How Does The Vanquish Stack Up? A Look At The Specs

[ColonelDan]

17 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Wow, SImon, either you didn't read my post in its entirety or really missed my point.

1)  First of all, I know full well that the Vanquish is not trying to be an Equinox, but as I said in my post, people are going to make that comparison anyway either to figure out if they can "get away" with a Vanquish without paying for an Equinox or just want to know what you get for $280 to $400 more for Equinox, so I laid it out.

2)  Re iron bias.  I completely agree with you.  Advertising that setting to entry level folks just confuses the issue.  I am not the one who added Iron Bias to the Vanquish.  But if they are going to add it as a feature (they made it more complicated on the 440/540 by adding two level settings), why not allow the user to turn it off completely as there are situations since where it can hinder performance.  Just like Disc (which they allow you to turn off), it is a filter that can just get in the way.

3)  I tend to agree with you on the go find, but really, the 340 is not offering anything above Go Find other than you can pay for an additional coil if you want and multi IQ that cannot be tamed by appropriate settings or single frequency.  It is basically a wash, and that was my point.  Not sure why ML bothered with the 340 with Go Find around, in the first place.

4) Regarding the ACE series - I pretty much showed the 440 DESTROYS the ACE 400 feature for feature.  That is what ML was apparently aiming for and they succeeded.  Not sure where you got the idea I was saying the Vanquish was NOT the choice over the Ace.

5)  Re: the Simplex.  This is going to be a great competition.  I think ML made a mistake not providing full up waterproof protection for the Vanquish 540 at least (if not the 440 also).  I think ML tried to slice things too thin by coming out with 3 entry level models.  If they had focused on a way to bring the 440 along with at least a waterproof housing (and preferably wireless) at or just above the 440 price point then we might have something serious going here.  As it is, the 340 is somewhat irrelevant, the 440 takes on the Ace 400 straight on but falls short, IMO, of adequately competing with the Simplex for that same Ace market share and the 540 doesn't go far enough to close the gap with the Equinox 600.   

Keeping things simple with just the 440 (and perhaps waterproof and wireless) would have been the best bet to adequately take on BOTH the Ace and Simplex simultaneously.  IMO.

I completely agree with you that both ML and Nokta/Makro are making some innovative and bold moves.  I think the V440 is pretty close to being what it should have been and both it and Simplex belong in today's entry level detector marketplace.  I just think the 340 and 540 are kind of irrelevant.  Get a GO FIND instead of the 340 or skip up to the 440.  Get the 440 or an Equinox 600 instead of a 540.  That was my point.

Chase,  great comparison.  Your observations will be very helpful to many I’m sure.

I intend to get the 440 for my 10 year old granddaughter as an upgrade to her GoFind 40.  We hunt mostly on our Florida beaches so multi IQ is more important to me than the Simplex waterproof benefit. I’ll take the Minelab water resistance and multi freq over the Nokta single freq and waterproof housing for the kind of hunting we do...especially since she never ventures into the surf anyway.  When the day comes that she may be proficient enough to get into the water, an Equinox will be in her future and the Vanquish will go to her younger brother.

One other reason I’ll take the Minelab is based on years of familiarity with and confidence in Minelab products.

Just the rationale from my beachside foxhole.

[Lacky]

I should add that when I talk about water hunting it is all fresh water.  I am many hours away from any ocean. The simplex will be a decent choice for freshwater hunting for all the non coastal folks.  The vanquish for salt beaches well away from the water, the equinox 600 for salt beaches at or in the surf line (assuming everything works as well as we hope). Its a pretty decent lineup of choices really.

All that said I'm still glad I bought the equinox 800 which does everything pretty well. 

[LowTide]

The Vanquish is simply an update to the X-terra lineup.  They've added Multi-Freq since they planted that flag and are going to defend it.  They also added some water resistance and wireless.  So they are not the Nox 400, 300, 200 as maybe some had hoped.  Likewise the Simplex is not the Anfibio Lite.  I do find the screen Iconography of the Simplex interesting, kind of Nox-ish.?

 

The Nox 600 is still the mid-priced Bully that other manufacturers are going to have to take on at some point.

[kac]

Seems like these companies are having a race to the bottom. They are taking new developments and scrunching them down to grab at the new potential consumers. Not that bad an idea for xmas season but how about working on some substantial new tech? Wonder if these new machines will drive the prices down on some the other machines.

Seeing the Simplex and Vanquish makes Tesoro's look more and more like a tick in time in the past.

[Jeff McClendon]

Hi,

I have owned several of the Vflex X-Terra series detectors and their younger detector user successor, the Go-Find series. If the Vanquish has anything close to the target separation, unmasking and overall speed of the Equinox (and we know it has some form of Multi IQ simultaneous frequency operation) it will be a BIG step up from the X-Terra and Go-Finds, regardless of what model Vanquish one looks at in my opinion.

The target separation, unmasking and recovery speed on the Vflex detectors and the ACE/AT Series is woeful compared to the Equinox.

A similar situation exists with the TreasureMaster and Treasure Pro along with the Fisher F11, F22 and F44 and the Greek series Alpha, Delta and Gamma (not the Omega, which has other issues) compared to the Equinox when it comes to overall speed, separation and unmasking.

I look forward to hearing about and seeing actual results once the Simplex and Vanquish are released. 

Jeff

 

[Jeff McClendon]

An update to this post after several months with the Vanquish 440 and even the 340. The Go-Find series is a joke compared to these comparably priced Vanquish detectors. No matter what you read here that speculated the Go-Find models can compete with ANY of the Vanquish models, forget about it.......... just the stupid display on the Go-Find dooms it to failure compared to the outstandingly accurate target ID of the Vanquish series much less the simultaneous multi frequency Multi-IQ compared to the outdated, slow V-Flex, the coil choices, I could go on and on..........

 

Jeff

[Chase Goldman]

And updating from my perspective, I like the 540 Pro Pack vs. 440 that I originally recommended because the two coils included really give the Vanquish some added versatility.  The Go Find is really just irrelevant at this point now.  I liked the foldability and portability as Simon mentioned but I still found the mechanism a bit too flimsy and subject to jamming if you happened to get sand in in there.