XP Deus 74 Khz Elliptical Coil - I'm Impressed!

[Steve Herschbach]

 

[strick]

I've been interested in the T2 for some time now, but I'm trying hard not to become a detector junkie....Thanks for posting Steve.

strick

[goldbrick]

Aw man! I just got my second HF coil this evening. This one is charging unlike the first one. Now you post this.

Actually, I watched this video a couple days ago. It is interesting but with the disparate size coils it does not say too much to me other than the T2 is a great machine and  you can"t get that small of a coil for the Deus. Now if he would have used a Gold Racer with a 4x7 it would have been an interesting comparison for relic hunting for me as I own a GR and am usually to lazy for all this testing .

[Steve Herschbach]

Sorry about that Merton - I hope your new coil is working fine!

The Deus does amazing things in target separation with the coil sizes it has. The cheat is that other detectors can do nearly as well by simply employing smaller coils than the Deus. The catch is A. you lose ground coverage and B. you lose depth. The reason the Deus is such a popular detector is by getting small coil separation characteristics out of larger coils.

In my case I finally had an epiphany of sorts when doing my last big round of detector testing. I finally realized that no matter what, I only have so much time to go detecting every year. And that when given the choice, I will always go chase gold nuggets before I will do any other type of detecting. My second favorite type of detecting is jewelry detecting. I dabble around coin detecting but it is mainly as something I can go do quickly in a couple hours.

I like the idea of seeking out old townsites or cabin sites, stage coach stops, etc. The problem is that to do that takes just as much time and effort for me as going nugget detecting. So next week I have a few days to go someplace. My choices are to either go nugget detecting, or go to that 1870 camp and hunt the ferrous trash for whatever I can find. Despite good intentions, the last few years has proven to me I will almost always choose to go nugget detecting.

I already have the best gold detectors made, and while the new Deus HF coils certainly make it more capable in that regard, there is no reason to own it just for nugget detecting. If I really was going to follow through and get into sifting ferrous trash for a coin or whatever, I would keep it. For me it just got down to being realistic. The few times I will go do such a thing I have machines that may not be quite as good as the Deus - but they are good enough for me.

Absolutely none of this is a knock on XP or the Deus. Great company making superb products. It's just that for me they target a specific use that is last on my list of things to do with a detector.

[goldbrick]

Steve, I totally understand your position on detector selection.

My new coil is working fantastic, thank you. A few nights ago I went to an old bunk house/camp to do some relic hunting with my Brother-in-law. He was swinging a CTX with the 6'" coil. This location had been pounded with a Minelab 70, CTX, Makro Red Racer, and Deus 9". I found around a dozen non-ferrous targets in machine gun iron running in 28KHZ. The CTX was able to eke out 1 non-ferrous target. We compared most of my targets and to put it mildly there was no comparison at this location in this dirt( Deus FE meter maxed). 

I myself own a CTX and love it. But I believe in using the correct tool for the job so for a iron laden location this little coil will be on the business end of my Deus. BTW my Brother-in-law has ordered a Deus with Elliptical and 9" coil. LOL. Seeing is believing after all.

[Steve Herschbach]

The CTX is a bit of a quandary when it comes to ferrous trash. All the Minelab BBS/FBS machines in my experience handle isolated ferrous trash better than any other machines. By that I mean they do not get fooled very much, especially on flat steel items like bottle caps or various flat rusted sheet steel items. These can be very troublesome items, especially for higher frequency machines and machines running DD coil. You get a really clean, coin signal, and dig a 2" square piece of flat rusted steel. Some detectors also have a real problem with broken square nails. Anyway, the BBS/FBS machines can really run clean and quiet in spread out ferrous and make good finds.

The problem is the BBS/FBS machines have a very slow recovery time and when you get multiple ferrous under the coil at one time they just go blind. Everyone kind of knows that, but when you see it personally, like I did in my test linked above, or with you and your buddy cross-checking, it can be a real eye-opener.

The Deus and machines like my Gold Racer or G2 and many other will do better in dense ferrous than the CTX and prior units. The CTX I like for its saltwater handling (superb beach detector) and that it also has what may be the most accurate discrimination system available. I am not impressed by the Deus in that regard or any of the Euro machines for that matter. They excel at pulling nonferrous from ferrous but when it comes to target ID they are just OK at best. For groomed parks and yards where you want every hole to count, a CTX is very hard to beat.

As you say Merton you just have to know your detectors and what they are good at, and match machines up for the situation as appropriate. And for sifting nonferrous out of a sea of ferrous the Deus is a fabulous detector. The CTX could be a life saver however in areas of more dispersed ferrous where there is a lot of roofing tin or decomposed broken up rusted cans. For a lot of people a CTX (or E-Trac) and a Deus would be a killer combo as each is strong where the other is weakest. Excellent complementary pair.

[Steve Herschbach]

Welcome to the forum!

The new coil was designed first and foremost for gold prospecting so sensitivity to small low conductors is job one. But that does prove useful for other types of detecting, like relic detecting, or small gold and very thin or cut silver coins.