Need A VLF ? Deus 2 Orx Legend Equinox Nugget Air Tests

[phrunt]

I'm so glad I didn't buy a Deus 2, I came so close when it was new but held off, then a few genuine nugget hunters did their reports on it that countered the reports of the self appointed marketing team and that was it, no Deus 2 for me.  I can't imagine XP will make it improve on nugget performance, they have committed to selling the Deus 1 for several years yet and I assume that also means the Orx so they'll want that range to be the one people with interests in nuggets want to buy, some may buy both and then XP is very happy. 

Perhaps they shouldn't have called the Deus 2 the Deus 2, having that 2 there is very damaging for the original Deus sales, it perhaps should have been Deus SMF or something, anything but Deus 2 seeing they're intending to sell the first one some some time yet. 

At least it's not as confusing as the Gold Bug, Gold Bug Pro and Gold Bug 2 scenario with the Gold Bug 2 looking like it's from the 1980's and the Gold Bug and it's Pro? version looking more modern and another Gold Bug with the same name being ancient like the GB2.  Now that naming scheme was a shambles.

It's very hard to beat the Nox on small gold, I truly hope the Manticore does, but maybe they're pushing that onto the GM SMF that will inevitably come out at some point.  It'd have to be great as I don't want to buy anymore dedicated nugget detectors, I like having one that I can swing for gold in the morning and coins in the afternoon and not feel like I'd be significantly better off using other machines.

[Jeff McClendon]

Thanks Lynk for making the beautiful charts. That would have taken me awhile to do plus my nurses/doc would have been upset with me for not putting my ankle above my eye level for whatever length of time it took me to make gorgeous charts like that.

I just don’t know what to think about XP and its Deus 2 FMF gold prospecting mode. Sure, I could find gold with it too as long as there were .3 gram and larger nuggets near the surface using program 8. I could find even more smaller sized nuggets with it using program 7 Mono if I could get it to ground balance well enough. However, Deus 1 Fast (equals Deus 2 program 7 Mono) and Deus 1 Goldfield simply don’t handle hot ground equally well. Other than Steve’s conjecture that this small gold nugget insensitivity is deliberate marketing strategy………..I can’t believe XP’s engineers can’t figure this issue out. I just go back to my original statement months ago. If XP didn’t want Deus 2 to compete with the ORX and Deus 1 Goldfield modes, just don’t include an FMF gold prospecting mode on Deus 2. Instead they include one that is totally half assed………

I will just keep my ORX setup for a bit longer and see what happens with possible future updates. The ORX gold modes will ground balance just about anywhere and the 54 kHz and 81 kHz HF coils will hit incredibly small bits. Putting the ORX in a backpack is easier than putting in a 9” plastic gold pan.

I really am not trying to make Deus 2 look bad here. Like others that have used Deus 2 for other tasks besides gold prospecting, I have found it to be an incredible SMF detector and light years better than Deus 1.

However, I would hate to hear about a person selling their gold prospecting VLFs thinking (without actually knowing) that Deus 2 can do it all. Right now, it just can’t.

So I really was just trying to do a comparison of the latest technology SMF, supposedly gold prospecting capable all terrain detectors along with the ORX thrown in for a direct Deus 2 comparison. Anybody with a Deus 1 and HF coils will get similar results by the way. That XP ORX/Deus 1 single frequency, semi threshold based gold prospecting mode is really excellent. I would have also included the Garrett 24K if I still had one but right now I don’t.

[Chase Goldman]

11 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Deus 1 Goldfield modes, just don’t include an FMF gold prospecting mode on Deus 2. Instead they include one that is totally half assed………

Well, as a counterpoint (or to corroborate D2 points you made later in your post), I actually preferentially utilize D2's SMF Goldfield to D1/Orx Goldfield and even D2's Relic mode (D2's SMF Golfield variant with a lower 24 vs. 40 khz max SMF frequency profile) under certain relic hunting situations. 

Just because the program is named Gold or Goldfield doesn't mean that it has to be used for solely for prospecting, so I'm glad they bothered and don't consider it "half assed" for what I have repurposed it for.  I don't allow myself to be boxed in by program labels, willingness to experiment and improvise can result in some pleasant surprises - some of the below targets were recovered in hot dirt with D2 set up in Goldfield and 00 notch.  (Not directed at you Jeff, I know you know all this and am preaching to the choir).

On the flip side, to your point Jeff, it can be a disappointment to those who have been misled to believe based on hype and marketing that D2 GF is superior to D1/Orx GF for its intended primary use (i.e., prospecting) simply because D2 is utilizing newer SMF tech vs. it's mono frequency D1/Orx cousins.

If they put a mono "discrimination" based program on D2 emulating D1 Fast, then they certainly could have added a 4 to 40 khz D2 "mono" Goldfield/Relic program variant.  It would likely improve the situation for D2 users while still maintaining the micro target edge and cost advantage viability of D1/Orx with their hf coils.

I would even welcome a 40 khz limited, non-dive-rated small elliptical coil for D2.

[phrunt]

By what you're saying there Chase it sounds like XP purposefully made the Deus 2 worse than the Deus 1 for prospectors by limiting the gold mode to 24kHz.   Did I read that right?  So yes, it can be used for gold, just like any VLF really, it's just not something someone would want to use unless it's all they had access to.

I've finally done what I said I'd never do (because wireless sucks, you use it if you have to, not if you don't) and that's get a Deus, I didn't want the v2 for reasons outlined above about it's poor performance prospecting.  For some reason the Deus makes me think of those people that have a nice gigabit fiber connection, with a gigabit router sitting on their desk next to their computer where the fiber hooks in and then they have their desktop computer sitting on that same desk next to the router, within about a meter or so of the router and they use their crappy little Wireless N wifi card in their computer to connect to the router thereby giving them a minuscule amount of the bandwidth they could get if they just plugged a cat6 cable between their router and their desktop.   Then they complain fiber sucks as its slow and no better than the ASDL they upgraded from.  They're the same sort of people that have their dodgy printer sitting on the same desk connecting to it with wireless too and keep complaining the scanning is slow (wireless of course) and their printer gets connection errors often when all they need to do is plug it into the router with another cat6 cable and life is good with no issues and fast speed.    

The Deus technology isn't that bad, or even remotely that bad, but it's the same logic, the cable wouldn't make a difference to me, the shafts there anyway.  Yes you can pop your little box off and stick it in your pocket or whatever, I guess they could have just made it stay there and have the little other gadgets that wirelessly connect to that box instead for those that want them.  The Deus 2 for water seems even worse with a dodgy antenna that may as well be a cable anyway, it's a shame they didn't made the coils accept a cable for when used in water instead of an antenna and the cable screw into the control box too, then people like me that are not fans of wireless could just use our coils wired all the time, and it'd also give the water hunters a better option than a corroding flimsy antenna.

In saying all that, looking forward to giving the Deus 1 a spin.  The air test results Jeff has put up there are respectable.  I expect similar in ground results here as I usually do get similar air test/in ground performance with detectors in my soils.

[Jeff McClendon]

Sorry about the “Sad” emoji Chase, but I am done entertaining excuses and non-gold prospecting alternatives for a mode that XP decided was good enough to be designated as the FMF gold prospecting mode for Deus 2.
 

I use a gold prospecting capable VLF for scouting new areas and for vacuuming up the sub gram nuggets in areas that I know can have small sub gram gold and in patches that I have worked in the past. They are also great to have around for dry washing and sluice tailings cleanup along with wiry, porous and specie gold. By “half assed” I am referring to the huge amount of sub .5 gram gold that Deus 2 FMF Goldfield simply won’t hit unless it is basically on or very near the surface. That sized gold is exactly the kind of gold I use a gold prospecting capable VLF for. The .5 gram and up size gold is pulse induction territory for me anyway. There is a transition “gray” area between .25 and .5 grams that I depend on my VLF for most of the time. Plus, having such great packability, versatility and superb ergonomics on paper make Deus 2 very appealing for any prospector. 
 

Personally, I am really glad XP included the FMF Relic mode which has excellent frequency weighting for most .5 gram and bigger coins and relics. Under .5 gram weight down to .01 gram weight is exactly what Deus 2 Goldfield should have been capable of and where Deus 1 and ORX Gold modes excel.  It really struggles on .25 gram gold and smaller so basically, FMF Goldfield isn’t small gold nugget prospecting capable. 

[Lynk]

On 10/28/2022 at 3:39 PM, Cal_Cobra said:

Nice job!  Reminds me of the days when @Mike Hillisdid all the great C$ charts and graphs 👍

@Lynk could you make this downloadable? 

Thank you.

I think I've inserted it. It doesn't look like I can attached an Excel file, but zip folders are OK. The Excel file is in the zip folder. I hope this helps (and works).

Metal Detector Comparison 2022.10.24.zip

[Chase Goldman]

On 10/29/2022 at 2:08 PM, phrunt said:

By what you're saying there Chase it sounds like XP purposefully made the Deus 2 worse than the Deus 1 for prospectors by limiting the gold mode to 24kHz.   Did I read that right?  So yes, it can be used for gold, just like any VLF really, it's just not something someone would want to use unless it's all they had access to.

I've finally done what I said I'd never do (because wireless sucks, you use it if you have to, not if you don't) and that's get a Deus, I didn't want the v2 for reasons outlined above about it's poor performance prospecting.  For some reason the Deus makes me think of those people that have a nice gigabit fiber connection, with a gigabit router sitting on their desk next to their computer where the fiber hooks in and then they have their desktop computer sitting on that same desk next to the router, within about a meter or so of the router and they use their crappy little Wireless N wifi card in their computer to connect to the router thereby giving them a minuscule amount of the bandwidth they could get if they just plugged a cat6 cable between their router and their desktop.   Then they complain fiber sucks as its slow and no better than the ASDL they upgraded from.  They're the same sort of people that have their dodgy printer sitting on the same desk connecting to it with wireless too and keep complaining the scanning is slow (wireless of course) and their printer gets connection errors often when all they need to do is plug it into the router with another cat6 cable and life is good with no issues and fast speed.    

The Deus technology isn't that bad, or even remotely that bad, but it's the same logic, the cable wouldn't make a difference to me, the shafts there anyway.  Yes you can pop your little box off and stick it in your pocket or whatever, I guess they could have just made it stay there and have the little other gadgets that wirelessly connect to that box instead for those that want them.  The Deus 2 for water seems even worse with a dodgy antenna that may as well be a cable anyway, it's a shame they didn't made the coils accept a cable for when used in water instead of an antenna and the cable screw into the control box too, then people like me that are not fans of wireless could just use our coils wired all the time, and it'd also give the water hunters a better option than a corroding flimsy antenna.

In saying all that, looking forward to giving the Deus 1 a spin.  The air test results Jeff has put up there are respectable.  I expect similar in ground results here as I usually do get similar air test/in ground performance with detectors in my soils.

First of all, D2 gold mode is not limited to 24 khz, it's SMF tops out at 40 khz (D1 selectable single frequency can go as high as 54 khz with the HF round coil and nearly 80 khz with the HF elliptical coil so this gives it some additional sub gram performance vs. D1 but doesn't explain per Jeff's point why XP can't outperform Nox's 40 khz top end SMF gold mode performance).  Second, I am not the one on DP who has the strongest opinion regarding the lack of D2 small gold performance being an XP business gambit aimed at keeping legacy XP product lines viable - I don't disagree that this may be the case, but there is a part of me that thinks there may a technical issue at play associated with either a flaw in XP's D2 SMF implementation and/or ability to produce a small SMF (i.e., D2 compatible) elliptical coil that would further boost Gold Field performance.  As much as Jeff seems to want to paint me as some sort of XP apologist for sub par D2 gold performance, I basically agree with him that XP has inexplicably fallen short in this regard (and have been consistently stumping for months for XP providing at least a mono frequency variant of Goldfield on the D2 and a small elliptical coil (preferably with HF capability as good as D1)

Also, I'm not really following your logic on why you're going to even bother with the D1 when the Nox will still blow it out of the water for sub gram gold.  D2 fixed a lot of D1 warts especially in regards to usability (despite the sub gram gold performance decrement) and I haven't even used my D1 since, as a result.  D1 just seems really dated compared to D2 and I am not seeing a scenario where I am even going to seriously use my D1 again.  If I were you, I'd skip D1 unless you are getting it for next to nothing and sit back and see if XP comes around with a D2 update and/or small coil that rectifies the small gold performance issue before Manticore is released.  Just not sure what D1 is bringing to the table for you (if not performance) if you are going to just contnue to flog its wireless platform which is the enabler to its feather light form factor and modular reconfigurability which combined with its performance has made it extremely popular amongst relic detectorists in the US and UK and it also seems to be catching on with some serious US Beach hunters and divers. 

On 10/29/2022 at 2:18 PM, Jeff McClendon said:

Sorry about the “Sad” emoji Chase, but I am done entertaining excuses and non-gold prospecting alternatives for a mode that XP decided was good enough to be designated as the FMF gold prospecting mode for Deus 2.

Don't be sorry, because I'm personally done entertaining this thoroughly beaten down dead horse.  I'm kind of tired myself trying to explain alternative points of view on where D2 DOES excel while also fundmentally agreeing with your original disappointment in D2's subpar gold and hot dirt performance.  Yet I feel like I get painted with this XP apologist label. 

Probably time for me to step back from participating in detector comparison and performance dialog, in general. Lately, it's become more of a chore and bore for me as I am constantly finding myself either overly invested in my takes or on the defensive when I try to share my positive experiences with certain detectors here.

Social media influencers seem to drive detector discussions into two extreme directions:  Either buying into the ridiculously unbridled positive marketing hype without concrete, unbiased objective evidence to support those points of view or equally unsupported over the top critical, even cynical takes.  Wading through these extreme positions lacking any nuance whatsoever sort of sucks the joy out something that I used to be passionate about.  Weird.  Thankfully, Steve has been able to keep DP mostly immune from these trends and tendencies that have turned other forums into vast wastelands devoid of original thought and rife with personal attacks.  However, some of these over the top behaviors also creep into DP, though on a much smaller and less personal level.  Hope we can continue to keep this forum an oasis devoid of all the drama BS that ruins other sites.  Accordingly, I suppose I will focus my energies mostly into site moderation and detecting vice bloviating on detector tech, if I can exert the appropriate level of self-discipline into doing so.  

[Jeff McClendon]

58 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Don't be sorry, because I'm personally done entertaining this thoroughly beaten down dead horse.  I'm kind of tired myself trying to explain alternative points of view on where D2 DOES excel while also fundmentally agreeing with your original disappointment in D2's subpar gold and hot dirt performance.  Yet I feel like I get painted with this XP apologist label. 

Probably time for me to step back from participating in detector comparison and performance dialog, in general. Lately, it's become more of a chore and bore for me as I am constantly finding myself either overly invested in my takes or on the defensive when I try to share my positive experiences with certain detectors here.

Social media influencers seem to drive detector discussions into two extreme directions:  Either buying into the ridiculously unbridled positive marketing hype without concrete, unbiased objective evidence to support those points of view or equally unsupported over the top critical, even cynical takes.  Wading through these extreme positions lacking any nuance whatsoever sort of sucks the joy out something that I used to be passionate about.  Weird.  Thankfully, Steve has been able to keep DP mostly immune from these trends and tendencies that have turned other forums into vast wastelands devoid of original thought and rife with personal attacks.  However, some of these over the top behaviors also creep into DP, though on a much smaller and less personal level.  Hope we can continue to keep this forum an oasis devoid of all the drama BS that ruins other sites.  Accordingly, I suppose I will focus my energies mostly into site moderation and detecting vice bloviating on detector tech, if I can exert the appropriate level of self-discipline into doing so.  

I basically have had to resort to falling back on the ORX if I want to detect small gold with an XP detector at this point. Hopefully that will change.

I hated to say what I said earlier but this is the prospecting section of this forum. I know full well that the Deus 2 is an incredible detector and I feel bad about even saying negative things about its performance. That was absolutely not what this topic was about. It was just an honest attempt to illustrate on paper how Deus 2's simultaneous multi frequency small gold performance is inexplicably below standard....that standard being its own Mono program and the Gold modes on the ORX and Deus 1 so that any potential Deus 2 buyers or current owners that also use it for gold prospecting would have a clear idea of what is realistic.

The Legend and Equinox results were to show how close they are in performance, not how they blow Deus 2 out of the water. They don't blow Deus 1 and the ORX gold modes out of the water from my experience. I have found some very small gold with both that I was amazed at especially since there were hot rocks and small nail fragments in the scoop with some of those nuggets but there was enough non-ferrous information and tell-tale audio responses coming from the single freq. ORX to make me dig.

I know you are fully aware of this so I won't be posting anything else about it. I try to keep it positive concerning Deus 2 whenever I can. It deserves it for sure in every other aspect of its performance from my experience.

[phrunt]

Thanks for your detailed reply Chase, I'm suitably impressed with the D1 and it's elliptical high frequency coil when running at 80kHz.  Tinkering with settings I was able to make it very similar in performance with the Nox and 6" coil while having a larger coil, so effectively it was doing better than the Nox as it was hindered by the bigger coil.  The Nox with it's closest comparison coil the Coiltek 10x5" the D1 was doing better I thought, if only it had a smaller coil it'd be deadly.  I don't think so far the Nox blows it out of the water for my prospecting scenario, in fact they're neck and neck all things considered so in my case perhaps the extra ground coverage and lighter detector may end up winning.

As a gold prospecting machine it's pretty good by the looks of it, I haven't obviously had a lot of time with it yet but I'm pretty happy with it so far and quite like it for that purpose from what I've seen.

As a coin detector for my scenario of deep coins in mild ground its terrible in any default mode regardless of frequency, in my mild low trash soils it's left behind by just about every detector I own for depth, even entry level machines from competitors are capable of giving me a good target ID on targets the Deus doesn't see at all or gives a much lower ID on that it should or no ID at all with some coils, this could perhaps be because the Deus seems to only have quite small coils available.  This is all very early reports obviously as I've only had it a couple of days and only stuck with default settings other than frequency and sensitivity when looking for coins.  I have the 9" and 11" X35 and the 9' and elliptical 9.5x5" HF coils and I've tried them all on in ground deep coin targets I've found with my Nox or CTX and then compared the Deus on every frequency and coil using all of the default programs on maximum sensitivity along with the default 90.  It's not looking like a depth demon that's for sure, especially when it comes to target ID's which are pretty poor except on rather shallow targets. 

I am all about depth and ID on deep coins and that seems to really be the D1's weak spot, if it finds deep coins it's more of a dig all non-ferrous type detector.   I was hoping it would be good at finding deep coins below more recent nail drops as it's a scenario I do encounter where coins have been in the ground for a long time and the nail drops are more recent from roof replacements and shonky roofers throwing the nails all over the ground surrounding the building.  The problem is if a nail is above the coin in any default Deus mode the Deus only finds the nail.  It's odd as I see these guys banging up Youtube videos of a nail sitting directly on top of a coin and the Deus giving good coin tones showing it sees the coin, but this seems to be a bit of a trick as I can repeat the same test and it does indeed give a good coin tone, but if the coin is under the ground and the nail at the surface or slightly below bye bye coin, all it gets is the nail.  This is no different to any other detector I own, I was just hoping the Deus would be better in this situation, so far with everything I've tried it's no different but perhaps people can give me advice on settings adjustments to improve this.

As a nugget detector I'm seeing potential and the whole wireless coil thing is slowly growing on me, I sure see the benefits when I can change coils in a few seconds to compare them to each other, and the feather weight of it is also quite a nice attribute, if anything it's inspired my 12 yr old daughter to give detecting another go as she even finds it light and it quickly adjusts to her height, she always found other detectors awkward and heavy. 

The Deus 1 seems like it started life as a coin and relic detector and grew into a gold detector, perhaps XP saw the market for gold detectors was a big one and chased that market.  It's a shame they never tried to make deep bigger coils for it but I guess it'd throw it right out of balance, not that I'd care as for me performance is everything, the other attributes are more a bonus than a necessity.

The Deus 1 was to tie me over until the Manticore release 🙂 As a gold detector I quite like it and will likely use it quite often, as a coin detector for me, not so much, and added bonus because I've got 4 coils for it I don't need Christmas lights on the tree this year, I can just hang my 4 coils up, they flash constantly and would look nice on the tree.