maxxkatt
Forum Supporter
I thougth I might share my experience with the Equinox 800. A little about me. I started metal detecting with the Fisher original gold bug in 1987 hunting gold nuggets in North Georgia. I read the manual once and started using it. The gold bug was a good gold hunting machine.
Several years later I bought a Garrett Master Hunter ADS and then later a Fisher ID Edge. Back then I was only hunting parks and really didn’t know much about metal detecting. I kept thinking, if I just have a better metal detector I will find more good targets. Then I went on a long break from metal detecting until about 5 years ago I bought the Garrett AT Pro. Again, I thought that if I just had a better metal detector, I would find more targets. This was a little more true with the AT Pro than my other three detectors. It was a better detector and I did find more good targets.
For three years the AT Pro worked its magic because it was a great but simple to use detector. Then in March of 2018 I could not resist the lure of all the hype of the Equinox 800. Again, thinking the better detector would find me more good targets. By now you see a pattern in my buying process.
I got my detector ahead of the long wait que from a large dealer by going to a small dealer in Nevada. So instead of a 3 month wait I waited only 3 days.
Ok, happy days I was waiting on my magic 800 to arrive. During those three days I read the manual. I read all I could about the 800 on the forums. But at that early stage of release of the 800 on the metal detector forums all the information was mostly speculation.
Received the 800 in the morning and was hunting within a few hours. After my first week of use, I was ready to sell the 800. I could not make heads of tales of all the sounds the 800 was reporting. I was hunting in a very busy and trashy county park.
As time passed more experienced detectorists got their hands on the 600 and 800 and started giving honest reports on their experience. My experience was nothing like their experience. I finally realized the difference between my experience and their more positive experience was due to my general lack of experience about the art and science of metal detecting.
I will skip my year of a steep learning curve and give you the benefit of that year. Listed below is what I wished I knew during my first few months with my 800.
1. Just pick a default mode and noise cancel and ground balance and start hunting and have fun. It takes a while to learn the tones and numbers associated with your finds.
2. Don’t try to master the advanced features until you feel comfortable with the default modes. Put at least 50 hunt hours in before you tackle the advanced features.
3. Learn more of the science behind metal detecting (if you need to) from the more experience detectorists on the metal detecting forums.
4. Private Youtube videos on the 800 are practically useless for learning the 800, other than the few Minelab series of tutorials. Learn from the forum members with proven experience in metal detecting and the 800.
5. Don’t just copy settings that other 800 owners use. Learn to create your own settings based on your target types and hunt sites. See my previous post on how to do this. https://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=280357
6. Learn to master the advance settings: especially, bins and tones, iron balance, recovery speed.
7. Know that increasing sensitivity for depth is not always the answer for the 800.
8. The key to the 800 is keeping it relative quiet by lowering the sensitivity and using bins and tone more than discrimination to minimize targets you are not interested in hearing loud and clear like you are with your desired targets.
9. Iron balance and recovery speed and the multi-IQ frequency capability provides a detector that is very good at finding targets that other detectors have missed and even relative shallow targets due the masking effect of ferrous and non-ferrous targets co-mingled in the ground. This masking effect has kept many good targets hidden for a long time. These previously hidden targets are now being reported as good finds quite frequently on the forums and many good finds were found in so called “hunted out” parks.
10. The key is to set your machine up in the most optimized manner to have a quiet running machine. I don’t care how deep other detectors can find a coin they cannot find the coin if it is hidden in the background noise of trash and mineralization. The 800 can be set up to be a very quiet machine with a little a little effort on the operator’s part.
11. At first chance buy the 6” and 15” coil and use them where appropriate.
12. Always use headphones to hear those very quite, good signals that a quiet running 800 can produce and not be masked by a nearby leaf blower or airplane on approach.
13. Ditch the standard ML-80 wireless earphones. In my opinion they are kind of muddy sounding. I use the Miccus SR-71 via the WM-08 module for better fidelity.
14. Learn to judge depth with the audio modulation provided in the pinpoint mode on the 800 since the depth indicator on the 800 is basically worthless in my opinion.
15. Hunt by tones and use the numerical display and change of frequency to further confirm a good target from a bad target.
16. Learn to master 50 tones. It takes a while, use your test garden.
17. #15 is not very effective when hunting rings, so if you want rings it is mostly dig all type of hunting.
18. The 800 is barely ok in terms of balance. Shorting the shaft and using the coil closer to your feet will take some strain off your wrist. This makes for less wider swings, but it is a trade-off between comfort and coverage.
19. Get a swing harness for the 15” coil.
20. Remove your coil covers from time to time and clean out the sand. Especially for beach hunters.
21. Take your 800 swimming early in the game to see if it leaks so you can get it repaired under warranty for free if it does. The take the returned repaired unit swimming for the same reason.
22. Buy books on the 800. There are 3-4 good ones out there, but you will have to find them on your own.
23. Learn more about the science of metal detecting. For instance, why do you really ground balance? What is the real purpose of adjusting your recovery speed setting. What affect does mineralization have on your sensitivity setting? There are more than a few forum members who have answered these questions or will answer them accurately.
24. Lean how to get more good targets under your 800. This means finding better beach locations, learning to read ocean beaches and doing your research and getting better permissions. Hint: A good researched permission hunted with a Garret Ace will produce more good finds than a poorly researched hunt site hunted with an 800.
25. A good test garden of buried good targets and junk targets is a great learning tool to use for mastering the 800. Don’t forget to bury a couple of dimes at different depths to practice your use of the pinpoint feature to judge depth of a target.
26. There will come a moment after many months when you finally get it and start being at one with the 800 and never doubting its abilities.
27. Get off the “if I just had a better detector” band wagon now that you have the 800. You have one of the best and it will be a leading detector for a long time just like the AT Pro was in its time.
28. Expand your research of good sites further from your home.
29. When you find a site that is giving up some good targets like wheats and Indian head pennies, slow down and hunt that site carefully.
30. If you even go to ocean beaches just on your weekly vacation, learn to read beaches.
31. Do not use any cover on your control unit in the summer heat. Do not leave your 800 in a closed car in the summer heat.
32. Don’t bang your coil against anything, the mounting flanges are not as strong as they could have been.
33. The 800 is a hot machine so empty your hole of all ferrous and non-ferrous targets before covering your hole. The 800 has a reputation for finding very small pieces of ferrous and non-ferrous metals and this can be frustrating. A good target could be still hiding in the hole.
34. Don’t expect rock solid display numbers. The 800 is a bit jumpy because it is reporting all that it sees below the coil and rarely is it just a single non-ferrous target under the coil. Having a more narrow numerical display range of 50 rather than 99 does not help. Get used to it, because that is just the way it is.
35. The 800 is not a beep and dig machine, it takes a lot longer to master the 800. Until you master the 800 it is more like a beep, boop, beep and dig and dig and pinpoint and pinpoint and dig more machine in trashy areas.
36. If the 800 reports a brief display number for at type of target like 26-27 you will most likely find a clad or silver dime. The 800 is very good at reporting good targets among junk.
37. Eliminating bottle caps is easy – eliminating aluminum screw caps is impossible.
38. Check your settings carefully before every hunt. Remember they are saved from the previous hunt. For instance on one hunt I had to crank down the sensitivity and on the next hunt I was not finding as much as I thought I should only to see that the sensitivity was on 17 from the previous hunt and on the new site it should have been about 22.
39. Re-visit your older hunt sites that you hunted with other detectors. Don’t be afraid to hunt those sites heavily hunted by other detectorists. The 800 can find items that other detectors could not pick out of the trash. This is one of the main design features of the 800.
40. An interview with one of the 800 designers revealed that the physical depth limit of modern detectors has for the most part been reached due to physics so the Minelab engineers concentrated on designing detector improvements for the 800 to find previously hidden targets due to masking by ferrous metals.
41. Read and re-read the 800 Equinox manual. Especially learn what the setting are for in the default modes and what those settings mean. This gives you a much better idea on when to use different modes for different hunt sites.
42. A successful hunt with the 800 is determined by the operator knowledge.
Several years later I bought a Garrett Master Hunter ADS and then later a Fisher ID Edge. Back then I was only hunting parks and really didn’t know much about metal detecting. I kept thinking, if I just have a better metal detector I will find more good targets. Then I went on a long break from metal detecting until about 5 years ago I bought the Garrett AT Pro. Again, I thought that if I just had a better metal detector, I would find more targets. This was a little more true with the AT Pro than my other three detectors. It was a better detector and I did find more good targets.
For three years the AT Pro worked its magic because it was a great but simple to use detector. Then in March of 2018 I could not resist the lure of all the hype of the Equinox 800. Again, thinking the better detector would find me more good targets. By now you see a pattern in my buying process.
I got my detector ahead of the long wait que from a large dealer by going to a small dealer in Nevada. So instead of a 3 month wait I waited only 3 days.
Ok, happy days I was waiting on my magic 800 to arrive. During those three days I read the manual. I read all I could about the 800 on the forums. But at that early stage of release of the 800 on the metal detector forums all the information was mostly speculation.
Received the 800 in the morning and was hunting within a few hours. After my first week of use, I was ready to sell the 800. I could not make heads of tales of all the sounds the 800 was reporting. I was hunting in a very busy and trashy county park.
As time passed more experienced detectorists got their hands on the 600 and 800 and started giving honest reports on their experience. My experience was nothing like their experience. I finally realized the difference between my experience and their more positive experience was due to my general lack of experience about the art and science of metal detecting.
I will skip my year of a steep learning curve and give you the benefit of that year. Listed below is what I wished I knew during my first few months with my 800.
1. Just pick a default mode and noise cancel and ground balance and start hunting and have fun. It takes a while to learn the tones and numbers associated with your finds.
2. Don’t try to master the advanced features until you feel comfortable with the default modes. Put at least 50 hunt hours in before you tackle the advanced features.
3. Learn more of the science behind metal detecting (if you need to) from the more experience detectorists on the metal detecting forums.
4. Private Youtube videos on the 800 are practically useless for learning the 800, other than the few Minelab series of tutorials. Learn from the forum members with proven experience in metal detecting and the 800.
5. Don’t just copy settings that other 800 owners use. Learn to create your own settings based on your target types and hunt sites. See my previous post on how to do this. https://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=280357
6. Learn to master the advance settings: especially, bins and tones, iron balance, recovery speed.
7. Know that increasing sensitivity for depth is not always the answer for the 800.
8. The key to the 800 is keeping it relative quiet by lowering the sensitivity and using bins and tone more than discrimination to minimize targets you are not interested in hearing loud and clear like you are with your desired targets.
9. Iron balance and recovery speed and the multi-IQ frequency capability provides a detector that is very good at finding targets that other detectors have missed and even relative shallow targets due the masking effect of ferrous and non-ferrous targets co-mingled in the ground. This masking effect has kept many good targets hidden for a long time. These previously hidden targets are now being reported as good finds quite frequently on the forums and many good finds were found in so called “hunted out” parks.
10. The key is to set your machine up in the most optimized manner to have a quiet running machine. I don’t care how deep other detectors can find a coin they cannot find the coin if it is hidden in the background noise of trash and mineralization. The 800 can be set up to be a very quiet machine with a little a little effort on the operator’s part.
11. At first chance buy the 6” and 15” coil and use them where appropriate.
12. Always use headphones to hear those very quite, good signals that a quiet running 800 can produce and not be masked by a nearby leaf blower or airplane on approach.
13. Ditch the standard ML-80 wireless earphones. In my opinion they are kind of muddy sounding. I use the Miccus SR-71 via the WM-08 module for better fidelity.
14. Learn to judge depth with the audio modulation provided in the pinpoint mode on the 800 since the depth indicator on the 800 is basically worthless in my opinion.
15. Hunt by tones and use the numerical display and change of frequency to further confirm a good target from a bad target.
16. Learn to master 50 tones. It takes a while, use your test garden.
17. #15 is not very effective when hunting rings, so if you want rings it is mostly dig all type of hunting.
18. The 800 is barely ok in terms of balance. Shorting the shaft and using the coil closer to your feet will take some strain off your wrist. This makes for less wider swings, but it is a trade-off between comfort and coverage.
19. Get a swing harness for the 15” coil.
20. Remove your coil covers from time to time and clean out the sand. Especially for beach hunters.
21. Take your 800 swimming early in the game to see if it leaks so you can get it repaired under warranty for free if it does. The take the returned repaired unit swimming for the same reason.
22. Buy books on the 800. There are 3-4 good ones out there, but you will have to find them on your own.
23. Learn more about the science of metal detecting. For instance, why do you really ground balance? What is the real purpose of adjusting your recovery speed setting. What affect does mineralization have on your sensitivity setting? There are more than a few forum members who have answered these questions or will answer them accurately.
24. Lean how to get more good targets under your 800. This means finding better beach locations, learning to read ocean beaches and doing your research and getting better permissions. Hint: A good researched permission hunted with a Garret Ace will produce more good finds than a poorly researched hunt site hunted with an 800.
25. A good test garden of buried good targets and junk targets is a great learning tool to use for mastering the 800. Don’t forget to bury a couple of dimes at different depths to practice your use of the pinpoint feature to judge depth of a target.
26. There will come a moment after many months when you finally get it and start being at one with the 800 and never doubting its abilities.
27. Get off the “if I just had a better detector” band wagon now that you have the 800. You have one of the best and it will be a leading detector for a long time just like the AT Pro was in its time.
28. Expand your research of good sites further from your home.
29. When you find a site that is giving up some good targets like wheats and Indian head pennies, slow down and hunt that site carefully.
30. If you even go to ocean beaches just on your weekly vacation, learn to read beaches.
31. Do not use any cover on your control unit in the summer heat. Do not leave your 800 in a closed car in the summer heat.
32. Don’t bang your coil against anything, the mounting flanges are not as strong as they could have been.
33. The 800 is a hot machine so empty your hole of all ferrous and non-ferrous targets before covering your hole. The 800 has a reputation for finding very small pieces of ferrous and non-ferrous metals and this can be frustrating. A good target could be still hiding in the hole.
34. Don’t expect rock solid display numbers. The 800 is a bit jumpy because it is reporting all that it sees below the coil and rarely is it just a single non-ferrous target under the coil. Having a more narrow numerical display range of 50 rather than 99 does not help. Get used to it, because that is just the way it is.
35. The 800 is not a beep and dig machine, it takes a lot longer to master the 800. Until you master the 800 it is more like a beep, boop, beep and dig and dig and pinpoint and pinpoint and dig more machine in trashy areas.
36. If the 800 reports a brief display number for at type of target like 26-27 you will most likely find a clad or silver dime. The 800 is very good at reporting good targets among junk.
37. Eliminating bottle caps is easy – eliminating aluminum screw caps is impossible.
38. Check your settings carefully before every hunt. Remember they are saved from the previous hunt. For instance on one hunt I had to crank down the sensitivity and on the next hunt I was not finding as much as I thought I should only to see that the sensitivity was on 17 from the previous hunt and on the new site it should have been about 22.
39. Re-visit your older hunt sites that you hunted with other detectors. Don’t be afraid to hunt those sites heavily hunted by other detectorists. The 800 can find items that other detectors could not pick out of the trash. This is one of the main design features of the 800.
40. An interview with one of the 800 designers revealed that the physical depth limit of modern detectors has for the most part been reached due to physics so the Minelab engineers concentrated on designing detector improvements for the 800 to find previously hidden targets due to masking by ferrous metals.
41. Read and re-read the 800 Equinox manual. Especially learn what the setting are for in the default modes and what those settings mean. This gives you a much better idea on when to use different modes for different hunt sites.
42. A successful hunt with the 800 is determined by the operator knowledge.
Last edited:
