Went behing X detector with Y detector and found 4 missed coins

maxxkatt

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This statement is quite common on metal detecting sites. This would lead you believe that Y detector is much better than X detector.

But before you come to that conclusion you should take X detector and go over it from a different direction.

or change some settings on X detector that are appropriate for that soil condition.

or if the first hunt the soil was very dry, hunt it when the soil is moist.

or slow down your hunt.

Any of those may just result in you finding 4 missed coins with your original detector X.
 
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MaxxKat you left out the guy who digs it all. I mean the guy who digs a ton of really iffy signals. His junk bag is always overflowing. It ain't his detector he just digs everything.

When you watch a guy that finds a lot of silver go back and forth over a relatively small site, and then you go over the same ground right behind him and find not one, but several rather shallow silver dimes they missed it's your detector. When you find a target and call him over and he says I got nothing I would dig, and on your detector it's a no brainer then it's your detector.

Sure in large parks and yards or in extremely trashy places it's possible to miss things and only be able to be alerted to a target from a certain direction, but let's not confuse that with one detector out preforming another. It's a real thing.

Could the other detector be made to hit the target by changing the settings? Maybe, but unless you can see the future or something your never going to know when changing settings will help or hurt you. For instance with the Equinox 800 my Park1 and Park2 are set up basically the same. Those programs with my settings (Which are not that much different than stock settings) are all I use. They work well for me everywhere.

I've said this before, I've seen very few targets the Equinox wouldn't hit on, but I've seen plenty of targets the Equinox would hit while other detectors could not.

I had a Nokta Impact that I was hunting a wore out site with. I had just met this guy who had really found a lot of silver at this place with the Etrac. He thought he had it cleaned out. I would send him photos of a Merc or a Rosie sometimes multiple silvers and he was floored. The place was really trashy. The Impact with that small elliptical coil was the ticket for what was left. Or so I thought until I got the Equinox and found many more. It finally played out with the Equinox. With both these detectors on this site I'm not talking about digging iffys. I'm talking signals that scream dig me.
 
This statement is quite common on metal detecting sites. This would lead you believe that Y detector is much better than X detector.

But before you come to that conclusion you should take X detector and go over it from a different direction.

or change some settings on X detector that are appropriate for that soil condition.

or if the first hunt the soil was very dry, hunt it when the soil is moist.

or slow down your hunt.

Any of those may just result in you finding 4 missed coins with your original detector X.

Maxx you need an Equinox.:yes:
 
Yeah going through an area with detector x after detector y, usually isn't a very unbiased test. As said already you can often go back through with the same detector, not even changing settings necessarily, and pull out more stuff. Honestly there might not be a truly perfect format for a "x vs y on the same site" type of test, but something somewhat close would be:

Go through site with detector x, mark but don't dig good signals, using some kind of markers, preferably numbered. Go through with detector y, mark good signals with the same markers, but don't put a second marker if there's already one there from detector x. That done, go back with both detectors, a shovel, and a piece of paper with a table written out on it. For each marker, go over it with both detectors, record how each responds, how clear the signal is, the numbers, etc. then dig the signal, ideally record what it is and the depth, and rank (scale of 0-2 probably: 0 is it doesn't hit it, 1 is it doesn't hit it well or hits it but ID'ed it wrong, 2 is it hits it well, and IDs it correctly) how each detector handled that signal. Do that for every marker, and whichever detector got more total points in the numbered ranking, did better. Doing tests with more than 2 detectors would work largely the same, and importantly, all three/four/whatever, have to be tested on the same patch of ground at the same time. This test doesn't work as a valid comparison for "x vs z" if you do "x vs y at site 1" then "y vs z at site 2" nor is it valid if you test "x vs y at site 1" then "z at site 1 after the xy test". You can only fairly compare three detectors by "x vs y vs z at site 1 at the same time" and so on.

This should work, and be simpler, with test beds, as then you can go over with x, y and z at different times, and don't need to dig as you know what is buried.

I put a decent bit of thought into trying to make that procedure as fair and unbiased as possible but I'd love to hear any suggestions if there's something wrong with it. The main issue I see with it is it's a very painful and high effort procedure to follow. If/when I get a second detector, I'll do that exact procedure and put the results here on the forums.
 
Yeah going through an area with detector x after detector y, usually isn't a very unbiased test. As said already you can often go back through with the same detector, not even changing settings necessarily, and pull out more stuff. Honestly there might not be a truly perfect format for a "x vs y on the same site" type of test, but something somewhat close would be:

Go through site with detector x, mark but don't dig good signals, using some kind of markers, preferably numbered. Go through with detector y, mark good signals with the same markers, but don't put a second marker if there's already one there from detector x. That done, go back with both detectors, a shovel, and a piece of paper with a table written out on it. For each marker, go over it with both detectors, record how each responds, how clear the signal is, the numbers, etc. then dig the signal, ideally record what it is and the depth, and rank (scale of 0-2 probably: 0 is it doesn't hit it, 1 is it doesn't hit it well or hits it but ID'ed it wrong, 2 is it hits it well, and IDs it correctly) how each detector handled that signal. Do that for every marker, and whichever detector got more total points in the numbered ranking, did better. Doing tests with more than 2 detectors would work largely the same, and importantly, all three/four/whatever, have to be tested on the same patch of ground at the same time. This test doesn't work as a valid comparison for "x vs z" if you do "x vs y at site 1" then "y vs z at site 2" nor is it valid if you test "x vs y at site 1" then "z at site 1 after the xy test". You can only fairly compare three detectors by "x vs y vs z at site 1 at the same time" and so on.

This should work, and be simpler, with test beds, as then you can go over with x, y and z at different times, and don't need to dig as you know what is buried.

I put a decent bit of thought into trying to make that procedure as fair and unbiased as possible but I'd love to hear any suggestions if there's something wrong with it. The main issue I see with it is it's a very painful and high effort procedure to follow. If/when I get a second detector, I'll do that exact procedure and put the results here on the forums.

Your first test method is how it should be done. Or just have two guys swinging their own preferred detector marking and comparing targets.

Test beds to me are a no go. Testing in the wild at different type sites are much more realistic of what a person might encounter in the field. Test gardens are more useful for learning a detector and getting an idea of a detectors depth abilities.
 
Yeah going through an area with detector x after detector y, usually isn't a very unbiased test. As said already you can often go back through with the same detector, not even changing settings necessarily, and pull out more stuff. Honestly there might not be a truly perfect format for a "x vs y on the same site" type of test, but something somewhat close would be:

Go through site with detector x, mark but don't dig good signals, using some kind of markers, preferably numbered. Go through with detector y, mark good signals with the same markers, but don't put a second marker if there's already one there from detector x. That done, go back with both detectors, a shovel, and a piece of paper with a table written out on it. For each marker, go over it with both detectors, record how each responds, how clear the signal is, the numbers, etc. then dig the signal, ideally record what it is and the depth, and rank (scale of 0-2 probably: 0 is it doesn't hit it, 1 is it doesn't hit it well or hits it but ID'ed it wrong, 2 is it hits it well, and IDs it correctly) how each detector handled that signal. Do that for every marker, and whichever detector got more total points in the numbered ranking, did better. Doing tests with more than 2 detectors would work largely the same, and importantly, all three/four/whatever, have to be tested on the same patch of ground at the same time. This test doesn't work as a valid comparison for "x vs z" if you do "x vs y at site 1" then "y vs z at site 2" nor is it valid if you test "x vs y at site 1" then "z at site 1 after the xy test". You can only fairly compare three detectors by "x vs y vs z at site 1 at the same time" and so on.

This should work, and be simpler, with test beds, as then you can go over with x, y and z at different times, and don't need to dig as you know what is buried.

I put a decent bit of thought into trying to make that procedure as fair and unbiased as possible but I'd love to hear any suggestions if there's something wrong with it. The main issue I see with it is it's a very painful and high effort procedure to follow. If/when I get a second detector, I'll do that exact procedure and put the results here on the forums.

I did something very similar to this a few weeks ago when comparing my Equinox 600 to my AT Max. But the "goal" of each detector was to convince whether to dig the target or not.

The testing site was a local park and if I recall my results correctly they both did about the same in telling me whether or not I should dig, AS LONG AS the target wasn't deep (less than 6 inches) or wasn't situated amongst a lot of close trash. If either condition was present, the AT Max was almost useless and the Equinox 600 still gave relatively stable and consistent signals or could usually separate potential targets from trash. Turns out those deep signals were bottle caps (non crown), though...

Bottom line: The Equinox 600 beat the AT Max in high trash areas and with deep(er) targets.
 
I did something very similar to this a few weeks ago when comparing my Equinox 600 to my AT Max. But the "goal" of each detector was to convince whether to dig the target or not.

The testing site was a local park and if I recall my results correctly they both did about the same in telling me whether or not I should dig, AS LONG AS the target wasn't deep (less than 6 inches) or wasn't situated amongst a lot of close trash. If either condition was present, the AT Max was almost useless and the Equinox 600 still gave relatively stable and consistent signals or could usually separate potential targets from trash. Turns out those deep signals were bottle caps (non crown), though...

Bottom line: The Equinox 600 beat the AT Max in high trash areas and with deep(er) targets.

Yeah, that's not a surprising result. I did try to incorporate that "is it convincing me to dig this or not" concept into my suggested procedure but I didn't put a ton of emphasis on it because it's a lot more of a judgement call than "Does detector x even pick up this thing detector y just found" and it's kind of a matter of opinion whether a detector should be convincing you to dig trash in the off chance it might be good, or if it should report an iffy signal as an iffy signal and leave it to you to decide whether it's worth it. Personally I want detectors to give a good signal when something might be there instead of just telling me the beep equivalent of "uhh I dunno" - so in your deep bottle cap scenario, I agree the equinox did better.
 
Yeah, that's not a surprising result. I did try to incorporate that "is it convincing me to dig this or not" concept into my suggested procedure but I didn't put a ton of emphasis on it because it's a lot more of a judgement call than "Does detector x even pick up this thing detector y just found" and it's kind of a matter of opinion whether a detector should be convincing you to dig trash in the off chance it might be good, or if it should report an iffy signal as an iffy signal and leave it to you to decide whether it's worth it. Personally I want detectors to give a good signal when something might be there instead of just telling me the beep equivalent of "uhh I dunno" - so in your deep bottle cap scenario, I agree the equinox did better.

I'm the same way. I'd rather have a detector give a "false positive" rather than a "false negative."

With a false positive, I can make the decision whether to dig or not. Maybe the tone sounds a bit different or I have plenty of time to kill or w/e. But at least I get to make the call.

But with a false negative, I never realize what my detector is seeing and therefore, I never get to decide whether to dig or not.

The only exception to this if I'm getting way too many signals at once, a la "machine gun signals." But my Equinox 600 has made it easier to handle those types of ground conditions.
 
The Impact with that small elliptical coil was the ticket for what was left. Or so I thought until I got the Equinox and found many more.

100% true.
My 2 current detectors.
Except I use the Impact with 7.5x4 coil on DI3 at 20kHz for cleanup after my Equinox.
Deadly combo.
 
100% true.
My 2 current detectors.
Except I use the Impact with 7.5x4 coil on DI3 at 20kHz for cleanup after my Equinox.
Deadly combo.

Sometimes I wish I had the Impact back. I bought the Deus. I've got to get a handle on it one of these days.
 
This statement is quite common on metal detecting sites. This would lead you believe that Y detector is much better than X detector.

But before you come to that conclusion you should take X detector and go over it from a different direction.

or change some settings on X detector that are appropriate for that soil condition.

or if the first hunt the soil was very dry, hunt it when the soil is moist.

or slow down your hunt.

Any of those may just result in you finding 4 missed coins with your original detector X.
:goodpost:
 
Maxx you need an Equinox.:yes:

I have had a few detectors over the years. But modern ones were AT Pro for 3 years, Nox 800 three years and now a CTX3030 for 3 weeks.

This was just a comment on stories about x detector cleaning up after y detector need to be taken with a grain of salt. I am not trying to say that one detector is not better than another detector.
 
MaxxKat you left out the guy who digs it all. I mean the guy who digs a ton of really iffy signals. His junk bag is always overflowing. It ain't his detector he just digs everything.

When you watch a guy that finds a lot of silver go back and forth over a relatively small site, and then you go over the same ground right behind him and find not one, but several rather shallow silver dimes they missed it's your detector. When you find a target and call him over and he says I got nothing I would dig, and on your detector it's a no brainer then it's your detector.

Sure in large parks and yards or in extremely trashy places it's possible to miss things and only be able to be alerted to a target from a certain direction, but let's not confuse that with one detector out preforming another. It's a real thing.

Could the other detector be made to hit the target by changing the settings? Maybe, but unless you can see the future or something your never going to know when changing settings will help or hurt you. For instance with the Equinox 800 my Park1 and Park2 are set up basically the same. Those programs with my settings (Which are not that much different than stock settings) are all I use. They work well for me everywhere.

I've said this before, I've seen very few targets the Equinox wouldn't hit on, but I've seen plenty of targets the Equinox would hit while other detectors could not.

I had a Nokta Impact that I was hunting a wore out site with. I had just met this guy who had really found a lot of silver at this place with the Etrac. He thought he had it cleaned out. I would send him photos of a Merc or a Rosie sometimes multiple silvers and he was floored. The place was really trashy. The Impact with that small elliptical coil was the ticket for what was left. Or so I thought until I got the Equinox and found many more. It finally played out with the Equinox. With both these detectors on this site I'm not talking about digging iffys. I'm talking signals that scream dig me.

not disagreeing with you at all just pointing out that stories have to be taken with a grain of salt. Like they guy with the Etrac thinking he cleaned a site out. Even carefully gridding a site, it is hard to always walk a straight line and you can easily miss a good target by being off by mere inches. So someone comes by with a different detector and hits a good target the gridding guy missed. And thus the story improves.

I am aware that the 800 will do very well in iron and even in other trashy areas like parks on coins if you use 4 kHz. In that case the 800 seems superior to other detectors. And it is probably the best all around detector for anyone to use who likes to relic hunt, beach hunt, and maybe even some gold hunting. No doubt about that in my mind.
 
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