Minelab CTX 3030 vs Equinox 800

I have a question about the CTX and Equinox if anyone can answer it. Is there any depth capability differences between the two? I guess I'm asking if both units were set up for optimal performance, would one be able to have any advantage over the other? I really like the GPS option on the CTX but other then that, it's a huge difference in price.
Thanks for your input.

Mark

And that’s what makes the faster recovery Nox attractive at about 2/3 cheaper. I don’t know that you can clearly say one is best....each has their strengths and disappointments based on the conditions and target...that can very as well as the skill set of the user.

virginia digger --

In my dirt, and most dirt I hunt, there is little difference; if any, a slight edge goes to the Equinox, believe it or not, in terms of coin hunting; slight, on high conductors, and a bit more pronounced of an edge on mid conductors. Some guys, in hotter soil, say that the Equinox is definitely deeper in terms of accurate ID at depth (Daniel TN can speak to you on that, for instance).

Hope that helps answer your specific question; it of course doesn't answer the "which is better" question that some will ask at times, which as Dew said is much tougher to answer.

Steve

In MOST of the soils I encounter here locally, the Nox does have the edge for going deeper. Especially on the low to mid conductors. However, recently I did have it at a site in which I longed for a pulse machine. I could not get it to quit giving one way hit/falsing and after going quite a while without any clear cut digable signals, I took a chance on digging a crappy signal and around 5 inches, was a fired 3 ringer Civil War bullet. No doubt, any other VLF would have done the same thing...IF giving any signal at all. There are times and soils in which pulse machines are going to dominate. Thankfully this is not the normal, everywhere I go kind of soil but this area does have pockets of it. Most is in fields like Culpeper...the fields are always the hottest soil whereas the woods are usually not bad. It did cause me to see that I do need a pulse machine in my tool box.

To me it's a no-brainer. Any slight advantage of the CTX (if there is any) is far outweighed by the simplicity, lightness, affordability and recovery speed of the Equinox.

You are the first person that I've heard of that has had a use for the CTX GPS feature. If you need a GPS just buy one. They don't cost much these days and a handheld unit would be a lot easier to use than one that is built into the detector.

I'd be willing to bet that the CTX will no longer be available in a year or two. Expect a new version of the Equinox at some point. What we have now is just a prototype of things to come.

.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2018 06:22AM by Badger in NH.

The CTX has it's loyal users. You will never get them to change. Not that they need to. It is a great detector. For target ID in good soil I really don't know of a better detector. Other than that the Equinox is just a better buy in my opinion. The weight alone made the decision easy. I believe detector companies are finally addressing that issue. Hey 50 years later isn't bad.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2018 10:33AM by goodmore.

Thanks everyone for your input. I recently purchased a new Equinox 800 and I love everything about it. I have owned all different models of the Explorer and it was always a love hate relationship due to the awkward weight distribution. I also own an XP Deus and that is my go to machine. Being a technical person, I love the company info for Minelab and Deus. They actually have real engineers with degrees who actually hunt with the machines. After getting the Equinox I had buyers remorse as to wether I should have purchased the CTX. I understand GPS technology but thought it was well thought out that you could select a find waypoint for each good target. For example, if you are hunting Civil War targets in the woods you could mark each good find. Maybe you don't return for a year, things do look different.....even between the four seasons.

Anyway, I appreciate your input.

Mark

When folks trade down from a CTX to an Equinox that says allot and it's not just about depth. Weight has allot to due with this also as previously mentioned.

virginia digger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks everyone for your input. I recently purchas
> ed a new Equinox 800 and I love everything about i
> t. I have owned all different models of the Explor
> er and it was always a love hate relationship due
> to the awkward weight distribution. I also own an
> XP Deus and that is my go to machine. Being a tech
> nical person, I love the company info for Minelab
> and Deus. They actually have real engineers with d
> egrees who actually hunt with the machines. After
> getting the Equinox I had buyers remorse as to wet
> her I should have purchased the CTX. I understand
> GPS technology but thought it was well thought out
> that you could select a find waypoint for each goo
> d target. For example, if you are hunting Civil Wa
> r targets in the woods you could mark each good fi
> nd. Maybe you don't return for a year, things do l
> ook different.....even between the four seasons.
>
> Anyway, I appreciate your input.
>
> Mark

Congrats on the EQX. No way the GPS feature is worth $1200 more so don't have buyers remorse. In fact, there are probably 20 phone apps that save your GPS location. They won't be designed for metal detecting but you can use them as such. I did like the GPS feature but probably wouldn't of paid anything more for it. The ability to swing all day and spend $650 on a machine vs the small things the CTX had is not even a comparison. I could swing the CTX for maybe a few hours and my arm struggled; especially if I was going out on multiple days and I am only 40, lift weights, and am in really good shape. The equinox allows me to swing all day without feeling that weight at all. Its a night and day difference. Depth is the same. ID is better on the CTX for sure but that doesn't affect my hunting as I hunt beaches. Good luck.

_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

Tect o Trac app for your phone is the best I have seen for marking finds will also trail you so you can see were you have been. Works best with GPS locker app to lock in your signal

I tell ya what I've been doing fellas and it may be common knowledge but I kinda stumbled onto it by accident.

I have had the Google Earth app downloaded on my phone for a while. I've always liked the PC version better though because I could add hundreds of pin marks and such and do my map over lays. I have quite a base of operations on my lap top and have been sorta carrying it with me in the truck instead of doing print outs. I kept saying to myself "this would be much easier it I could do the same thing on the phone app". I didn't think there was a way to do it. But there is. I figured out I could download the historic USGS .KMZ extension files to my phone and use them in the mobile app version of Google Earth like I had been doing on the PC version. What this does, is automatically overlay them to the area you have downloaded, and you can flip back and forth between the satellite Earth image or the map over lay. In my area the maps go back to the 1890s but in some areas they go back earlier. The most accurate for my area are the 1930s maps that show the home sites, old roads, churches, schools, etc. I have downloaded all of the 1935 maps in .kmz file format of my detection range area. Where this gets better than the PC version of Earth, is that the mobile version can use your phone's GPS to show your location on the topo overlays and satellite view too. Pretty neat.

I used it in my scouting trips Thursday this past week to locate several Civil War era road beds that have been long abandoned and it was able to put me within about 20 yards of where they actually were....just by following my location on the overlay and going right to where the map said they should be. I got a new permission that is in a likely Civil War area but it showed a house dot on the 1930s map. Present day, it is just a recent cut corn field with no sign of a house ever being there. The land owner is 82 yrs old and he told me he could remember an old barn or shed in the field when he was a little boy but he said he didn't ever remember a house. I walked right to where it showed on the map and immediately began finding evidence of where a house had burnt. So I guess you could say my phone has obsoleted my hand held GPS.

Thanks Daniel TN, That is awesome information.....I feel much better now about my Equinox purchase. I recently retired from the USAF and am looking forward to many days of relic and coin hunting.

The Equinox can be quite deep at times...And my soil reads as 8 Ground balance so that's strong...as I move into the 30s and 40s better dirt it can get deeper.

The Beauty of the Equinox for me is the ACCURATE ID on low conductors at say 4-5 inches deep..Where as most VLF machines will read the same targets at that depth as high conductors till out of the ground.

Now as the items climbs the conductance range and also gets deeper the ID system of the Equinox starts to get jumpy I've dug a good but of Three ringers at amazing depths the FBS wasnt really telling me to dig but the ID was not stable...When the FBS is stable and locking its more accurate at depth on say dime at ten inches or the likes and opposite on say a 6 inch pistol bullet...BUT also FBS wont see alot of the small stuff like the Equinox or dissect in iron as well.

The Equinox is geared for Multi use for sure and I feel its main aim was field hunting Roman fields and beach hunting for the low stuff...And its does feel its not in any way a FBS unit Technology or BBS..its standalone.Its more like a true Multi behaves...Not BBS or FBS cycling freq tech..its more like DFX/CZ but more freqs at once...Its prone to more iron falsing in the normal sense of a VLF..Yet you can if you like for cherry picking a site turn up the iron Bias and its as good or maybe better than a FBS for not falsing...At price of masking though..but if your cherrying a site for first time you can be aggressive on iron masking Vs time spent outcomes.

The small coil on the Equinox enhances small stuff yet to me unless the iron is above nails in size doesn't unmask a whole lot better than the stock coil..the small coil is more at home Cherry picking in modern trash selective digging than it is for straight unmasking in ancient sites..I almost feel the stock coil in just nails sees co locates better than the small coil especially if the items are deeper.It has some DEUS in its blood in this aspect.Small coil also seems to ID deep solid larger iron as a good target more often Vs the stock coil than can get clippy on the edges of target.On FBS units small coil really enhances that unit in any site for isolating and unmasking..But the FBS units are sluggish to recover so makes sense.

I almost feel the engineers went after the DEUS market and AT-PRO waterproof and excellent unmasking also sales .The worldwide way of hunting has shifted over the last decade or so..targets are still shallow in heavy iron trash and people know it or have seen it..What was Niche hunters style 20-30 years ago has now became main stream.Engineers still struggle with correct ID at depth but have found ways to enhance dissecting..

It just so happens Minelab is a bad dirt specialist and has now decided to venture into heavier unmasking too but use their bad dirt tech in design.

You want the Equinox 800 to run like a FBS unit turn Iron bias up and recovery speed down and put it on 50 tones..With slower recovery speed deep high targets will read more accurate ..

Yet I dont really want the Equinox to run like a FBS...Id use a FBS if I was in a FBS situation..

One of MY major drawbacks to the Equinox is when I'm in mixed use site.Lots and lots of relics are crammed between 10-20 ID and move around alot decided by orientation..and so are all sorts of pulltabs and pieces of pull tabs cut aluminum etc.Minelab uses the compressed resolution ID scale to seem more accurate on targets..a 100 scale would cause say a nickle to jump alot more than 1-2 points we see now..With less jumping more stuff climbs on top of each other.One thing though is something round on a Equinox usually doesn't fluctuate but 1-2 points..and trash like tab pieces can move a bit more..on a scale...a .22 bullet reads 10 and a .58 reads 18..Lost of stuff between those two sizes that relic hunters are after.coin hunters though after nickles only can look for that 13 lock then forget the rest..In mixed use site more I.D spread can help for cherrying...or a FBS 2-d becomes even better cherrying a mixed use site..

So in the end they are both deep, one has more accurate ID at depth on certain targets..One is better at unmasking..both handle bad ground with punch...a coin hunter in mixed use or modern trash or in locales that doesnt allow dig all then FBS....a Jewelry hunter or relic hunter after the lower stuff and just cares if its iron or not will like a EQ.

I do believe on fringe depth mid and on down to low conductors (and theres alot of that stuff still out there) the EQ has the depth advantage..EQ is a deep Minne-ball killer.Deep thin silver dimes I may nod to FBS on pure depth but not pure unmasking perse...but quarters and halves on up I'd say there pretty equal depth wise.Almost like the FBS is tuned to a deep on edge silver dime.Theres also some enhanced unmasking going on with the EQ Vs the FBS..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

I have hundreds of hours on my CTX and only a few on my EQ 800 but am not finding it to be as good tone and ID wise on old coins at any depth. The 800 is way better at ID at depth than my Deus though... For relic hunting at old sites the 800 is great but for old coins in the turf not so much in my moderate soils here in the midwest.
Dig a ton more undesirable targets in public parks with the 800 so far.
The light weight is a big plus but thinking I will be using the 800 mostly for relics and water detecting.
Been using the CTX since the first month of release and never set the clock or turned on the GPS . I have a wrist watch and prefer to detect not fool with bells and whistles lol.

I've run the CTX for 4 years or so ,,,,,, bought and jettisoned the 800 when it showed exactly what Keith alludes to.
For coins in modern parks and carpets of aluminum or the "old" 1930s homesites the CTX is the better producer.
I have probably hunted with NOXers on thirty different hunts now with three different people and have yet to be bested on our sites with our dirt that balances in around 3 or 4 on the NOX. That includes nickles as well , as these guys continue to believe they are still in a two number range while buried with other trash . One guy is just old , another is fat and lazy and the third is now getting ready for knee surgery after using the NOX for 6 months instead of his trusty etrac ,,,, but his shoulder feel better.
I like the clock , have never turned the GPS on.

If I was a "virginia digger" as the name implies , I would be all over the 800.

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In MOST of the soils I encounter here locally, the
> Nox does have the edge for going deeper. Especial
> ly on the low to mid conductors. However, recentl
> y I did have it at a site in which I longed for a
> pulse machine. I could not get it to quit giving
> one way hit/falsing and after going quite a while
> without any clear cut digable signals, I took a ch
> ance on digging a crappy signal and around 5 inche
> s, was a fired 3 ringer Civil War bullet. No doub
> t, any other VLF would have done the same thing...
> IF giving any signal at all. There are times and
> soils in which pulse machines are going to dominat
> e. Thankfully this is not the normal, everywhere I
> go kind of soil but this area does have pockets of
> it. Most is in fields like Culpeper...the fields a
> re always the hottest soil whereas the woods are u
> sually not bad. It did cause me to see that I do
> need a pulse machine in my tool box.


Daniel I wonder how the prospect mode would work at Culpeper on the EQ800?

virginia digger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks everyone for your input. I recently purchas
> ed a new Equinox 800 and I love everything about i
> t. I have owned all different models of the Explor
> er and it was always a love hate relationship due
> to the awkward weight distribution. I also own an
> XP Deus and that is my go to machine. Being a tech
> nical person, I love the company info for Minelab
> and Deus. They actually have real engineers with d
> egrees who actually hunt with the machines. After
> getting the Equinox I had buyers remorse as to wet
> her I should have purchased the CTX. I understand
> GPS technology but thought it was well thought out
> that you could select a find waypoint for each goo
> d target. For example, if you are hunting Civil Wa
> r targets in the woods you could mark each good fi
> nd. Maybe you don't return for a year, things do l
> ook different.....even between the four seasons.
>
> Anyway, I appreciate your input.
>
> Mark

There's a detecting GPS app that does exactly what you're looking for. I believe it's free'ish (like under $20).

Cal -- We've ran the Nox up there in Culpeper and my equiv. dirt down here. That soil GB's really high numbers. The machine can detect items and does give you more of an indication that its ferrous or non ferrous than probably 98% of other VLF machines currently on the market. But it requires continually GBing it and is noisy in it. I am not a fan of the gold modes....I do not like VCO audio. In my testing here I didn't find it favorable or any benefit to me. Thus is why I sold my 800 when they were bringing high dollar and kept the 600. In that soil type, pulse machines are king. They run smooth, stable, no falsing, and go extremely deep.

Gold 1 multi works fantastic in my soils. It gets inches more depth on silver than Park or Field modes. Nice and quiet. I like the VCO sound. The signals really jump out at you and it's easy to ID the occasional iron targets that sneak into the non-ferrous range .

.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2018 11:28AM by Badger in NH.

Both are good units.
CTX user can dodge more twist aluminum caps when goi;g for IH coins vs Equinox user.
Equinox little more prone to Emi vs CTX.
With settings adjustments hunting sites for relics and coins. Equinox user has lots of leeway on how to run using settings. CTX user more stuck.
Small coil on Equinox feels like a dream. CTX wearing small coil not so much.
CTX cost little more than double EQX800, is it worth it?? Imo absolutely not.
Have not run the bigger coil offering for EQX yet. I expect there to be some balance issues using it though.

I had rather have an Etrac and EQX 800 than having just one CTX.
Better money spent and one’s detecting possibilities are definitely far more reaching.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2018 11:35AM by tnsharpshooter.

Keith thanks for your take on the EQ 800----sane,simple,and minus the histrionics.

Good yall are liking the Goldfield programs..

Yes I've said since day 1 of use on the EQ the Prospecting gold mode is the best way to run the machine..

Its more old school like that but like the Old school method nothing has changed...better depth than disc.. and honestly it unmask better in that mode too..maybe noiser but more excitable..Plus its using higher sets of freqs in multi so its can lurk around in iron better for the lower stuff left....That mode is what pushes the depth on say minnie balls to past FBS depth...AS IT SHOULD....your using a Multi freq ground handling tech to punch soil with an all metal threshold based mode...Think about that for a minute and let is sink in...where we old days used say 5900 or Nautilus etc with all metal threshold mode to get extreme depth..well its the same but now its running multi.it can hold the threshold SMOOTH in harsh soil that in older tech single freq we have to increase S.A.T speed to smooth soil out at loose depth by doing it ..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

One other thing... The CTX has zero issues on crown bottle caps while the Equinox, not so much.

If you kill iron REALLY well, so that even complex ferrous based alloy products like the steel bottle cap - (one of the wonders of modern metallurgy ) You are likely to blank out nearby non ferrous - FBS/BBS is famous for this. The Nox fixes that, but beer cap ID was sacrificed.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

My hunting buddy is less then a month new Nox user and if I dug the numbers of screw and bottle caps he does, it would probably be wrapped around a tree. Everybody will dig the occasional bottle cap, I do with my F 75, particularly, the crushed ones on edge, but the numbers I see in trash photos and read about are a pretty strong turn off for me for acquiring a Nox. He is finding some silver with it, however. HH jim tn

lytle78 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you kill iron REALLY well, so that even complex
> ferrous based alloy products like the steel bottle
> cap - (one of the wonders of modern metallurgy ) Y
> ou are likely to blank out nearby non ferrous - FB
> S/BBS is famous for this. The Nox fixes that, but
> beer cap ID was sacrificed.

Why would you need to "kill iron REALLY well" when you can ID bottle caps REALLY well using dual number system and the screen icon?

I have used the CTX since its release and have been swinging the EQX since May. I have ZERO desire to go back to using the CTX as a regular detector. In my grounds, they are equal for silver depth, but the EQX slams the CTX for low conductors. Since May, I have found more buffy and V-nicks than ever dug with the CTX. I have dug more gold than in a decade with CTX and or FBS detectors. EQX is vastly cheaper and less than half the weight of the CTX while having a better waterproof design.

There are a few CTX abilities I miss (but not enough to switch back). I actually did use the GPS plotting when field hunting and it led me to the best hotspot of my detecting career. I may not have ever found it if I was left to just randomly wander the fields saying "hmmm, I did get a couple indians over in that area somwhere....." I also miss the FECO display, but I think this is something they could probably add into a future multi-IQ detector. Lastly are the crown caps. I never dug them with the CTX but I dig quite a few now. Sometimes they are easy to distinguish, other are impossible.... it all depends on how rusted they are.

In a nutshell thank God for light and ergonomic units for many field hours...

Not disappointed in my Nox 800 by any means .For the price point it is an exceptional all around water proof light weight machine. Now that plenty are available you can shop around and save several bucks on one as well

Used CTXs on EBay fetch $1200-1300; NOX gets $725-750. Detectorists still feel that the CTX is worth $500 more.

I don’t understand it.