My Hunt Buddies Assessment Of His Equinox 800 Vs Explorer 2

[Cal_Cobra]

I want to preface Tom's post by saying right out of the gate that Tom called me last night, and gave me his "report".  If you don't care to read his lengthy write-up he posted on another forum (he doesn't know of this forum) his bottom-line was that he found it no better, no worse then his Exp2.  He said he felt the audio was better on the Exp2, which I reminded him i's likely because after using it for 20 years, his muscle memory is auto-tuned to it's responses.  He said he'd be selling it on fleabay.

 

Hey gang. I've been at this since about 1975 or '76 (started @ about 8th grade). Been "up through the ranks" of everything from the 77b & Whites 66tr, through the VLF/TR era. Through the 6000 and ADS III era, to the Eagle and XLT era, etc... And now am currently using as Exp. II for most all my hunting. Occasionally grabbing a Bandido for certain ghost-townsy locations. Some of you know my finds from other forums, and you've followed Brian (Cal Cobra) and I's hunt exploits, to know that I'm no slouch in md'ing. I've pitted many machines before deciding to try something new. So I'm very aware of the "come-back" lines that can be raised for any perceived failure of a machine in a test. I've done my best to short-circuit any such shortcoming. Eg.: subconscious biases, etc....

First stop was a certain downtown/oldtown park in CA . It dates to the 1860s/70s. Soil is moderate to low minerals. Most all the easies has long-since been pulled. But a person with a deep-seeking turf machine (explorer, etc...) can still pull some silver, wheats, IH's, etc...

I flagged a few suspected deepies with my Exp. II. Then pulled out the Nox 800 to try. I only used stock park 1 and park II modes. With nothing but a noise-check. No ground balance. No increasing the sens. No alterations of iron-bias or recovery speed. I also knocked out everything on the disc. from 17 downwards. So that I wouldn't be hearing the foil, nickels, round tabs, etc.... So too was I doing the same on my Exp. II , for purposes of this test. So that those factors are even between the 2 machines.

My total take for this hunt at this park was a very worn '68 seated dime, a '92 P barber dime, a '28 merc., and a few teens wheats. Depth's ranged from 6 to 8" . The Nox 800 could hear all of them. More pronounced and tell-tale "fluty" in the Park-2 mode. Hence so-far so-good. HOWEVER: In each case, it seemed that the Exp. II was giving them with "more room to spare". On the Nox , it seemed I needed to know exactly where the spot was. And then "work at it". Nonetheless, it could hear them. So I wrote off the strength-difference as to being, perhaps, my lack-of-experience on the tone-nuances of a new machine. Versus the Explorer II, where I am very familiar with its language.

I tried briefly to walk around with the nox to, likewise, find something to flag to test in reverse order . But when I went to try a few of those flags with the Exp, they were 4" deep zincs , or various other clad that I would not have even stopped to dig with my Exp. But , again, I wrote that off to un-familiarity with the Nox.

So , at least, I have nothing conclusively bad to say about the machine so far. Since *technically* I could find the accepted signals with either machine (given some effort & persuasion). Oh: And I did try switching to 5 khz on a couple of targets. It did not improve their strength over the that of the multi-freq. And if anything, added chatter.

Next day I took it to a certain center grass median strip in San Francisco. It dated to only the 00's to teens. The downtown high-rise electronic noise is awful. And the soil is funky minerals, such that deeper targets don't want to lock on. They seem to skew downwards on the TID. So that, for example, a silver quarter might read @ dime. A copper penny might read at zinc. And so forth. The strip is very littered with tabs, foil, iron, etc... On a certain block or two of this ~2 mile long strip, I have pulled many silver & wheaties in the past . And whenever I'm in the area, can be pretty certain that my Exp. II can get additional ones whenever I want.

For this test, I found a clean spot of ground with my Exp. II. Tested to make sure there was no signals of any sort, so-as to provide the ground balance spot for the Nox. I balanced the Nox, and locked it (no tracking). For my explorer sens, I was at 19 for most of the time. Sometimes down to 15. For the Nox: Sens. between 18 to 21, depending on chatter. And perpetual noise-cancels at varying intervals on the Nox & Exp. Iron bias was 02 on both park 1 and park 2 mode. I did not try up to 5 & 6 as TN-sharpshooter recommends, for nasty minerals. Didn't recall that recommendation till now. But: Wouldn't that simply have put me at risk of getting fooled by large rusty nails globs ? In any case: Iron bias was 02. Recovery speed 6 on both. Multi-Freq. on both. Tones @ 50. Disc. set to reject all items from 17 and downwards. (again, this is the same for the explorer , where I've got the flimsy square tabs and downwards knocked out).

I liked it when I hit the horseshoe button. It allows you to hear an all-metal sound, while simultaneously hearing your accepted targets in their correct TID tones (If I'm understanding correctly). I would definitely use that for relicky sites where I want to hear iron in the background, to perpetually let me mentally gauge the amount of human historic traffic I'm in, and the iron I'm' trying to contend with /see-around.

Yes the modulation is very poor for the top 5" or so. Very difficult to gauge 1" vs 3" vs 5", etc... And I notice that the 6" or more, where there starts to be a "fluty" sound, is very narrow band. Ie.: you have to be right over your target, swinging "just right". And also: A shallower target can be made to 'be fluty' by simply happen-chance having the coil slightly higher, or being slightly off, etc.... Unlike the Explorer where I more immediately recognize the signals for what they are. But, again: Wrote all this off to my vast experience on the Exp., and experimental only on the Nox.

At the San Francisco grass strip median: The first couple of targets I flagged and compared, proved extremely poor for the Nox. But then later I saw that I .... for some reason ....... had been in only 16 sens. (not sure how it got bumped lower since the day before). Once I put it up to 21, I could, like the day before, start to hear some flagged signals. Occasionally had to lower sens. to 18, since 21 was producing chatter. Likewise the Exp. II had to be lowered to 15 on those same stretches. As I flagged more signals, they again, like the day before, seemed bolder and stronger on the Exp. vs the Nox.

One particular reverse order flag (found first with Nox) was one that the Nox gave a good fluty deep repeatable signal. And when I went over it with the Exp. II : I had to admit that I WOULD NOT have elected to chase this one with the Exp. Hmmm. I had to "coax it out" JUST to even see/hear what the Nox had even been beeping on. Hmmm, this was going to be interesting !! Eh ? Turned out to be a mid-conductor metal nut thing. That ... yes ... once out of the ground was indeed within my acceptance range on the Exp. disc. settings. So *technically* I should have gotten it on the flagged stage of the test (albeit with a TID I might have elected to pass). So this proved a plus point for the Nox.

HOWEVER: At a certain point, I'd just dug a 1915 deep green wheatie. Which both machines had heard (albeit with some coaxing on the Nox). And once I'd covered the hole, I rechecked it. Just slightly off to the side, I got a sssuuuppeerr deep warble. Almost a null, but with a hint of something trying to warble in. This was a signal that, if it hadn't been for just having dug a deepie, and double checking for additionals, I might not have even registered. One of those "is this my imagination?" type signals. Yet ... you suspect "Oh, maybe there's another one down there @ same hole" type of moments. And it was slightly to the side, in un-disturbed ground.

Now on THIS one: The Nox could not hear it. No flicker of the audio. No flicker of the #'s. Nothing , nada, zilch. Tried noice-cancel. Tried playing with the sens. Tried everything. It could not be made to get any hint whatsoever. Turned out to be a very deep 1919 wheatie. 7 to 8". Which, I know, is not "deep" for some parks. But here, as I say: Stuff in this depth range , in this soil, is funky.

So IMHO this was a negative chalk mark for the Nox. on that target. I know someone will come on saying how it could have been heard doing XYZ. But realize that if you start "hopping up the settings", you then run the risk of loosing differentiation on other targets (ie.: EVERYTHING starts to "sound good" or "give identical signals", etc...). I did not have to "hop up" the Exp. II to get that signal. So IMHO, that one signal was given a fair shake.

Thus to conclude for turf: IMHO : If you put 2 expert users in a deep-turf scenario: User #1 with an Etrac or Exp. II. And User #2 with a Nox 800. I do not believe the Nox user is going to out-hunt the Explorer user. At least not on THIS exact grass median I was on yesterday.

This was not a test of iron-riddled ghost town sites. Was not a test of beach. It was only tests of various deep turf strategy cherry-picking for high-conductors type hunting.

Oh, and for kicks & giggles, for those who might know what long center grass median strip in SF I was referring to: My total take was 2 mercs ('20 & '44), a silver roosie ('64) , 9 wheaties (1913 and onwards), and an '03 IH.

The IH was in the hole with 2 twenties wheaties. And 2 of the wheaties were in a hole with the '44 merc. So if you count those pocket spill as "1 target", then the total take of oldies was 8 oldies.

I also had various "woulda-couldas" that mimic old coins. Eg.: very deep copper grommets, hinge, flat brass sportsmans button the size of a quarter, and so forth. So even besides coins, there was "period targets" at-depth, that were counting towards the flagged tests, as being just as legitimate as if they'd turned out to have been coins.

I had tried to do some videos of both machines. But it was a very windy day. So whenever I tried to unplug the jack to capture audio, I was getting tree-rustling, and car traffic noises too much. Nonetheless, I did end up capturing some audio tests, where a person can plainly see the Nox is needing "coaxing" to get in what the Exp was getting more boldly (again, I know this is user specific and a bias and familiarity I may have). But ... the viewer could judge. HOWEVER, as Murphy's law would have it: Each time I took great lengths to stop , video, narrate, etc... : Those turned out to be household doo-hickeys like hemweights, copper tent grommets, or whatever. Yes they are "period", yes they read in the coin range. Yes they were as deep as period coins. Thus yes they hold equal merit to a deep-turf-coin test. But it just took the wind out of my sails when they turned out to other items.
 

 

 

[Guest Tnsharpshooter]

If I lived in California and detected.

Nox would definitely be in my arsenal.

Knowing what I know about Equinox.

I'll let folks ponder the reason why behind why I said what I did above.

[Steve Herschbach]

Either machine can be run to find targets the other might struggle on or miss. Equinox is strongest where Explorer is weakest and vice versa. Nice report, though the outcome was predetermined.

Minelab E-trac, CTX 3030, Excalibur Versus Equinox

[Cal_Cobra]

To be honest, I kind of don't mind that he's selling his.  I had hoped that he would embrace it, but from the beginning he tried to find reasons not to like it, and IMO really didn't give it it's proper dues.  He basically talked himself out of giving it a fair shake.  BUT that may actually bode well for me, as I continue to learn the EQ800, and get better with it (I'm still employing my crawl/walk/run learning technique, have not wondered into the advanced settings at all, just learning the stock programs at this point) my hope is that I will start to out hunt him as my experience level with the EQ improves and I learn it's nuances and the tricks & tips to fine tune it for each site....  completely selfish I know

[flakmagnet]

That was an interesting read. I always appreciate the time people take to put down their experiences as they know these kinds of machines better than I do. My primary experience is with Minelab P.I.'s. I don't expect my 800 to surpass every detector out there. This is a fairly low priced machine that works exceedingly well in a host of conditions and holds it's own with many other fine detectors.  I know from first-hand experience that with a little time and attention, I will not miss too much with it. 

[Guest Tnsharpshooter]

35 minutes ago, Cal_Cobra said:

To be honest, I kind of don't mind that he's selling his.  I had hoped that he would embrace it, but from the beginning he tried to find reasons not to like it, and IMO really didn't give it it's proper dues.  He basically talked himself out of giving it a fair shake.  BUT that may actually bode well for me, as I continue to learn the EQ800, and get better with it (I'm still employing my crawl/walk/run learning technique, have not wondered into the advanced settings at all, just learning the stock programs at this point) my hope is that I will start to out hunt him as my experience level with the EQ improves and I learn it's nuances and the tricks & tips to find tune it for each site....  completely selfish I know

Um,

He sells his, and hunts with his explorer and you the Nox.   Ghost towns. 

He might should hold, he might be in for a ride. Lol

Go getting em Cal !!

[Cal_Cobra]

26 minutes ago, Tnsharpshooter said:

Um,

He sells his, and hunts with his explorer and you the Nox.   Ghost towns. 

He might should hold, he might be in for a ride. Lol

Go getting em Cal !!

Especially when smaller coils materialize :)

[MarXthespot]

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

the outcome was predetermined.

Thank you for keeping the signal/noise ratio high in this forum Steve.

[bado1]

Man, I hope he gives it a spin in the ghost towns. That is where the Nox will show him it's true colors.

 

Dean

[Cal_Cobra]

1 hour ago, bado1 said:

Man, I hope he gives it a spin in the ghost towns. That is where the Nox will show him it's true colors.

 

Dean

I think it will be very interesting when we do our ghost town sites.   I'm already at least on par with his Exp2/Bandito combo with just the Multi Kruzer, so should be interesting to see how the EQ800 fares.  Will be a while before we get to the ghost towns because of the weather, likely won't get to go until the fall.  Although we do have a new relic site that looks promising, that I'm hoping we can visit this weekend (I may go solo  ).