My Thoughts On The Minelab Vanquish 540

[abenson]

I posted My Minelab Vanquish 540 pro review on another forum last week but have added quite a bit since then. Video link is at the bottom as well with some of the tests I performed for those that are interested.

Ergonomics are good compared to most detectors out there, it’s light weight and I like the layout of the menus and screen. I can tell it’s aimed at the Garrett Ace series of detectors. The 540 pro pack is a good value for the money. But if a person is on the fence between a vanquish 540 Pro or the Equinox 600, I would pay the extra $150 and get an Equinox 600.

Performance wise it’s a beginner metal detector and that shouldn’t be a surprise as the price reflects that. Menus are easy to navigate and straight forward. It’s a great metal detector for someone who doesn’t want to dig junk. ID is accurate and almost identical to the Equinox ID numbers. If a person runs the Vanquish in any of the modes and uses the stock high iron bias, virtually all iron trash and bottle caps are eliminated.

I’m going to make some performance comparisons between the Vanquish and the Equinox for those that want to know how it compares. Not saying that one is better than the other because it’s all going to depend on what you want to use each one for.

The iron bias on the Vanquish in high is about equal to F2 level 6 on the Equinox and on low equal to F2 level 2 as far as I can tell in side by side comparisons.

Modes I’m sure have different weighted frequencies and it’s anybody’s guess what they are. So other than the weighted frequencies I think recovery speed is the big factor in each. All modes are 5 tones. Relic mode I feel is about like having the recovery speed on the Equinox 800 at 1, Jewelry mode about like level 3 and Coin mode about like level 4 or maybe 5. Recovery speed is not adjustable on the Vanquish. Recovery speed on the Vanquish vs the Equinox was based on coins with no iron near it.

So, this is where it gets interesting. There’s got to be more going on than just recovery speed behind the scenes on the Vanquish because I was very disappointed with it’s unmasking abilities in any of the modes even with the small 5 by 8 coil. A few simple tests were performed. First, I laid 4 rusty nails in a row long way with a penny, dime and nickel between each nail. The coins were about 1.5” between the tip and heads of the nails. The Equinox 11” coil can easily see each coin at a recovery speed of 3 and even 2 with a controlled sweep speed iron bias at FE 2. The Vanquish couldn’t see the coins even with the small coil with iron bias set at low. I had to put the Equinox at recovery 0 iron bias 9 to perform as bad as the Vanquish. Next I placed a coin below a nail 2” the nail was 6 inches away. The vanquish couldn’t see the coin in any mode at any sweep speed with the V12 coil. It could see the coin with the V8 coil.

In my yard I have 3 dimes buried at 4, 5 and 6 inches. My soil is bad 4-5 bars on Fisher F75. Most detectors can’t hit the 6” dime and not call it iron. For example XP Deus with 9” HF coil, Makro Multi Kruzer, Fisher F-19, and Teknetics T2 with 7 by 11 coils all call it iron. Equinox and eTrac hit it fine and ID it as a dime.

The Vanquish in relic mode is useless in my ground I can’t even hit the 4” dime. In jewelry mode calls the 6” dime iron, in coin mode it hits it one way but ID’s 26, so not bad. But this is clean ground as in no iron near.

I took it to my local park to try out for a few hours and I was pleased with it’s performance. But I wondered what I was walking over based on my test with recovery. My question was kind of answered on one signal I got. It was a long weird signal in the 25-26 range. Good but too big to be a coin or so I thought. So I grabbed the Equinox and sure enough there where 2 dimes about 4 inches apart. One was about 3 inches deep the other 4. The vanquish couldn’t separate the two coins unless in pinpoint mode.

Next, I took a trip to the Great Salt Lake Marina and State Park here in Utah to see if it could perform in the mega salt environment. I ran the Vanquish only in the jewelry mode as I figured it was the one best suited for the beach. I was able to push the sensitivity to 8 out of the water and 6 in the water without too much falsing. This surprised me because I can’t run the Equinox out there unless in the Beach modes and even then, it’s pretty noisy. But stability comes as a price and that price is depth. I located about 9 targets with my other detector that were anywhere from 2” to 10” deep. Of the 9 the Vanquish could only see 2 of them and they were both junk, one was a piece of can slaw at 2” the other was .22 brass at 4”. The other targets were a swim cap buckle, .22 long brass, 1 nickel, 2 dimes and 2 pennies. They were all in the 7-10” range. Now on a normal salt water beach with no black sand the Vanquish will probably perform better.

I haven’t had the Vanquish out to a relic site yet but will try in the next few weeks weather permitting. Most likely will do signal comparisons between the Vanquish and Equinox. I worry how it will perform in my iron infested site, we will see.

It’s going to be a good metal detector for my daughter, which was my intentions of buying it in the first place. She won’t be digging many rusty nails or other junk and can cherry pick coins easy. It should also work good on the beaches in California when we vacation.

Overall good value and I think Minelab did a good job for the market it’s intended for. Comparing the Equinox to the Vanquish is kind of like comparing the Simplex to the Anfibio. The low priced models just aren’t going to perform at the same level although they have good DNA.

 

[Chase Goldman]

Excellent and thorough Vanquish analysis and write up.  Couple of comments, though.

2 hours ago, abenson said:

Modes I’m sure have different weighted frequencies and it’s anybody’s guess what they are.

ML is not providing any details, but based on what they have put out, they imply only a single Multi IQ profile is being used for all modes with the difference being the under the hood non-user-adjustable recovery speed and default disc settings they are using for each mode, but it appears based on your real world testing there may indeed be other differences going on.  I suspect that ML is using something not too far off from the Equinox beach 1 mode Multi IQ profile to ensure a certain level of salt beach stability but the result might be the Worst of both worlds between say Park 2 and Beach 1 based on your results, but agree with you, who really knows other than ML and they are not providing any clarity.

Did shifting into no disc mode provide any advantage whatsoever when dealing with iffy or clipped non-ferrous signals?

2 hours ago, abenson said:

Comparing the Equinox to the Vanquish is kind of like comparing the Simplex to the Anfibio or ORX to the Deus.

The only thing I disagree with in this statement is that it implies perhaps a much greater performance delta between ORX and Deus. Based on my recent experiences with ORX that are documented on this site in other posts (which I know you’ve seen but others may not have seen), I think the ORX, despite its settings limitations vs. Deus, is a lot closer to Deus in capability than even I gave it credit for until I put it to the test the past few weeks.  But I understand where you were coming from with that analogy.  The Simplex/Anfibio comparison seems appropriate, though.

[EL NINO77]

Abenson ,thank you for the test,..... you have done really extensive and rigorous Vanquish testing ..:
 
1. The results of the Tests in separation suggest that Vanquish has a low iron bias setting ... still a relatively strong rejection of the iron.

Stronger Iron Bias settings are responsible for less good separation .. it's strongly visible in nail and coin tests when in one line ...

This setup can make an otherwise fast detector pretty slow .. even on a small 4x6"coil...

2..Recovery speed recovery also like  to 3-4 recovery speed max .. maybe  5th according to the program.

This is also suggested by the hard work and and less deeply  detection of Vanquish in tests on heavily mineralized terrain ...

  3.Tests in heavily mineralized terrains could help set discrimination to 0 or better to 1.
At least on Equinox, it works similarly to "Iron volume" ... + but can also correct incorrect iron "VDI",,,, to   better"non- ferous  VDI"!!!

 

[Steve Herschbach]

As most people know for my uses and my difficult ground I have always tended towards higher recovery speed settings with the Equinox. I was personally caught off guard when Tom Dankowski started advocating for low recovery speeds in dense iron environments as it seems counter-intuitive to what I know about how recovery speeds work. Yet testing does show that in low mineral environments that the Equinox can pull non-ferrous targets out of dense iron even at low recovery speeds, though I am very much a skeptic that this is advisable in high mineral environments. This would appear to be related to its multifrequency processing doing magic one would not expect from a single frequency detector at low recovery speeds.

Your comments make me wonder if Tom's advice was taken to heart and that the Vanquish in Relic mode and what appears to be a very low recovery speed is therefore more applicable to low mineral environments. Your testing would seem to imply that given your experience in more difficult ground. In other words the Vanquish may be tuned more for turf type locations and the beach, which would make sense given the demographic it is targeting.

I still just look at Vanquish as an Ace alternative but with far better saltwater handling. I think it's biggest bang-for-the-buck application is at the beach, where multifrequency has always had an edge over single frequency. Never in a million years did I think Minelab would purposefully undermine Equinox sales via the Vanquish however so it should just go without saying the Equinox is a better choice for any serious detectorist for all but the most casual use. Marketing wants to hook the newbie with the Vanquish, then make the Vanquish owner want to upgrade to an Equinox. Looks like they have done well keeping the upgrade path clear.

I have to admit a Vanquish with the small coil was tempting me a little. But I almost always run zero iron bias and generally higher recovery speeds and it appears an Equinox with the 11" coil and my settings will do better than a Vanquish with small coil given the high iron bias and low recovery speed settings that are cooked in.

Great reporting, and thanks for posting! 

Minelab Vanquish 540 Data & Specifications

Minelab Vanquish 440/540 User Manual

[abenson]

Chase-LOL I agree with you about the ORX, should have taken that statement out before I posted it. Yes I tried the zero disc mode and the signals were still choppy.

Steve-I'm able to run Tom's settings at a recovery of 3 but not 2 in fairly clean ground as in not much iron trash and even at 3 it takes very controlled sweep speeds to make it work in my ground. Id is all over the place on deep targets but it is definitely deeper if you can work slowly. When I get in trash, recovery of 4 works better but still pretty amazing depth and separation is achieved. But I would have to agree that Minelab must have been looking at performance in mild ground and yea why would they undermine Equinox sales with the Vanquish.

[Jeff McClendon]

I have finally been able to do a little testing of the Vanquish 340 with V10 coil with no coil cover, which somewhat duplicate the testing done by abenson. The 340 has no high/low iron bias adjustment and has Coin, Jewelry and All Metals accepted modes. The only other settings difference was that I did not set the sensitivity on maximum. I set mine at half strength.

The Vanquish 340 in All Metals accepted easily passed 4 for 4, the Monte's Nail Board test with a zinc penny in position 1. It also scored 4 for 4 in Coin mode. In Jewelry mode it was 3 for 4 with failure on sweep direction 4. I have not done this test with a zinc penny in position 2. Nails of course are different. I have my Nail Board test set up with older square nails.

I used two 2" square nails and a zinc penny for a second test with all three targets on the same plane in this configuration with the space between the nails and the zinc penny at 1/2":

l--------------   O   ---------------l.  

In All Metals accepted and Coin mode the Vanquish 340 was able to hit the zinc penny if I paid close attention to making medium speed swings and very good coil control while keeping the coil very close to the targets. If I lifted the coil more than an inch above the zinc penny it was completely masked in both modes. Sensitivity adjustments made no difference. Jewelry mode failed.

This masking remained until the space between the zinc penny and nails was widened to 1 1/2". At this amount of target separation the 340 could easily detect the zinc penny all the way to 3" height in all three modes. With targets separated 2" or more there was no problem at all

I tried this same test with aluminum shards, pull tabs and other coins with similar results. With pull tabs and similar sized and shaped can slaw there was barely a hint of the penny unless the coil was within  1" of the targets in any mode. Coin mode seemed to be the best with Jewelry the worst. Separating the aluminum from the zinc penny by 1 1/2" or more alleviated the masking.

I put a US nickel on the right of the penny and a US quarter on the left and spaced them 1/2" apart. In Coin mode these targets sounded awful with broken sputtering audio and wildly fluctuating numerical target ID. In All Metals accepted these targets produced negative and positive numbers and iron audio, medium and high tone responses almost like iron falsing. To be honest, if hadn't known what these targets were I would have guessed a rusty tin can, rusty iron or a rusty crown bottle cap. Moving the coins apart so that the spacing was 1 1/2" made them clearly identifiable with no nulling or iron responses. The left outer edge of the V10 coil was able to separate these targets at 1/2" if I tilted the coil and moved it very slightly. Otherwise, it was a mess.

So target separation/recovery speed on the Vanquish 340 is definitely not as good as on the Equinox nor should it be for $199.  So, when I'm using this detector or letting a family member or friend use it I will have to remember this and investigate any close to the surface targets that seem larger than normal and that sound like rusty iron in All Metals mode and nulling/falsing iron if the Vanquish is in Coin or Jewelry. Could be multiple close spaced targets like a coin spill.

Jeff

[BeachHunter]

Great write up abenson and very informative. I would definitely not compare the ORX/Deus in like manner to the Vanquish/Equinox configurations. The ORX is quite capable. I see you’ve already addressed that part though. Good luck!

[Ridge Runner]

Heck why buy the Nox 600 ? Do you get extra coil? Do you get wireless headphones?

 You can just go over to Bill Southern forum and on the classified it’s a Nox 800 . It’s got extra coils. You can buy it for about the same price as the 600 .

 Fact of life if you spend less you get less !

 Chuck 

[Jeff McClendon]

My 340 did not include a coil cover or arm strap. It came with alkaline batteries and instructions. My 440 came with coil cover, control box cover,  wired headphones, arm strap, alkaline batteries,  and instructions.

 

Jeff

[Ridge Runner]

Phrunt

 I have a 6” coil on my Eagle 2 that’s been on the over 20 years without a coil cover and it still looks great. Now that was the day before coil covers was come to be . 

I think now being we have them we just beat the Sam Hill out them because we covered .

 Dang I was just thinking for what I paid for that E2 I could have bought 3 Simplex +. I can assure you that money was harder to come bye then than it is now.

 Chuck