TH - "fewer settings" was just a less complicated, shorthand way of saying everything you just said to make a point to a forum member who may not be familiar with all the intimate details of the machine. I think you well know I can go into excruciating detail on the actual differences between the two machines as evidenced by:
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/e...mportant-thing-missing-600-a.html#post5733256
So, now that you have opened Pandora's box, let's talk details (Easier now that I am at home and not a phone keyboard lol):
Frankly, for someone pondering a new detector, I normally don't make detector recommendations unless I have some idea what it is they want to do with the detector, such as beach hunt, coin shoot, relic hunt, water hunt, hunt for jewelry, prospect for gold etc. Get some understanding of where they want to hunt or the types of sites they might be going to. The beauty of both the 600 and 800 are that they can do all of these things well in a single detector so knowing that information is not needed to make the recommendation.
600 is a great value for a detector that can do just about everything the 800 can do at about $250US less cost.
What you don't get is a set of wireless BT headphones and wireless remote module (that can be used to plug wired headphones into). You can get a set of third party wireless BT headphones, but make sure they are low latency types APTX LL so that your audio signal is synced to your swing. Several threads in this forum discuss APTX LL compatible headphones that can be obtained for between $30 and $70. The wireless module is unnecessary if you get wireless BT APTX LL headphones that suit your needs. The 600 comes with a basic set of wired headphones.
As TH mentioned you are not able to adjust tone breakpoints for non-ferrous targets. Some folks like to make tones for coins pop out with more volume or a higher audio frequency. You can do that on the 800 but not on the 600. I have never fiddled with the tone breakpoints, primarily because I hunt in 50 tone audio which cannot be adjusted much on either machine.
You have fewer increments to adjust the machine responsiveness and false high tones from iron (called iron bias filtering) for the 600 vs. 800. This does not seem to hold back 600 users.
You cannot individually select on the 600 the two highest frequencies that are available on the 800 (20 and 40 khz). You can only select 5, 10, and 15 khz. I have never had to do this because I leave the machine in MultiFrequency mode (MultiIQ) default mode.
MulitIQ is identical for both machines on the equivalent modes and uses various combinations of all five of the base frequencies previously mentioned (5, 10, 15, 20, and 40). I have never seen the need to go to single frequency at all. In some rare cases it may be advantageous to do so but you will likely not miss this at all as a new user.
The 600 does not have gold mode, which is a specialized mode that uses a different type of audio system called VCO when hunting for tiny gold nuggets in highly mineralized conditions (i.e., the types of soil conditions where gold is normally found). Since the non-gold modes use MultiIQ, it is possible to find gold even when you are not using gold mode. In fact, the Park 2 and Field 2 modes are set up to find small mid-conductive targets like gold jewelry.
All in all, the 800 IS really just as easy to learn as the 600 as the menu system is identical, there are just less settings to tweak, and frankly, most new users will not miss them.
If you become serious in the hobby, you may want to get a backup machine in case you have to send your primary machine in for repairs and do not want to miss a chance for a hunt while your machine is out of commission. So down the road you can upgrade to the 800 if you subsequently find the additional features attractive or perhaps there will be an even newer version of the Equinox at that point.
It is a fact that you can get your hands on a 600 immediately vs. an 800.
For myself, I have an 800 because I like to do just about all the detecting adventures I listed above and I do it under some extreme soil conditions that tend to tie up most detectors in knots. The 800 can handle these extreme conditions pretty well. So can the 600, although the 800 has a few more notches of adjustment in machine speed that can come in handy, again in some rare extreme circumstances.
I plan on getting a 600 as a backup to my 800 and that I plan to use as a dedicated salt water surf/beach machine, because salt water can take a toll on a machine and I do not want to subject the 800 to the long term abuse of salt water hunting (even though they both can do it). So, as you can see, the 600 and 800 can compliment each other well as a cost effective primary/backup tandem of machines for the serious detectorist.
As a beginning detectorist, either machine will do what you need it do with practically zero tweaking out of the box and both will grow with you as you become more proficient and the learning curve is basically the same. There may be some fringe extra capabilities on the 800 you may find yourself wanting, so you need to assess that now as you make you buy decision (ask some additional questions here if you are not sure). But you really can't go wrong with either.
HTH
