Official Minelab Vanquish Ground Balance Info?

[67GTA]

In clean/mild ground the Vanquish almost rivals the Equinox. The lack of ground balance makes it painful to use in almost any other soil conditions. I can almost tame it by notching out -8 & -9 in all metal and lowering the sensitive until the coil no longer gives a tone when bobbing. You will still get occasional chirps just from the lack of GB.

[phrunt]

I think the frequency weightings are different on the Vanquish mainly due to it handling EMI better than the Nox.  I think 4kHZ is in play more than 5kHZ on the Vanquish, 4 is fine with EMI here where as 5 is troublesome, the Nox behaves like 5kHZ is being used where as the Vanquish feels like 4kHZ is being used.  I maybe wrong of course, this is just a gut feeling but my Vanquish is better with EMI than my Equinox.

[67GTA]

I forgot about that. My Vanquish is noticeably quieter than my Nox in high EMI areas even after several noise cancel attempts on the Nox. 5khz is usually the culprit in multi.

[Chase Goldman]

 

 

56 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I think the frequency weightings are different on the Vanquish mainly due to it handling EMI better than the Nox.  I think 4kHZ is in play more than 5kHZ on the Vanquish, 4 is fine with EMI here where as 5 is troublesome, the Nox behaves like 5kHZ is being used where as the Vanquish feels like 4kHZ is being used.  I maybe wrong of course, this is just a gut feeling but my Vanquish is better with EMI than my Equinox.

 

49 minutes ago, 67GTA said:

I forgot about that. My Vanquish is noticeably quieter than my Nox in high EMI areas even after several noise cancel attempts on the Nox. 5khz is usually the culprit in multi.

The thing is we really have no idea what either Equinox or Vanquish are using as the components of multifrequency.  I think it is a misnomer to think the Equinox of Vanquish are actually using ANY of the 5 (now 6) discrete single frequencies as components within the multifrequency spectrum as backed up by folks scope measurements which show odd frequency prominences that seldom line up with any of the discrete single frequency numbers, yet the single frequency waveforms are unmistakable on the scope.  I also don't think they added 4 khz to the multi mix just because they added it as a single frequency setting.

There are a few statements by Minelab that pretty much some this up:

“How many simultaneous frequencies?” you may ask, wondering if this is a critical parameter. Minelab has been carrying out detailed investigations into this in recent years. Just as you can colour in a map with many colours, the minimum number to differentiate between adjacent countries is only four. Similar to the map problem, it’s perhaps not the maximum number of frequencies needed to achieve an optimum result, but the minimum number that is more interesting. When it comes to frequencies in a detector, how the frequencies are combined AND processed is now more important than how many frequencies, for achieving even better results.

Referring to the infamous single frequency/Multi IQ cloud diagram, ML has this to say about Equinox, Vanquish, and the role the single frequency settings play in Multi IQ:

The Multi-IQ frequency range shown on thish [sic] chart applies to both the EQUINOX series & VANQUISH series detectors, in all models. There is no direct link between the individual single frequencies shown in the diagram and the frequencies used in Multi-IQ. [Emphasis mine]

Reference: https://www.minelab.com/knowledge-base/getting-started/how-metal-detectors-work

[GB_Amateur]

A couple things come to mind while I read this thread.  The first is that the detector companies (won't name names becuase I don't know who is guilty and it could be more than one) have done us no favors by their poor terminology/nomenclature, especially when they use the same word/term to mean something different than a competitor.  E.g. 'all metal'.  Or how about 'auto ground balance'?  But then we users also contribute:  e.g. horseshoe 'on' vs. horseshoe 'off'.  Which is which and what the hell is horseshoe, anyway?  (I know the answers but I have an Equinox and have been reading this site's threads on the subject for 3 years, exhaustively.  Put yourself in someone's shoes who hasn't done those two things!)  And kudos to Jeff for expanding the horseshoe thing to make it understandable.

My other observation/gripe is about Minelabs dribbling out information on the Equinox (and Vanquish) about how it works.  They give us just enough rope to hang ourselves.  The ML defenders say the purpose of this ploy is to prevent competition from knowing their secret sauce while the ML dissers says it's to confuse us enough to coerce us into spending the maximum amount of money buying their detectors.  I even wonder if it's some kind of internal battle between the engineers (who want to be up-front and as transparent as possible) vs. all the zoot suits who just care about the almighty (Australian) dollar.  I guess that's one more secret we'll never know....

 

[phrunt]

I don't think the sensitivity on the Vanquish is wound back at all, in my mild soils which are ideal conditions for depth you'd think the Vanquish with v8 8x5" coil gives a better Target ID response on a deep target than the Equinox with Coiltek 10x5" coil with them both maxed out on sensitivity.

[Chase Goldman]

9 hours ago, phrunt said:

I don't think the sensitivity on the Vanquish is wound back at all, in my mild soils which are ideal conditions for depth you'd think the Vanquish with v8 8x5" coil gives a better Target ID response on a deep target than the Equinox with Coiltek 10x5" coil with them both maxed out on sensitivity.

Too many variables to make any definitive apple to apple conclusions re: mode equivalency (what Equinox mode do you think the Vanquish modes equate with?), “hidden” or hard coded Vanquish settings for equivalent Equinox recovery/IB, etc.  Were you recalling anecdotal situations or doing a scientifically controlled A to B comparison?

What you may be seeing with Equinox is impaired performance precisely because you are running it at the ragged edge of max sensitivity (assuming you were running it at 25) and the “silent” EMI noise floor is degrading TID processing.

Actually, David may be on to something on transmit power.  Studies of the Vanquish waveform output seem to indicate that the Vanquish output (regardless of Vanquish mode setting) aligns most closely to Beach mode on the Equinox which is known to have reduced transmit power.  So, Simon, if you did a controlled side-by-side Equinox to Vanquish max sensitivity test with the Equinox in Beach mode and Vanquish in jewelry mode, that might be interesting.  Just spitballing because ML gives us practically no details on Vanquish vs. Equinox settings equivalency.

[67GTA]

I agree. The Vanquish, even with the 12×7 coil, consistently gets 1 or 2 inches less than the Equinox in Park and Field modes with my testing. Never considered testing in Beach mode because I don't have any beaches in my area. Now I'm curious if they are equal in that mode.

[EL NINO77]

With Equinox, you must first understand the differences between the Type1 programs / salt-or coke  .... conductive type /...... and the Type 2 ... programs / iron mineralization, or the terrain contaminated with iron - iron or magnetite  type mineralization / ..
Simply for certain types of terrain, one of these types will make the program more effective ...

 

[palzynski]

For info on my bed tests I have exactly the same depth results between an Equinox Park1 or Park2 and a Vanquish 540 , this for equivalent coil sizes.

I use moderate mineralized ground ( from 80 to 85 on the Garrett Apex GB scale , I dont remember the GB value on the Equinox and I dont have this machine any more .. )