Minelab VLF Comparison Chart

[Cabo Chris]

[Cabo Chris]

Wonder why they only rate Equinox discrimination 3 stars?  Perhaps not that important?

[Steve Herschbach]

No 2D screen, target trace, etc.

[Gerry in Idaho]

I feel the 3 Star Rating on the DISCRIMINATION is because the $1550 E-Trac and $2500 CTX 3030 have way more intel.

At the price point of $900 for the EQ-800, there are going to be things on it that are not as good as their upper end Coin/Relic/Beach machines.  We can't have it all for $900 or they would not make enough money and then we'd be swinging the old brands again.

 

[Wayfarer]

12 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

I feel the 3 Star Rating on the DISCRIMINATION is because the $1550 E-Trac and $2500 CTX 3030 have way more intel.

Exactly.  All you get with the 800 is Target ID #, but with the etrac and ctx, you get ferrous number and target trace with the visual plots.  So you can see more of what the machine is telling you.  But with the 800 you're "stuck" with just one 2-digit number.  It'd better have good audio.

That, and they have to give they're higher priced machines more stars.  It's only the marketing dept speaking, not engineering, though.  We'll know soon enough, just as soon as there are lots of them in our hands.  

[tsunamiscott]

That graphic has changed three times since Minelab first posted it. First the Equinox had 4 stars, then a couple of days later it had 2 stars, after that 3 stars. I take no stock in it.

[Cal_Cobra]

Yes that "star chart" has changed more then you can shake a stick at.  As TS posted, the Equinox has 4 stars originally, then went to 2, and now it's at 3.  It's a marketing slide, as such, I'd take it with a major grain of salt.  

My largest fear on the Equinox, is that it'll be too good, Minelab may opt to dumb it down, or throttle down it's maximum capabilities so it does fit into that 3 star slot, not the 4 star slot as originally noted.  It wouldn't be the first time such an occurrence has occurred.

[dewcon4414]

It obviously has nothing to do with the processing speed or target ID......or it should have a better rating.   Im guess most of you are right, but id also say it has to do with the ability to get very specific when designing dis patterns and tones.   Cal...... im with you.   What the testers use may not be what we get...... a lot of times it aint.  Its going to depend on what the designers vision is for where he wants it to shine.   Right now it seems the high conductors.   So........will ML give us a somewhat watered down version this time so it can be upgraded down the road?   Steve may be able to tell us once they come out and he can compare it to what he  tested.

[Steve Herschbach]

I already answered the question but I guess conspiracy theories are more attractive. If that is what was going on I would walk away from this project at the first hint of it. There are engineers exuding blood, sweat, and tears right now that are probably going to be asking themselves “why bother” when they read this thread.

Each iteration of Equinox has been better than the last. But hey, I am sure all the testers will be just fine with the final version getting rolled back to “X-Terra 705+” because the goal here is to just fit in the right spot on a star chart.

From http://www.detectorprospector.com/metal-detecting/minelab-multi-iq-technology-details-explained.htm

“While we could have taken the approach of putting the X-TERRA (VFLEX technology) in a waterproof housing and adding a selectable frequency range, this would have been following the path of many of our competitors in just rehashing an older single frequency technology that had already reached its performance limits. Another option would have been to create a lower cost waterproof FBS detector, but that also had its challenges with FBS being ‘power hungry’, needing heavier batteries, heavier coils, etc., and relatively high cost compared to the more recent advances that our R&D team have been making with the latest electronics hardware and signal processing techniques.

When Minelab develop a new detecting technology we aim to create a paradigm shift from existing products and provide a clear performance advantage for our customers.”

[Cabo Chris]

15 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

I feel the 3 Star Rating on the DISCRIMINATION is because the $1550 E-Trac and $2500 CTX 3030 have way more intel.

At the price point of $900 for the EQ-800, there are going to be things on it that are not as good as their upper end Coin/Relic/Beach machines.  We can't have it all for $900 or they would not make enough money and then we'd be swinging the old brands again.

 

They rate the Excalibur one star for discrimination.  So it must be a ranking of the machines ability to discriminate out certain targets, and/or for the user to interpret responses as mentioned.  But I guess that's relying on the machines ability for the ranking.  Another way to look at this is... I personally think an Excalibur has great discrimination.  I always leave the discrimination set to 0 when looking for shallow water gold, rely on Iron Mask and discriminate by ear.  That sort of discrimination is why I love Excaliburs.  

Now I can see why discrimination would be very important for a dirt hunter and hence the ML rankings.  As a small business owner I have an idea on pricing products and have not thought of the Equinox a lesser model because of it's price point.  I kind of thought perhaps technology has become affordable?  Remember when the early Texas Instruments calculators cost hundreds of Dollars?  Obviously ML believes the Equinox technology a breakthrough and I sure want to appreciate that for what it is- a better metal detector for my detecting needs.  I for one do not like to see ranking charts, because were I a beginner, most likely would pass on an Excalibur seeing the 1 star.  I'm making more of this than I should, but remember how this machine has been promoted thus far.

OK, so it looks like the NOX can't report Conductive/Inductive values.  But I can't wait to find out about tonal quality.  Are the tones just beeps or do they have more target resolution, especially in 50 Tone.  With an Excalibur one can hear metal make-up by tone variance quite often.  Like the smooth spongy sound of a gold ring compared to the scratchy honk of a pull tab.  I can tell platinum by tone.  Obviously not all the time, but it's one reason an Excalibur can be so efficient in shallow saltwater.  

Should this not be the case with the Equinox, then I hope the discrimination resolution is 5 stars!  It sure would be nice to see a difference between pull tabs and gold jewelry targets.

It's always interesting to see the opposite detecting techniques of the Pros.  Drayton hunts slow and covers smaller productive areas.  He finds lots of gold!  Dankowski, well when I watched his beach DVD was surprised by his methodical and speedy techniques.  He finds gold too!  I'm torn between the 2.  At times I hunt slow and methodical in shallow water and find gold.  Other times I just randomly cover lots of ground and find gold too.  Oddly I find about the same using an Excal 800 or 1000.  I attribute my success mostly to the efficiency of BBS.  I so very much hope the Equinox is efficient too!