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  1. As I was swinging tonight on the beach I remembered the experiments I had done in the afternoon. I had adjusted Iron Bias for the first time and played with Recovery Speed. I had run through many of the modes and sounds but didn't get out of Multi. This got me ready for the beach. When I got there the tide was coming in but on the way out I had found a 'ring' in the dry sand. It is the electrical fitting ring, not the kind you wear. I got down to the wet sand in the dark and finally had some interesting targets. They were 'easy' to hear compared to my previous uses and a couple of quarters to get started. Then the thought occurred to me that the 800 is like an instrument and I was 'playing the ground' with it. I could make the ground sound like I wanted it to so that is what I did. I experimented and I won't go into all the details but I thought about the base instrument, let's say a piano. I know what a piano sounds like. I also know what some of the sounds an electronic keyboard makes which enhances the keyboard strokes. What is the basic sound of the 800? I went to Beach 2 because I'm not going in the water diving anytime soon and I went to Recovery Speed and put it on 1. I put Iron Bias on 0. Tones are on 5. Now I have done Noise Cancel and Ground Balance. Sensitivity is set about 22. What does the 800 sound like? A cello or bass. I can hear everything because I have a little threshold. I feel like I'm moving a bow over the strings because the ground is moaning. The targets are coming thru in their normal fashion it is just that everything is 'long' and maybe this is was a smooth CTX sounds like because it uses slow recovery. It is nice to know so now I go to Recovery Speed 2. It is a big difference. All this time I'm thinking about the power of the 800 to see into the ground and salt water. All of the adjustments are filters on what we hear. I was pleased to hear it as smooth and I had it on all metal so I could hear the bobby pins. These settings helped me find the Canadian Dollar because it is magnetic and the magnet. There were a couple of jewelry pieces so I was pleased with that also. I'm not going to keep these setting everywhere because there are places where a fast recovery is needed but not on my beach tonight. I felt like it could see deeper but I didn't dig anything over 10 inches. Try the power of turning off most of the presets. As Kevin Hoagland once told me about my 5000 ... take that manual (as he was throwing it across the room) and shove it. Get a threshold and listen to the ground. He was right. I took the power and listened to the ground. Amazing. Mitchel
  2. 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.
  3. I am by no means fully comfortable with my new 800 but I have read alot, watched the generous videos and played with all the bells and whistles so I decided to hit the beach this morning. There was no cut but there was a place near the embankment leading down to the sand that I know from years past has had a lot of people around it so I decided to give it a go. I was in Beach 1 with the sensitivity up a touch (22), but other than that I was planning to use the time to listen to how the tones corresponded with the targets. To my surprise I began to pick up good sounding targets right away. After two hours I had only worked an area about 40' by 40' and you can see the results below. Some thoughts: I had a hell of a time pinpointing. The pinpoint button was pretty good but all in all that was my biggest area of confusion. Where in the heck does a target 5 or 6 inches down hit on the coil? Anyway, that is definitely something I have to learn more about, I was terrible at it. Secondly; it is absolutely necessary to take the coil cover off each time you use the detector, especially in the sand. To my surprise I see that the coil cover is the only thing between the potting in the coil and the ground. (first full coil pic) I am a PI detectorist and so maybe I just don't know about vlf's but I was surprised to see the potting so easily accessed. After two hours of hunting, there was lots of sand under the coil cover and I am sure it began to affect the way the detector behaved. Anyway that's it. I thought I'd add a post for once instead of just reading everyone's contributions. Oh and P.S. - this is a killer detector and it made me look pretty good today.
  4. I followed TNSS's lead and did a hunt entirely in Field 2 today. The site is a late 1800s rail road spur that serviced a large mining town. The mine produced large amounts of copper and silver. They smelted the ore and then shipped it by rail to a refinery. They spilled a lot of the "raw" smelted metals while adding cars to the line at this spur. The site is very polluted. We have hunted it with various machines. The Nokta Relic, Impact, and AT-Gold did pretty good here sifting through the trash BUT only if they were wearing small coils and hunted slow. The Equinox excelled here with the stock 11" coil and I found that it performed better hunting fairly fast. Settings were Field 2, Speed 6, 50 tones, Iron Bias 2. The 6" coil will be killer on a site like this one! I found my first Indian Head Penny (1905)! That probably sounds funny to you guys that hunt back East and find IHPs all the time. The trade off... I can drive 20 minutes from my house and find gold nuggets. It's a cross I will have to bear I guess. A few lead box car seals, part of a baggage tag that says Prescott on it, a brass or copper piece that looks like the hinged top from a drawing compass or the base of a hand held fan (?), suspender buckle, and some really odd shell casings....303 British (with bullet), .56 Spencer, and oddest of all a .38-55. The large chunk of smelted metal in the upper right corner acid tests as silver. It IDs in the mid 30s on the Equinox. I've found some other nice chunks of smelted silver here. The black rock-like object (looks natural) comes in at a solid 12 on the Equinox. Not sure what it is. When I hit it on the grinder it is solid metal of some sort (very heavy) with a bluish hue kinda like the color steel becomes when over heated with a torch. Anyway, Field 2 seems to like the low conductors best and is very immune to the hot rocks from the track ballast (which gave the AT-Gold and the Impact fits). Nice and sparky with Iron bias set to zero but tames down when set on 2 as TNSS mentioned. Dean
  5. I went back to the same park I hunted on Tuesday to see if I could pull any more goodies out. To be clear I have never pulled anything out older than a 1932 wheat. I've dug quite a few merc's, silver washington quarters and a few silver rosies. I chose an area to hunt that I had run my deus, CTX and AT pro at over the years. I don't think it's fair of me to compare my time with the CTX as if I could really run that machine because between repairs and just comfort it wasn't there for me but the deus and AT I could swing. I dug the 1875 seated dime first. It was 8 inches down in front of a large rock. I could only get the top quarter of my coil over it and the VDI ranged from 24-28. It was a quieter signal meaning you could tell it was deep. If you are a VDI hunter you would probably have passed this by as it was all over the place combined with the faint clear tone. About 5 minutes and 15 feet away later I got the same type of clean clear faint signal. The VDI was again jumpy showing anywhere from 27-33 depending on how I turned the coil. I dug about 6 inches down, shoved the pinpointer in there and there was nothing. I stood up, ran the equinox over it again and now the tone was a little louder and the VDI moved to 29-32. I dug another two inches, pinpointed again and got a tone, dug 2 more inches and there it was, my first seated quarter! The town I live in was only created in 1887 but the park had been there since 1875 when the First Presbyterian church dedicated an Oak tree in the park as it's foundation tree. I found both seated's about 25-30 feet from that tree. I didn't find anymore silver just a bunch of clad and I'm embarrassed to admit about 15 old twist off bottle tops. They all rang in at 22 and in the same area as the seated's. I was trying to remember where Indian heads came in at on the equinox and I thought it was 22 so I dug them all and was fooled every time. I'm starting to understand the Equinox now, what it's trying to tell me and on deep targets don't judge them by their VDI. Loud signals 4-6 inches with jumpy VDI's have been trash but these two were jumpy at 8" and 10". As an aside I sold my deus and my Excal is up for sale. I'm throwing all in with the Equinox and going to get a second unit and the additional coils. I only can swing one machine at a time and for the foreseeable future it's going to be an Equinox.
  6. I tried some air testing with the EQ600 this morning on some of my silver and gold rings. Something very interesting happened on a large silver ring as I was testing different orientations. First laying flat solid high TID then on its end when sweeping it horizontally TID was a bit lower but when sweeping vertically NO TID??? Did same test with gold ring 14k 8g flat good TID of 18. Then on end horizontally a TID of 12 and finally vertically a TID of 8-9 with a very low tone in the middle of the coil. I may have missed a few diggable targets because i was thinking pop tab when I heard that type of signal but wont make that assumption again. HMMMM
  7. Well i got my new 800 yesterday and after fitting it out onto my Anderson shaft and lower Terra 705 rod i got up early this morning for a 5am start . I stayed on the beach till around 9.30am . When i got there i saw that the beach looked good , i was expecting a poor beach after the last search look bad . And hoped for a Gold ring . Anyway i got started and i noticed i wasn't really getting that much depth , it was in Beach 1 mode and i put it into 50 tones and upped sens to 24 . Tested it in the water and all was fine there .But i wasn't getting that much depth . Another real disappointment was the headphones , they are the same low muffled tone of the Koss which i hated and never bought with any of my Minelab's after my first 2 Explorer's way back. They give such poor sound that everything sounds deep and i could not hear anything below around 8 inches ! and even large Aluminium was sounding quieter than normal at that depth . Anyway i kept going and even though there seemed to be a lack of deep targets i was getting plenty of shallower targets . Lots of coinage and some old Pennies and knackered Half pennies , even had 5 unidentified foreign coins and 2.20 Euros . I was able to find a Silver ring next to iron nails and had a steel ring and a junker too but no Gold this time . I cannot say i am very impressed yet with the Equinox . I am going to have to get a couple of 3/8 to 1/4 inch adaptors for my own Gray Ghost headphones and see how they are with this machine . I wont be using the ones supplied again if i can help it . Dont want to seem too negative but maybe its because i have had too little sleep lately and not studied the machine fully . It was done on the red eye today . Next week i hope to have adaptors , if not i will use my Explorer 11 for Thursday next . Really hope my fears are unfounded . I cannot download a picture , keeps failing .
  8. Has anyone tried the Gold prospecting mode at any saltwater beach yet? Just curious as to how it will/would work.
  9. This may have been answered somewhere already, I searched and couldn't find an answer, but my question is: Does the new Equinox have a true all-metal mode? Like when you press the Horseshoe button? By "all-metal" I mean non-motion, non-disc filter, unfiltered all-metal audio. There is kind of a "hybrid" all-metal mode that bypasses the disc filter circuits (not just disc set to zero) but requires a small amount amount of motion because it has a self-adjusting threshold in all-metal. Is this how the Equinox operates? Or when you press the "Horseshoe" there isn't any S.A.T. and you are in true non-motion all-metal? I've been spoiled by all my true non-motion all-metal detectors because of the large depth gains that usually come with non-motion all-metal, so I hope that is how it works with the Eq. Thanks.
  10. I gathered up all the things I needed to complete the Nox for my 10 days of hunting since off from work for annual leave. It looks like the weather is going to cooperate with temps in the upper 60's to lower 70's here in NM. I added a Zagg clear screen protector, a housing cover from the UK, and yes, I did cut the screen on the cover for a reason. I found a padded arm rest cover, it's designed for a Garrett and my Anker power supply velcro'd to the stand when needed. I wrapped the rod and handle with vet tape to keep the dirt and grime from scratching the paint all to hell. I'm headed to my heavily hunted spots to rework them and see what some new technology can produce, if any and to see if the mighty CTX may have missed some stuff in the trash and iron. The wife will be gone for a week, sooooo, no honey do's for me!! Hopefully I'll be able to get a better feel for the machine and the settings by the end of my little vacation.
  11. It is nice to see a true Multi Purpose detector like the new Minelab Equinox 800 do as advertised and then some. Originally most people (including myself) felt the Prospecting Mode was an afterthought. What I mean is, the manufacture makes a great detector for the majority of people who use it, knowing they will be detecting Coins, Relics and Jewelry (the majority of use) with occasional Prospecting. This detector started making BUZZ from a few Testers who are actual Nugget Hunters and it still continues to impress. (Make sure to read the post by JP as he really goes into great detail). Even though it has the round 11” open coil, the detectors SENSITIVITY to small low conductor metals is TOPS. Check out the 1st nugget found by one of my customers using his EQ-800 in Arizona last week. No it is not a huge one that any detector should beep in, it is actually pretty small. Here are the comments Ron W shared with me “ Found in a hard hit area in a small 8’ x 15’ raked patch, gold 2, sensitivity 25, ground balance manual, 4 inches deep, very clear signal. Missed by a Gold Bug 2 and the Monster. Had to take 2 inches off before the Gold Bug with small coil could hear it. Very nice detector. Light weight, easy to handle with lots of options. Thanks for your great customer service Gerry. Ron” It actually feels pretty good to see my own customers making finds with their Equinox detectors before me. Besides, they need a little love once in a while too. Keep it up guys, we love hearing the stories and seeing the photos of GOLD-n-NOX.
  12. Well the weather here in the UK has been well a bit snowy and very cold . Or what we would say snowy and cold ! But today it was a bit warmer and all the snow in my area has cleared up apart from the hills and fields. High tide was at mid day so i went for about that time . The sea was cold and i was wearing my wellies but that didn't stop water getting in the left welly and that was cold. Well i used the settings that i said on another thread i put into my machine , i went right upto the water and again mostly the machine was quiet . I found a few coins but with the waves washing up the beach and chasing me i had to wait a while to get stuck in properly . 1 of the first targets i found was a Silver coloured bangle but i cant see a 925 so i dont know if its Silver . It does have 2 markings so if anyone knows what they mean .. As the tide went out i searched but most of the beaches were very built up like the last time 2 days ago when i just gave up before even searching . This time though i had to do another search to see if i could have better luck with depth . By the time i finished at around 4pm i had the Bangle , a junk ring , a 20 Euro Cent and £13.55p in UK coinage . As for the machine . I am still having trouble finding deep targets with good target sounds . Other than the Pound coins all the other coins are quiet tones and i have set my settings quite loud . My Explorer seems to be far better for target sounds . And this time i was using my Gray Ghosts . On Monday i will use my Explorer to see if i would have done better but i might not find much , the whole beach is very built up. I think i need help with settings on the Equinox , to me it seems less capable than the X.Terra 705 and i have been only doing the parts of the beaches that i would with the Terra . My next trip out with the Nox will have to wait till just under 2 weeks time . Work is in the way , it will give me time to suss more about the machine . I need louder deep sounds , but all i get is quiet tones shallow or deep and its quite easy to miss a deep target if its that quiet . Next time i will use a single frequency on a different mode and try that . I am struggling a bit .
  13. This was hunt #3 for me putting me at 6.5 hours on the equinox now. I usually last about 2-3 hours a hunt due to needing a 2nd hip replacement so I envy those of you who can swing all day. I hit the beach in Ventura after school today hoping the storm and high tide would result in some erosion. I figured since it was cold, had just finished raining I'd have the beach to myself. I get out there and there is a family having a picnic and one of the women is in a bikini getting out of the water. Only in California will you find people in bikini's swimming in overcast 55 degree weather with a water temp of 57. I digress so here's how the equinox did on my black sand beach. I used beach 2 as I hunted the wet sand. The Equinox didn't disappoint. It was a dime magnet. I can't recall finding this many dimes (11) in such a short two hour hunt. The VDI was spot on from 24-26 on every single one. My first target made a slight chirp that was faint so i decided to investigate and it was a dime at least 3 scoops down. It isn't sugar sand so I was probably down about 16 inches in the heavy rock/pebble sand. The quarters were each 29-31 I had been using my Excal II on the wet sand and it's a great machine but tone only and now with accurate VDI on the Equinox I think the Excal is going to get a little dusty. The shore break is such that I don't get out beyond my knees so all i'm going to need are the waterproof phones. I didn't find anything of real value, I dug every target for the first hour and then cherry picked the high tones until I left. The nickel rang at 12. It was a foot down and no matter how many times I turned 90 degrees on it the VDI was 12. The junk hit mostly at 9 and 15-17. I dug two or three zincs and the VDI was 19-21 each time so after those 3 I just ignored those #'s for the remainder of the time. I didn't really expect to find gold as I need the summer so folks can replenish the sand. The couple times I dug an item with iron you could easily hear it. It made a sound like Pfft at the end of the tone. Interestingly enough i did get 3 different ghost signals where it said there was a target, I dug, dumped the sand checked the hole and the sand pile and the target disappeared. Made no sense whatsoever. Pinpointing was a chore. As good as I could pinpoint at the park the other day was as bad as I was today in the sand. I don't really use the pinpointer, I try to wiggle my way to locating the target. I dig, swipe the pile with my foot and scoop the target. Today I dug, swiped, scooped, swiped etc., etc. I'm willing to say the problem was me but it was an issue. I guess you could say I'm now an official Minelab Equinox Fanboy. I have complete confidence that if a ring of any shape or metal was under my coil I would have heard it clearly and cleanly. It handled the wet sand with little to no falsing. I bumped up the sensitivity to 25 just to see how it would do and it got a little chatty so I backed it down to 22 and it was quiet. It got so quiet that I turned up the threshold to where it was audible so there was at least a sound. One issue I seem to be having with the headphones is that they cover my ears so well that they really block out external noise. Twice now I've had people walk up on me and I had zero clue they were there. It could be that I'm just concentrating so hard that i'm zoning out or that my ears are the perfect size and fit for the headphones. I'm going to get a second equinox as soon as there is an inventory available. I'm going to get the 6" for the dirt and keep the 11" for the beach. The equinox works better out of the box for me than probably any detector I've owned other than the MXT or maybe the ATpro for turn and go detecting. I have to go to the Junk fair with my better half tomorrow at the fairgrounds so I likely won't get out again until Sunday. Best to all
  14. Well I got the chance to hit my favorite park this afternoon for the first time with my new nox. I ran it in 5 tones, park 2. To be completely transparent, I ran it in this way because this was somehow how it was when I turned it on today and pushed some buttons. I was able to pair the bluetooth headphones completely on accident as I thought I was following the instructions and it wouldn't paired and then I went to turn them off and when I did it paired. Seriously I had no idea how I did it. When i finally hit the ground all I could think of is man this thing is fast! The park I'm hunting is one of those "hunted out" parks. Over the past 45 years it has had MD club hunts, and a bunch of detectorists like me who have brought every machine known to man to hunt it. I personally have used a silver umax, Whites MXT, V3i, AT pro, Etrac, CTX, XP Deus on it over the years. I was out for 2 hours and it was a great hunt! 2 silver, some clad and of course the junk. Some observations 1. If you're a new detector and you just got a Nox, I'd use 5 tones and for the first 10-15 hours or so I'd just hunt for coins. Set your tone for coins to 25 so it rings loud and start to see how your coins sound in your soil. Learn your VDI's, the merc dime was a 26-27 and the 1940 quarter was 6-7 inches down and gave a VDI 31-35. 2. If you're coming from a Deus the Nox will seem heavy believe it or not. I got so spoiled using my deus in terms of lightness and the nox was heavier. Obviously if you are coming from a CTX or Etrac it will be like swinging a toothpick. 3. The 11" coil is easy to sweep and scrub the grass with. It really feels like you can cover a bunch of ground. 4. Beaver tails come in at 12-13. So does nickels, so does gold. 5. Pinpointing is a breeze but truthfully you can wiggle it just as easy and not use the pinpointer and end up over the center of the coil. The tone is easy to "see" under the coil if you know what i mean. 6. Study Steve's VDI diagram. It's spot on. I knew with an 80% accuracy rate everything I chose to dig. I dug one zinc just to test the VDI and then avoided them the rest. Now when I go jewelry hunting I'll change my approach but for today I could notch it out just by hearing and seeing. 7. The Equinox is a confidence machine. The hype definitely gives a placebo effect. You feel like you're going to find good stuff. 8. I didn't think I'd sell my XP and Excal but after today I likely will and replace them with a second 800 and once the coils come out I'll just keep the 6" coil on one and the 11" on the other for beach and park hunting. 9. Don't let the haters change your view of the Equinox. Multi-frequency is going to be better in 90% of the the situations you'll likely find yourself hunting in. The arguments surrounding FBS and BBS is irrelevant to the average hunter who is simply looking to find coins and jewelry. That's not a criticism of the CTX or Etrac but rather how good the nox is going to be. Who cares if it costs a 3rd of a CTX. Unless you're buying a CTX it's price shouldn't matter. There's probably a ton more I could say if I was a technical type person. I'm not, I'm strictly a treasure hunter and what I don't have in eye sight I have in hearing and the equinox is a really, really good machine. Tomorrow it's to the ranch and the iron patch. I can't wait, life is good. Best to all of you.
  15. It is nice to see a true Multi Purpose detector like the new Minelab Equinox 800 do as advertised and then some. Originally most people (including myself) felt the Prospecting Mode was an afterthought. What I mean is, the manufacture makes a great detector for the majority of people who use it, knowing they will be detecting Coins, Relics and Jewelry (the majority of use) with occasional Prospecting. This detector started making BUZZ from a few Testers who are actual Nugget Hunters and it still continues to impress. (Make sure to read the post by JP as he really goes into great detail). Even though it has the round 9” open coil, the detectors SENSITIVITY to small low conductor metals is TOPS. Check out the 1st nugget found by one of my customers using his EQ-800 in Arizona last week. No it is not a huge one that any detector should beep in, it is actually pretty small. Here are the comments Ron W shared with me “ Found in a hard hit area in a small 8’ x 15’ raked patch, gold 2, sensitivity 25, ground balance manual, 4 inches deep, very clear signal. Missed by a Gold Bug 2 and the Monster. Had to take 2 inches off before the Gold Bug with small coil could hear it. Very nice detector. Light weight, easy to handle with lots of options. Thanks for your great customer service Gerry. Ron” It actually feels pretty good to see my own customers making finds with their Equinox detectors before me. Besides, they need a little love once in a while too. Keep it up guys, we love hearing the stories and seeing the photos of GOLD-n-NOX.
  16. I got out to my old rancho permission with the nox this afternoon and I went to a spot that I had felt reasonably sure I had cleaned it out with my deus in the last month. The Old rancho had approximately 70 small homes spread out over 50-60 acres. It's now a nursery and my spots to hunt are predicated on when the owner moves his trees. Sometimes I literally hunt in between the rows in a 2-3 foot wide by 100 feet lane between trees. I've used Historic aerials to help out but the way I find a house that's been wiped from the face of the earth is to find the big iron left behind in the ground and then start to hunt in between it. The spot I hunted today was cleared about 2 months ago and it's about 60 feet wide by 100 feet deep. I was pretty secure in the fact that I had cleaned the area pretty well as I had taken out clad from the 60's and 70's, 4 mercs and about 20 or so wheaties. In addition I've found some pretty cool relics. I had hunted some of the same ground in the past 3-4 years with the CTX and ATpro just not all of it like I did with the deus. Unlike yesterday when I felt like I had an 80% guess rate in the park, the iron knocked me down to between 50-60% as evidenced by all the junk I dug that fooled me. The fooling came in the beginning though and here's what I learned. - all that junk sounded good, clear and strong however the VDI would move + or - 4 numbers. I'd get a great high tone, and then check the VDI and it would show 23, I'd move around it and then it was 27 or 24 or 25. In order to learn if this was true most of the time I dug all that junk and the tone with the jumpy VDI was the same every time so remember, good tone, jumpy VDI is probably junk. - the nox sounds way different in the iron homesteads than in a park. That may sound stupid or "duh" but my Deus sounded the same no matter if i was at the beach, park or the old rancho. To me, the fact that my deus responds the same isn't good. It means it's not AS ADAPTABLE as the Nox. I don't know if this is the reason but one is a single frequency and one is multi-frequency. I'm not trying to knock the deus but it has more limits than the Equinox and I suspect this is going to be the same for most other detectors. - when you hear the chirp you have to investigate further, don't walk on. One of the wheats only sounded off on one side in one direction only. Every time I got a chirp today it was mixed in with another signal. You could hear the iron and the barber each give a repeatable tone. I didn't have a single target that was by itself, everything was mixed together but the amazing thing was the equinox gave me the info I needed to dig. So back to the hunt in the hunted out iron patch. 6 coppers 1 zinc 3 wheats (46, 37 and one too hard to read) 1 1912 Barber Dime 1 palmolive token that's rotting and the Good Roads bell. All this from a place I'd "cleaned" out over the course of the last month. The barber was in between an iron nail and aluminum. The token had iron in the hole which is why I think it's rotting because the iron seemed to rest on the token. It's probably cliche now but the Equinox is a game changer and today proved it for me as did yesterday in the park. 2 hunted out locations, 3 silvers, 3 wheats and a bunch of clad. Keep in mind that I really don't even understand the Equinox yet. Every park, old home or place is now back open for business no matter who has come before to it. I can't wait for all of you to get yours. You're going to have a lot of fun. Best to all you, Skate
  17. I am on a wait list for the 800. I may consider the 600 if it takes to long to get the 800. I have not seen a topic on this. Will the WM10 from my CTX connect to the wireless 600.
  18. “My involvement with EQUINOX has been purely around the Gold Mode, leaving the testing of the coin & treasure modes (Park, Field, Beach) to the experts in these areas. Typically, a general-purpose metal detector has a token gold (or prospecting) mode with much lesser performance than a dedicated VLF gold detector. Not so with the EQUINOX 800…” https://www.minelab.com/anz/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/equinox-the-gold-hunter
  19. Let's save our finds for six months using the Equinox and do a show and tell
  20. I know these are what many of us don't consider relics this is more of my first impressions of the Equinox as many of you are waiting on one or considering one my hunting buddy and I gave the nox 800s a run in two tough homesites that were heavy iron. I mean carpet of iron with iron audio on ( horse shoe button) sounded like a machine gun When we get our video clips together I will post a video of the hunt. We pulled lots of coins and some modern relics from thick iron. I ran field 1 and 2 5 tone iron audio on as well. The find that truly impressed me was the small cuff size flat button it was a soild tone a 10 vdi both ways it was 9- 10" inches with nails and iron in and around the hole. I stuck the pinpointer in the hole to measure it the black cap was just below soil line. Now it's important to note the scale as most of you know is from -9 to 0 iron and 0 to 40 non ferrous. This button IDs 10 or 11 out of the ground Here in our soil finding relics and coins over 6 to 8" is not common unless it's milder soil or large targets with vlfs or even FBS . We have moderate mineralized soil and often hunt heavy iron homesites both combined present challanges to the ctx and the at pro even with iron audio on. My hope was the nox would perform well in our soil. If so it would work better in Culpeper, VA (where I go a few times a year for civil war relics) then the ctx or at pro where soil can be nasty as many of you know. However, my go-to machine there is the gpx 4800 but in heavy iron or trashy fields the gpx just doesn't work well being PI. I am very impressed with nox so far and I know we have barely scratched the surface of how to unlock it's full potential. In our soil here the nox performed in the type of site the ctx would struggle in. What I found different about the nox was its power, recovery, separation and accurate id in tough conditions. That's a big deal in mineralized soil folks must non pluse I'd anything over a few inches as iron. Now the only thing I changed was tones to 5 instead of 50 in field 2, sensitivity and recovery in fact everything else was stock. I already feel this machine is different and has excellent relic potential especially in mineralized ground. For me when I don't need a gpx or in areas it can't do what I need the nox will be my first out.
  21. In reading the manual for the 4th or 5th time, i have 2 questions: - Factory Presets, page 63 has the settings for Gold 1 and Gold 2 the same, however on page 26 Gold 2 is to be different from Gold 1, by having the a lower Recovery Speed. Is the only difference the recovery speed? - When it comes to Noise Cancel & Ground Balance, does it matter the order in which these are done? Thanks! Equinox 600 / 800 Full Instruction Manual (English pdf 5.59 MB) Equinox 600 / 800 Getting Started Guide (English pdf 847.71 KB) Equinox Battery Charging Recommendations And Warnings Minelab Equinox Parts & Accessories Page
  22. Hi from Downunder I cannot take any credit or claim these are my settings but am only passing them on for other enthusiasts to use. Neil Jones (UK) deserves the credit and he posted them on Facebook so, to me, these are now common knowledge - If I am wrong to be putting this here, please delete this Steve. Field 2 ALL METAL Target Tone... 2 , Advanced = Tone Pitch t 1...7 , t 2.....23 Threshold ...as required , Adv. = Threshold Pitch ...1 Volume Adjust...as required , Adv = Volume Tone t 1 ...1 (or 0 if you dont want to hear iron) t 2 ...25 Recovery... 8 , Adv = Iron Bias...4 Note : In the above I reversed Neil's original Tone Pitch settings as I prefer Iron to sound off as a quiet low tone and non ferrous as a loud high tone. If you prefer things the other way around just reverse Tone Pitch numbers to t 1...23 , t 2...7 I use 2 tone ferrous a lot on some sites with my Etrac and am glad to see something similar again here with the Nox. These are the basic settings he gave and a test run works great for me. If anyone can improve these please feel free to add you improvements Good luck
  23. This information started out as part of a comparison between the Equinox 600 and Equinox 800 but I wanted to make it a subject of it's own by expanding on it here. The Equinox 600 and Equinox 800 are basically the same detector, but there are a few advanced options available on the Equinox 800 that are not available on the Equinox 600. This article explores the various tone options and what they are on each model. This image from the Minelab Equinox 600 / 800 Getting Started Guide highlights the audio setting options. The items marked with an asterisk denote features only available on the Equinox 800. Tone Volume - A relatively new feature allows some detectors to set the volume of the ferrous (iron and steel) tones to be lower than the volume of non-ferrous tone responses. This can be much easier on the ears in locations full of ferrous trash where every swing of the coil produces many ferrous responses, with the non-ferrous responses being few and far between. Both the Equinox 600 and 800 can adjust the ferrous tone volume. Relic hunters in particular find being able to adjust the ferrous tone volume to be a very useful function. Again, this feature is available on both Equinox models. The Equinox 800 goes a step farther in allowing the non-ferrous tone volumes to be adjusted. Maybe you have coins set to give a high tone, but you have a hearing loss in the high tone range. The Equinox 800 allows you to increase the volume of the high tone response in relation to the other tones, making it easier to hear. This is most useful in the five tone mode, which by default has one tone for ferrous, and four separate tones for different parts of the non-ferrous discrimination scale. Each of these four non-ferrous tones can have individual volume levels. Threshold Pitch - Both the Equinox 600 and 800 allow you to set the threshold volume level, but the Equinox 800 also allows you to set the threshold pitch or tone. Again, this is good for people that have hearing loss issues in particular ranges. Target Tone - Both Equinox models allow you to choose from several pre-set tone options. Single Tone (monotone), Two Tone (usually ferrous/non-ferrous), Five Tones, or Fifty Tones. The tones are preset but in conjunction with the Tone Volume above both the Equinox 600 and 800 let you adjust the ferrous volume to suit your ear. Tone Pitch - As noted before, both the Equinox models allow you to adjust the ferrous volume. Both models also allow you to customize the ferrous tone pitch. Maybe the tone is too high and you would like it to be lower. Or perhaps higher. Both Equinox models allow you to set both the ferrous volume and ferrous pitch or tone. The Equinox 800 also allows you to customize each non-ferrous pitch or tone to your preference. Again, good for those with hearing loss, but also very good for creating custom audio discrimination patterns. For example, perhaps the owner of an Equinox 800 is most interested in gold responses. The Five Tone mode has a very low tone for ferrous targets. The non-ferrous portion of the scale is divided up into four segments, with each segment making a higher pitch tone. Large silver coins are set by default to be the highest tone. This imaginary gold hunter might decide to set the high silver range as a low tone because very few gold items read in the high silver range. The operator could then more easily focus on the new mid-range higher tones as being more likely gold responses. Tone Break - The positions on the target id scale where one tone shifts to another is factory preset. Both the Equinox models let you adjust the point where ferrous tones shift to non-ferrous tones (the ferrous tone break) - a very important feature. Manufacturers try to set the zero point (or some other numeric reading) as being where ferrous tones shift to non-ferrous tone. The Equinox model discrimination scale is -9 through 0 as ferrous, and positive numbers 1 - 40 as non-ferrous Unfortunately, that point is actually an overlapping range, especially for small gold items and ferrous. The factory does the best they can, but certain soil conditions may cause non-ferrous items to read in the ferrous range. Both the Equinox 600 and Equinox 800 allow you to shift the ferrous break point up or down as you see fit. For instance, the operator may want to set -1 and -2 as non-ferrous readings. This means they will dig more ferrous items, but also possibly valuable non-ferrous items missed by others. With the Equinox 800 the other non-ferrous audio controls really come together knowing you can also adjust the break points between the non-ferrous tones. This means you can create totally custom audio discrimination modes on the Equinox 800. You can move the break points around as you please with the Equinox 800, and even use this to create four tone and three tone modes. Start with the five tone mode. You can move a couple target id segments to both read in the ferrous range and assign them a similar tone for instance, so two of the tones will be ferrous, and the three remaining tones assigned to non-ferrous items as the operator pleases. The Equinox 800 also allows for adjustments to the 50 Tone mode that are lacking in the Equinox 600, but the details of this feature are still being finalized. Tone volume, pitch, and break adjustments are an incredibly compelling feature for people like me that hunt almost entirely by ear with the target id numbers only coming into play after the fact. Still, more of an advanced user function for sure, which is why only the Equinox 800 has these options.
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