Mkus,
I believe the target ID is much superior on the original XS, XS II, and XS SE, not with the Etrac and CTX. From what I can see these detectors and the NOX and very closely matched depth-wise, at least in my neck of the woods.
Before the XS came out in 1999 or so all detectors were either beep and dig or had a analog or digital meter where typically tin foil was a small number, pull tabs and nickels bigger, then cents, silver, etc. If a machine had discrimination you could only turn it up along this scale. Later units allowed certain areas along this scale to be accepted or rejected, but all on the same scale.
Basically a signal gave a Conductive reading or number from say 0 to 50, and depending on the signal it may bounce straight to the right or bounce straight to the left along this scale every time you swung the coil over the target.
When the XS came out Minelab had added another axis to the ID, called Ferrous. When you used Smart Screen it graphed the two axes across the entire screen with a corresponding audio output. Silver had a wonderful high pitched sound: dimes hit in the extreme upper right hand corner of the screen, silver quarters still extreme right but slightly lower, silver halves also extreme right but lower yet. Copper cents had there own unique location, and for some reason Indians Heads also, (even though they were the same composition of wheaties). Zincolns hit pretty much where IHs did, but usually showed a shallower depth. Nickels hit down in the center bottom of the screen, CuNi "Fat" indians hit slightly above nickels. Steel crown bottle caps hit extreme right but very low on the screen. (Nothing else hit anywhere close to crown caps, NEVER EVER an issue with digging crown caps with XS detectors. I was blown away to discover they were still an issue with other later machines)
And of course when the signals were deep, in mineralized soil, co-located with other junk or menstruating gophers the signals would stray from the text book locations, but almost always in a way that had a pattern. A pull tab might hit in the nickel area, but was more likely to have a more random "bounce" than a nickel in iron, which typically would bounce from nickel location and then up and left from there (Thanks Golddigger).
The original manuals for the XS family make much of the fact that you could "learn" in the locations for the targets you desired and discriminate out the rest. Didn't work (That's another long post). Most folks pretty much ran the machines with very little discrimination and watched how the target ID "bounced" over multiple swings over the targets, using the "Minelab Wiggle". Mike Moutrey posted some wonderful graphics that showed how various targets behaved in iffy conditions.
The XS machines did have the ability to display the FE and CO numbers, but the great majority of users used the Smart Screen; there was no reason to care what the exact numbers were, watching the general location and movement of the target ID was the key to determining whether to dig or not.
So... I agree that the Equinox forum currently has had more finds posted than the older Minelab machine forums ... But you should have seen the XS forum when this detector first came out. I would guess ten-twenty times the finds that we see today on the NOX forum. It truly made old sites come alive again. Old parks that had been hit for thirty years were giving up 100s of old coins. After five years or so of being hit with the XS family of detectors, the numbers dropped off considerably; though I know of a couple of people who put on thousands of miles of travel and much research that still pull hundreds of silver coins each and every year.
(It looks to me that the current Findmall archives do not go back farther than fifteen years, so all those wonderful posts from this time are not view-able; wonder if they are lost forever?)
So, I and others found it quite amazing when the E-trac came out all the ferrous numbers had been assigned a value of "12". And once again....
Basically a signal gave a Conductive reading or number from say 0 to 50, and depending on the signal it may bounce straight to the right or bounce straight to the left along this scale every time you swung the coil over the target.
Same place we were before the XS family came out. Forum moderator "Digger" posted a answer from a Minelab engineer that basically said that because the Ferrous numbers on the XS didn't go in a straight line (the previously unheard of dreaded "S curve") they would simplify life and straighten it out for us.... And throw away what made Minelab detectors better than all the competition.
That is my normal grumpy old man rant. I think the Etrac, CTX, and NOX would be much better machines if they had the option to emulate the original XS layout. Switching the axes like would be ok. (XS was conductive up-down, ferrous left-right, Etrac and newer opposite.)
But.... I've bought a F-75, CTX-3030, and this spring a NOX 800, hoping that one of these machines would bring old sites to life again like they did when the XS first came out. I've done enough construction sites to realize there are plenty of coins still to be found when a couple inches of dirt and modern trash are removed. It's not so much a matter of depth than target masking from trash between the coil and the target that limits what can be found.
So far I am not finding much in sites I hit hard with my XS; though I admit I don't have nearly the hours on the newer machines. And it may well be that if I hit a site first with the cheaper and lighter NOX and followed with my XS there may not be much left for the XS to find.
Bottom line, at least for me, is that the new detectors are not a huge improvement over the XS, and that the XS has a target ID that is superior.
And, to be clear, I don't think it was the two axis target ID that made the old sites come alive 20 years ago, but probably the DD coils and automatic ground tracking.
Mine lab has shown with the CTX-3030 that it can respond to different co-located targets. Right now only on the screen. When they (or someone else) figure out how to do this with an audio response they'll have a potential game changer that may bring old sites back to life.
Chris(SoCenWI)
I've seen a couple of other old timers bemoan the single line ID on the newer machines from time to time. Think it is worth whining to Minelab?
