software defined radio receiver that feeds into my PC.  Capturing the rf is actually really simple.  I just have a short wire antenna coming out of the back of the SDR receiver draped across the front of the coil.  A metal detector is really just a radio transceiver that is always transmitting when its turned on.  

One of the interesting findings is that the single frequencies clearly show up exactly where they are supposed to be, but Multi frequency does not actually use any of the signal frequencies.  It seems single frequency is being generated just in software, and that the single frequencies have no relation to the Multi IQ frequencies.  It's almost what would happen if you "forced" a CTX to operate on single frequencies.  The single frequencies really do appear to be just an add-on that the engineers left in as an interesting oddity but nothing more.   Contrast this to the White's V3i which actually does generate its multi-frequencies by operating each of the three fundamental frequencies simultaneously.  

So here are each of the single frequency modes (in Park1 mode), from 5 kHz on up.  You can clearly see the dominant spike is right where you would expect it to be:

5 kHz:

10 kHz:

15 kHz:

20 kHz:

And finally 40 kHz:

Since it snowed today here in Boise, I was stuck inside with nothing to do but fiddle and experiment with the new Equinox.  I was able to do a basic spectral analysis of my Equinox 800 to try to see what frequencies it uses.  I got some very interesting results.  Bear in mind that this only measures all frequency outputs and does not measure if they are being "fired" in rapid sequence.  An oscilloscope (something I don't have anymore) would be required to make that measurement.  

Here is a shot of the Equinox in Park1 mode with "0" ground balance setting:

It looks like the two fundamental frequencies are 7.7 kHz and 38.8 kHz (with a possible third frequency at 18 kHz, but that would break with the past precendent of two basic frequencies in BBS/FBS).  The short spikes around 30 kHz is external noise.  Clicking through the different modes made NO difference, so all the difference between the modes is all being done in DSP, not by varying frequency.  All the different modes looked identical to this screen shot I posted below for multi park1.

Here is the background noise with the machine off, so you can see what is external interference:

I have a 2A 5V USB charger that works perfectly with the Equinox.  I also have a 1A USB 12V car charger that should also work just fine, although with 1A, it should take twice as long to charge, so about 8 hours to a full charge versus the 4 hours from the 2A wall charger.

Computer USB plugs only supply about 0.5A.  So from your computer or laptop, it might take around 16 hours to a full charge.  Minelab says 0.5A is OK, it just will take longer to charge.

Just get yourself a decent quality 2A USB wall charger and you should be in business.  

The snow is in the mountains behind the capitol building just out of the picture.  Actually we've had a very bad snow year this year.  Bad for skiing this winter and also bad for streamflows for irrigation later in the summer ... but great for detecting. 

It's going to be another beautiful unseasonably warm day tomorrow.   ...I think I feel something coming over me, and I'm going to have to call in sick tomorrow.    

Took delivery today of what I think might be the first production Equinox in the state.  Got an email from my dealer, Gerry, who said his first batch had arrived earlier today and I was free to come down whenever to pick it up.  Naturally, I immediately high-tailed down there on my lunch break.  It's a beautiful day and my backyard test garden awaits, which is making it awfully hard to get anything done at the office this afternoon!  

The floodgates indeed are open as all the reports start coming in from around the country.  I'm going to put this machine through the paces and compare notes with all the other new Equinox owners and see what kind of performance we can wring out of this nifty new Minelab.  

Thank you Gerry, you're the best. You really know how to take care of your customers.

And greetings from beautiful Boise Idaho!

I never said Minelab was "forcing" this on dealers.  Let's try to explain it this way.  Let's say you are Minelab.  Your dealers are reporting a total of 10,000 preorders, yet your first shipment is only going to be 500.  What do you do?   First off, you know that prepaid orders are firm orders that have been placed at one dealer by one customer wanting one detector, so basically a sure thing that the accountants and shipping departments can count on.  Contrast this to an unpaid preorder.  An unpaid preorder only takes a phone call or an email to make, with no commitment of money.  That means it can be cancelled at any time.  This is MUCH less certain, so should carry much less weight when allocating detectors to individual dealers.  The dealer that has 20 prepaid on full orders vs the dealer that 50 unpaid orders, who are you going to allocate more detectors to? 

Additionally, many prospective purchasers have placed multiple unpaid preorders with the intention of seeing which dealer comes through first and then will simply cancel the other orders.  I know this is going on, because many posters on the forums have openly stated that is exactly what they are doing!  And there's nothing wrong with that, it is simply one way to try to game the system, which is perfectly legal in a free market.  So that's many duplicate orders right there.

So back to the dealer that has 20 prepaid orders, which are a sure thing vs 50 unpaid orders at another dealer.  Out of that 50, maybe 10 will actually end up buying from that dealer (just guessing, but I'm just trying to illustrate my point).  Minelab would likely end up shipping twice the number of detectors out of the first batch to the dealer with prepaid orders.  

Finally, this situation of a huge shortage was not known back in September when dealers started taking preorders.  Nobody knew if Minelab would be able to quickly meet initial preorder demand or not.  The demand turned out to be unprecedented, likely catching Minelab behind the curve with production capacity unable to quickly match the huge preorder demand.  So back to what Minelab should do?  They have to decide on a fair allocation among dealers and the dealers that have a large number of prepaid preorders are going to get a higher allocation than dealers who do not.  And we're talking only 1-4 detectors per dealer, so even many of the prepaid preorders aren't going to be filled in this first batch, and the individual dealers are going to have to start at the top of their list and work down.

The dealers that took prepaid preorders were probably just more savvy and had a better idea of how large the demand would be versus the initial supply and wanted to do right by their customers just in case there turned out to be a shortage and knowing how basic supply chain management works.  If these dealers were being overly cautious and it turned out everybody was going to get their preoprders, prepaid or not, in the initial batch, then there would be no harm no foul, everybody would be getting their detectors.  But just in case there was a shortage, these dealers who had their customers prepay, ended up being the smart ones since it was entirely forseable that should their be a shortage, the fair way to allocate would be by looking at the number of actual prepaid hard/confirmed orders.  As it turned out, these dealers were the savvy ones, because when it came time to allocate a tiny number of initial detectors, Minelab did end up taking into consideration how many paid up-front preorders each dealer had.  They may have even asked, but not demanded, that each dealer take care of their fully paid up front customers first, which only seems fair.  

This seems totally logical and reasonable to me.  

I don't think the dealers knew that prepaid preorders would be the only ones getting detectors in the first batch.  That's the way it ended up, yes, but at first, I'm sure the dealers were assuming all preorders would get filled in the first batch and it wouldn't matter of they were prepaid or not.  Then, when it became clear that there was only going to be a trickle of machines in the first batch compared to the huge number of preorders, Minelab had to have some way of differentiating who would be getting detectors in the first batch and who would have to wait, and they decided to have dealers send them only to customers who prepaid.  That decision probably wasn't made until the last couple weeks or so.  Maybe Minelab consulted with dealers and asked them the fairest way to handle the huge backlog and they agreed together that the first batch would go to prepaid preorders.  But I'm pretty sure this was not decided on until very recently.  So I guess what I'm saying is:  don't blame the dealers.  There wasn't necessarily any hidden hidden knowledge or conscious effort to "hide the rules."  

5 hours ago, steveg said:

it looks like it will be such a versatile machine that it MAY do a lot of what FBS can do, as a deep coin hunter.  I don't think it will "rival" the CTX in that application, but it's nice that it likely won't "struggle" as a deep coin hunter, either. 

Steve,

You and I and a LOT of other hunters are holding our breaths waiting to see if the Equinox will hold its own against the CTX as a deep coin hunter.  Multi-IQ is hoped to enable the Equinox to do as well or maybe even slightly better than the CTX in this regard.  Reading between the lines from many tester posts and what can be gleaned from Minelab's technology information releases and various "expert" analyses, the advantage the Equinox could have would come from giving useful target ID information at greater depths.  This is the $64,000 question.  

Reading the manual, I caught something that deflates some of my hope that this will be true and seems to say that Multi-IQ could actually be a disadvantage when hunting for deep high conductors such as silver coins:

On page 28 of the manual:

"Single Frequency Operation
Using a single frequency may have a slight advantage over multifrequency
in certain detecting situations.
For example; if you were searching only for larger high conductive
targets located at great depth, using 5 kHz may give an advantage."

I know it says "may give an advantage," but still, do you think Minelab is trying to let us down easy on any hopes that Multi-IQ will offer any advantage on deep silver? 

It will be very interesting to see if 5kHz single frequency beats out Multi-IQ on deep silver.  Perhaps in mild ground especially, 5 kHz single may turn out to be the mode of choice for deep silver.  

That's very exciting.  Nice nuggets!

I think a lot of the discussion once the Eq is released will be focused on the differences between each mode.  It's increasingly clear, and stated by Minelab, that the Multi-IQ frequency "mix" is different for different modes.  Park 2 and Field 2 already showing themselves to be good on small gold in a number of different environments.  There is already speculation that Beach 2 will be good for deep silver because according to Minelab it has a "very low weighted frequency combination."  Makes sense, if it's weighted more towards 5 and 10 kHz. 

So, what the different modes are best for, and what is really going on behind the scenes (like default settings for each mode, etc.), is going to be a hot topic.  My thought is that the "secret sauce" is going to turn out to be how the different modes mix and match the frequencies and differences in the DSP algorithms among the modes.   

It will be great fun when these get out in our hands and the reports start coming in! 

I'm preparing myself for a $249 msrp on the extra coils by learning how to use the stock 11" exclusively in all conditions!