Minelab Equinox 900 vs Garrett AT Max: Multi-Frequency or Single?

On wet salt sand, in black sand, and in heavily mineralised soil. In all three the ground itself returns a signal, and a machine running one frequency has to decide between ground and target from a single piece of evidence. A machine comparing five returns has more to go on. That is the whole of the multi-frequency argument, and it is real.

Where it does not cost you is a mild inland park. Garrett publishes 13.6 kHz for the AT Max, which is a sensible general-purpose frequency, higher than the AT Pro and therefore a little more sensitive to small and low-conductive targets. On that ground, a silver dime at seven inches is a silver dime at seven inches on either machine, and your sweep speed decides the day. Anyone telling you otherwise is describing a machine rather than a site. The depth chart puts the honest ranges in one place.

Both makers publish reasonably fully here, which makes this one of the cleaner comparisons on the site.

Nine rows. The Equinox takes most of them, and the AT Max takes the two that decide a lot of purchases.

You hunt salt beaches, black sand or mineralised ground, or you want one machine that does not need a second machine behind it. The Gold mode and the six single frequencies extend it into prospecting, the 16 foot rating covers wading and shallow diving, and the two coils in the box cover open ground and dense trash without a further purchase.

Choose it too if you expect to buy coils. Minelab publishes the EQX 06, EQX 11 and EQX 15, and approves the Coiltek NOX range on top, which is the widest coil choice of any platform here. The Equinox coil compatibility chart lists what fits, and settings by site type is the page to read before your first hunt rather than after it.

Your ground is inland and mild, and the price difference is going somewhere useful. The AT Max is a proven all-terrain machine with proportional audio, iron audio, a true all metal mode and wireless headphones already in the box, and Garrett publishes USA manufacture, which matters to a number of buyers. Ten feet of waterproofing covers every wading situation a sane person gets into.

Choose it too if you already own AT-series coils or have a Garrett dealer you trust. Garrett 5 by 8 DD PROformance Coil and Garrett 8.5 by 11 PROformance DD Coil are the published options, with NEL Hunter 12.5 by 8.5 Coil for AT Pro as a larger aftermarket alternative, and that existing kit is worth real money when you are deciding. The AT Max review covers it alone, and the AT Pro against the AT Max is the other question AT buyers ask.

Neither maker publishes a depth figure for a defined target in defined soil, so nobody can honestly rank these two with a number. What can be said is that depth comes from coil size, ground conditions, target size and orientation, and operator patience, and that the Equinox ships with more coil choice. Any specific inch figure you see quoted for either machine is an opinion.

The reliable way to settle it for your own ground is to bury known targets at measured depths and write down what each machine says. Building a test garden takes an afternoon and is worth more than every comparison page on the internet, including this one. The expected detection depth calculator will give you a realistic starting range to test against.