Can I Be Critical Of The Equinox Here?

[mn90403]

Will there be critics and contrarians of this machine and it's platform?  Of course.  Has anyone made a perfect detector?  It is not likely to happen because there are different strokes (swings) for different folks.

Will this be the last detector ever made?  Will this be the last detector that needs to be made?  Will the patents on this technology close the category on metal detecting and future patent requests will be denied?

This is just the latest step.  It sounds like a good step but there will be more to come.  During each 'step' there is an opportunity to visit old beatup patches, over worked parks and renewed beaches with 'the latest and greatest' while bonding or fighting with your fellow detectorists who have been finding good targets for years.

When they watch you and your finds ... they will know what the Equinox and they are missing.

Mitchel

[steveg]

Steve,

You said it perfectly in your most recent post.  This forum is going to be a great, and very welcome, wealth of information, post-release.  It already has been, pre-release, though obviously what you have been permitted to share has been necessarily limited.

Once it's released, and the need for confidentiality and silence has been removed, and users start posting experiences, experiments, tests, successes, AND failures, the collective of everyone here will be a treasure trove of information that should be invaluable to those who really hope to get the most out of the machine, and what it's capable of.

Steve

[Steve Herschbach]

Thanks Gerry, now I have to wait a couple hours for the swelling of my head to go down so my hat will fit again. 

Seriously, despite my age I am best viewed as a kid that loves detecting and who just wants to have fun. I don’t consider myself to be all that technically proficient when it comes to detecting. That’s part of the problem when people want video scientific proof of this or that. I just go use them and after 45 years of metal detecting I know what I like and what I don’t like. There are some detectors that might in theory “go deeper” but the overall package and day in, day out useability do also matter to me. All detectors have areas where they are merely “good enough” but make up for it by the overall aspects of the package.

So what I see in Equinox is simply a detector that checks off a higher percentage of my desired features in one unit that I have before now ever encountered. It’s a really great package with excellent performance at a bargain price. I do think it is just the leading edge of things to come for at least the next decade from Minelab and so the more collective knowledge I can glean about the detector the better it is for me and I assume for you all also. The knowledge gained will probably be applicable for quite a few years.

[Nuke em]

On 1/8/2018 at 6:16 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

Thanks Gerry, now I have to wait a couple hours for the swelling of my head to go down so my hat will fit again. 

Seriously, despite my age I am best viewed as a kid that loves detecting and who just wants to have fun. I don’t consider myself to be all that technically proficient when it comes to detecting. That’s part of the problem when people want video scientific proof of this or that. I just go use them and after 45 years of metal detecting I know what I like and what I don’t like. There are some detectors that might in theory “go deeper” but the overall package and day in, day out useability do also matter to me. All detectors have areas where they are merely “good enough” but make up for it by the overall aspects of the package.

So what I see in Equinox is simply a detector that checks off a higher percentage of my desired features in one unit that I have before now ever encountered. It’s a really great package with excellent performance at a bargain price. I do think it is just the leading edge of things to come for at least the next decade from Minelab and so the more collective knowledge I can glean about the detector the better it is for me and I assume for you all also. The knowledge gained will probably be applicable for quite a few years.

Going by those graphs its amazing how many machines were brought out in the earlier years unlike now where it seems very few lately. No wonder the competition took a big slice of the pie lately.

[Steve Herschbach]

The second timeline helps explain that. The truth is Minelab owns a huge chunk of the gold detecting market, and that is where the big money has been for a decade now. Producing detectors for coin and relic hunters is a far distant and much smaller profit area. Minelab has focused their efforts on gold prospecting for most of the last ten years. It should be obvious that detectors like the GPX 5000, SDC 2300, and GPZ 7000 took up a lot of the available engineer time and monetary resources. Perhaps we are seeing attention shift the other direction now that Minelab has a relatively new stable of top performing gold machines out and in the field.

[Chase Goldman]

Thought I would bump this on up since more and more EQ users are starting to unbox so it seems the time has arrived.

Critical is not the same as bash.  It means identify the downsides from your perspective.  Where does it not meet YOUR needs.  It should hopefully be constructive.  We can put likes and dislikes and quirks out there so that they can, hopefully be addressed, mitigated, or solutions and remedies shared from user to user as the machine is learned and experience gained.  If there happen to be any serious flaws it is good to get those out there and identified for ML to fix.  It's great to finally be on the doorstep of this moment where we can start sharing actual experiences and bounce them off of Steve H's pretest experiences and the other testers who helped shape this beast.  And perhaps make Equinox even better.  Congrats to those who have their Equinoxes or are soon to get them.  It is going to be a fun February/March 2018 and beyond.

I encourage you to read Steve's opening post of the thread to get the gist of what this is supposed to be about before proceeding.

Make this honest, but helpful and constructive with the goal of improving not tearing down this groundbreaker.

[Judy]

On 7 January 2018 at 7:25 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

Since this is a fan club, people may assume it is supposed to be all sunshine and roses. The truth is I love well written critical commentary. The problem with most negative posts about detectors is they come down to "I saw a video somebody posted and that machine sucks". Personally, I see minimal value in that sort of thing.

What I want to see here is posts and reviews from people who A. have actually run the detector and B. can offer straight up critique without the extraneous "boy, how dumb can they be" commentary. What do you like, what did you not like. What worked well, what does not work well, and why. Things to do, things to avoid. Whatever. It's not that you have to heap praise - if you don't like something for some reason then simply explain why.

Here is the first review I did on a Nokta product. Notice I mentioned several things about the machine I was not wild about. I did not beat the company up for it - just stated the facts as seen from my perspective. Notice I went back later and also commended the company for later addressing those very issues.

Where is my similar review as regards Equinox? Can't do it until I have an actual production unit in my hands or assurance that what I have would match a production unit in every way. When the time comes I will do my thing, though it will not need quite the detail of the Nokta review just because so much of that stuff has been covered already here on the forum.

Just wanted to get that out there. It is probably premature so I will bump this up again when units start shipping. All we want to know, all of us, is what people around the world think about various aspects. Some things will be great, some ok, and a few not ok. That's real, and real is all I ask for. Thanks! 

Steve , I am just curious why Minelab doesn't have one of their pros ( like yourself and meaning that you know a thousand times more than us about the Nox ) to do a demo to save joe blows posting stuff they aren't sure about . Even a video to buy like the 4 and 5000. 

[Norm S]

Minelab posts videos etc on their website and I am sure there will be more coming. A new video was posted today

[Steve Herschbach]

I have no idea why Minelab does what they do or don’t do. These are not huge companies and budgets can be very tight. There are many theories these days about what constitutes great marketing. I think most people prefer a very clean, managed release. However, there is also something to be said for the product speaking for itself if a company really has faith in it, and I think that is the case here. Some of the initial unfiltered responses could be very valuable for the second generation Equinox.

I do not know but I think you may see some of what you are hoping for later? It may be Minelab or third parties, but somebody is going to attempt to fill the gap soon. The problem with video these days truly is that everyone expects it to be YouTube and for free. The days of a JP making a great video to sell may be over because of that.