First Nox 900 Gold *updated*

[Jeff McClendon]

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The Deus 2 does exceptionally well on beaches with high magnetite content, holding an accurate id about 15% deeper in my experience over an Equinox. Both hit the targets to the same depth, but the id shifts to ferrous on the Equinox sooner than Deus 2 by a substantial, not hair splitting margin. I've seen it, and looks like you just saw it also Daniel. Topic moved though since it's morphed into this versus that. Some irony here as I just posted this regarding the D2 and I......

 

I second what Steve said in his reply. I too have a freshwater beach that I hunt that has about 2 to 4" of imported local magnetite laced sand followed by naturally forming 2 to 4 inches of magnetite laced mud and organic muck sitting on top of bedrock. So the maximum depth for coin sized objects is 8". This spot has been used continuously by settlers and locals since the mid 1800s so there is plenty of mostly rusted iron from nails, barbed wire, railroad junk and from ranchers mixed in with that mud and muck. 

The Equinox 800 will call silver coins as mostly iron if they are in or below that mud/muck layer so it is next to impossible to distinguish between high tone falsing iron and actual good non-ferrous targets no matter how I set it up. Deus 1 could not even hit coin sized targets in that mud/muck. Deus 2 is slightly better than the Nox 800 at not skewing IDs so much and at unmasking at this site so far. I haven't tried the Nox 900 or the Legend there yet.

[midalake]

3 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The Deus 2 does exceptionally well on beaches with high magnetite content, holding an accurate id about 15% deeper in my experience over an Equinox.

I was working crappy black sand the same time you were. While I don't consider 50 hours [or so] in this stuff makes anyone an expert, I was NOT impressed with the D2. 
I found iron was upscaling and nonferrous was greatly downscaling. It was next to impossible trying to figure out a target that would not TID. In one hand beach pitch worked on one target then another identified better in diving mode.

The kicker is the D2 has issues with giving a good 360 response on nonferrous that will not TID. This is a FACT and have compared this directly to the Equinox on over 100 wild targets. 

I too have a new year's resolution to work with this machine [D2] to find the magic sauce to better determine deep nonferrous that will not TID.  I will ask anyone again>>>Any tips??? 

[Steve Herschbach]

I was comparing targets with my Equinox versus my buddies Deus 2 on a heavy magnetite beach at Lake Tahoe on undug coin type targets. Both detectors would hit the same targets, but the Nox up scaled the coins into ferrous targets a good two inches sooner than the D2. But fresh water on coins, and I believe you are in salt water looking for jewelry. In other words the results we are seeing here on our ground on our targets, not your ground and your targets. I'm not trying to imply that result is true everywhere and should have included that caveat. My tip is if you are not happy with what the Deus 2 is doing for you, go back to using the Equinox, or get a Manticore, whatever. No one machine is the absolute best at all locations on all targets. If that were so, we could declare a winner, everyone could get rid of everything else, and we would all use that one detector that is clearly superior to all the others. Long story short I'm going to give the Deus 2 a good go myself, and I'll either like it, or be selling it this fall. What I don't need is any tips or advice though. It will either work for me or it will not.

If it was just me I'd just say yeah, whatever, but I'm hearing the same thing from quite a few other people, like Daniel on this thread, as a recent example.

[midalake]

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Long story short I'm going to give the Deus 2 a good go myself, and I'll either like it, or be selling it this fall. What I don't need is any tips or advice though. It will either work for me or it will not.

Thats fine. I am always open to tips and changes. I fully understand that advice may not work in my location. 
 

[Steve Herschbach]

I asked Condor what settings he preferred at Tahoe since he has way more hours than I do there. His answer:

“For coins I used the Relic program with enough Notch to handle the ground. Otherwise I used the Fast program.”

[PI-Man]

Great job on finds and info.  I just got 2 Deus 2s, but it’s hard to break the V3i from my hands when I am not using the Pi.

[strick]

On 1/3/2023 at 10:40 PM, Daniel Tn said:

 There never has been a clear definition of horseshoe on/off.  I always have ran the Nox to where I can hear everything, all the iron grunts. Whether that's on or off: I don't know what to call it.  When I hunted the beach the other day I couldn't settle on which mode was the best. 

By default the equinox has the horse shoe mode off. You have to press the horse shoe button to engage it to the on position.  That’s when the black squares continue down into the negative so you can hear the iron and ground noise...there was a thred about this the other day I just can’t see why it’s so confusing 🙂 

looks like you got a target rich environment with hot ground and maybe iron trash as well although I don’t see any in your pic..one thing to not confuse is ground noise as iron trash false/grunts the # 2 modes such as field 2 in tracking will help quiet hot ground falsing 

the audio on the deus 1 and 2 has always been better suited for hunting in and around iron...

strick

 

[Daniel Tn]

That's why there is confusion about what to call the horseshoe button.

To me, it is more like an Iron Silencer.  If it's ON, you don't hear the iron grunts. If it's OFF, you do hear them. 

[Steve Herschbach]

The horseshoe button is simply a discrimination preset, with the iron range set to full reject or not. Default is all negative numbers rejected. Press it, and whatever settings you have for those numbers open up. By default they are all set to accept, but you can modify them as you please so it just depends. So it toggles between all negative numbers rejected, to whatever settings you have put in for the iron range, and back again. I always run my Equinox wide open normally, so for me the button serves as an instant way to block out the iron range if I choose to do so. That generally leads to getting faked out by iron targets that are easily identifiable in wide open full tones. It also means any target that has upscaled into ferrous will be completely missed. I prefer to be alerted to all targets, so I can maybe double check that they are indeed ferrous, maybe with a couple extra sweeps, or when in my locations, removing an inch of dirt with my foot to bring the target closer.

[GB_Amateur]

I agree that calling the Horseshoe button either 'on' or 'off' is very confusing.  I guess 'Horseshoe On' means you'll hear a horseshoes and 'off' you won't.  A horseshoe is made of iron and iron is the same thing as ferrous and....  Except that's not true in my experience.  I never dig negative numbers and I've dug multiple horseshoes.

If it weren't for the arrogance of Minelab redefining the meaning of 'all metal' after it was coined previously by other companies to mean something different we could all agree to say 'all metal' or 'notched' or something like that.  And while I'm at complaining about that button, why doesn't the Equinox remember what it was set at when I turn it off?  Why every time I turn the detector on I'm forced into notched mode?  I don't like notched mode but apparently the majority do.  Fine, but leave it set at the value it was when the detector was turned off.  That's what happens with every other user setting, isn't it?

But it's one of those things that once it catches on, no matter how illogical, it gets adopted.  Been going on for centuries; why stop now?