Minelab Equinox 600 Review

The detector that put multi-frequency in reach

To understand the 600 you have to remember what the Equinox did when it arrived in 2018. It dragged proper simultaneous multi-frequency, Minelab’s Multi-IQ, down to a price an ordinary detectorist could actually reach. Before that, multi-frequency basically meant a big, expensive machine. The 600 was the cheaper of the two Equinox models, and its whole job was to be the affordable way into that technology. For a lot of people it was their first taste of a detector that could genuinely do fields one day and a salt beach the next without owning two machines.

What you actually give up against the 800 (and what you do not)

This is the question everyone asks, so let me answer it properly, because it is more reassuring than people expect. The single most important thing the community agrees on is this: set the two machines up identically, in the same ground, and the 600 finds what the 800 finds. The detecting engine is the same. The 600 is not a crippled, watered-down version. What you lose is control and options, not raw ability on the vast majority of targets.

So what do you actually lose? The 600 runs three frequencies (5, 10 and 15 kHz) where the 800 adds a 20 and a 40 kHz, which mostly matters for tiny low-conductors and gold. It has three search modes (Park, Field and Beach) and no Gold mode. It gives you three recovery-speed settings against the 800’s eight. Ground balance is automatic only, with no manual override, and noise cancel is automatic only, with no manual channel select. The backlight is just on or off, and you get wired headphones rather than the wireless WM08 module.

Here is why a couple of those matter in the dirt, because it is not just a spec list. Recovery speed is how fast the machine resets after one target before it can hear the next. On trashy, iron-heavy ground a higher recovery speed stops two close targets smearing into a single signal, which is exactly how a good coin hides next to a nail. The 800’s wider range gives you more room to tune for that, and on really rubbishy sites the 600’s three steps can feel limiting. Manual noise cancel is the other one: near power lines or other detectors, hand-picking a quiet channel can settle a chattery machine that the automatic setting cannot quite calm. For most ordinary detecting on reasonable ground, though, neither will cost you finds.

What owners genuinely value

Value is the word that comes up before any other, and it is earned. The 600 gave people the famous Equinox strengths at the lower price: the separation and stability that made the family’s name. Separation is the one that matters most on our old sites, because a good machine pulls a hammered coin out from beside an iron nail instead of blending the two into one ugly grunt and walking you past the silver. Owners generally report the 600 does that job well, which is remarkable at the money. It is light, it is genuinely capable across fields and beach, and being submersible means you can work the wet sand and into the edge of the water.

The gripes, which are mostly family traits

The 600 shares the Equinox family’s well-known weak spots, so go in knowing them. The lower shaft has a habit of seizing solid after a season or two of grit, to the point a whole cottage industry of aftermarket carbon shafts grew up to fix it. The battery is a sealed rechargeable you cannot swap in the field, so no slapping in a spare set of AAs to limp through the day. The exposed magnetic charging port collects grit and damp, and “my Equinox will not charge” is one of the most worn-out thread titles going. And like its bigger brother, it can be a chatty machine on hot, mineralised ground that needs settling with sensitivity. None of these are dealbreakers, but they are real, and they are worth a few quid of cheap fixes.

If I were buying one, here is what I would do

The single best accessory is the cheap magnetic charge-port protector, because it heads off the most common fault on the whole family for a couple of quid. If your stock shaft has seized, an aftermarket carbon shaft is as much an upgrade in feel as a repair. And the classic owner mistake applies here too: do not run sensitivity flat out because it sounds powerful. On chattery UK ground, backing it off and running a clean, quiet machine genuinely finds you more, because you can actually hear the faint deep signals instead of drowning them in falsing.

Who I would point towards it, and who I would steer away

If you are a beginner or working to a budget and you want real simultaneous multi-frequency without paying flagship money, a used 600 is one of the smartest buys in the hobby. It does the everyday detecting most of us actually do, and it does it with the same core engine as machines costing far more. If you want one detector for general field and beach work and you are not chasing the last fraction of a percent, it will not let you down.

Who I would steer away? The serious detectorist who lives on trashy, iron-infested ground and wants to tune recovery speed and noise cancel by hand would be happier on a used 800, which gives that extra control for not a lot more money secondhand. And anyone who fancies chasing tiny gold or prospecting should note there is no Gold mode here.

Is it still worth it in 2026, and what about the 700?

This is where it gets practical, because the 600 has been discontinued. Minelab replaced the 600 and 800 with the Equinox 700 and 900 back in 2022, so you are now buying the 600 used. The successor, the 700, is the one to weigh up if you are buying new: it brings a collapsible carbon-fibre shaft that finally kills the old seizing problem, a deeper 5-metre waterproof rating, more target-ID segments, an added 4 kHz frequency, wireless headphones, vibration alerts and a flashlight, all in a lighter package, for around £749 new. That is a proper step up in hardware rather than detecting power.

So the honest steer is this. If you are buying new, the 700 is the sensible modern choice over hunting down a 600. If you are buying used and watching the pennies, a cheap 600 is a tremendous amount of multi-frequency detector and a brilliant first machine. The only wrinkle is that used 800s have dropped so far that the extra control they give can be worth the small premium over a used 600. Work out whether you will ever use that control, and buy accordingly.

As ever, this is me passing on what years of owners have worked out, not my own field notes on this particular machine. If you have run an Equinox 600 and see it differently, drop me a line through the contact page.