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It's always a good idea no matter the weather to hit the beach the day after the 4th of July. Brutal day today, 92 and about 60% humidity, no wind to speak of. It wasn't too bad in the morning, and I outlasted all the other detectorists, but by noon it was just plain nasty. The first beach was the large one using the D2. Ran into José operating the beach groomer, I've talked to him before, he has a keen interest in metal detecting and US history. We talked for a bit, he explained how the groomer worked, and said about the only thing it catches is chains, and it mangles them. 🫤 He tried to let me hunt as much of the beach as possible, and worked around me. I was very happy. Despite the groomer being run over the entire beach, the finds just kept coming. Maybe it's the reason I found so much. Second beach was the small one, only a few kids. Over the 4th these beaches got really trashed, but were cleaned up by county employees or locals. Fireworks and trash everywhere. 😵 Here I used my Equinox 600 with a 15" coil that Chase lent me. Didn't take long to find out how much I prefer the Deus 2 with the 13" 😀, it's way lighter and easier to use, also gives a lot more audio information than the Equinox. All I found at this beach was $1.26 in clad, the targets jump out because the beach is clean. I also much prefer the 10x5 Coiltek for hunting here if I'm going to use the Equinox. Trash was very very minimal today. I've got the D2 tweaked so that it really doesn't find much junk: Bottle caps were courtesy picks. Yes that is a live firework. So here's what I got 73 coins, about $8.50, a toy car, an old button and an earring that is just bling. The earring was over a large iron pipe and the Deus picked it out easily. José explained that the replenishment sand comes from a very old county here, so that explains the 1916 wheat I found nearby where I dug a 1916 Mercury dime a month or 2 ago. The button is very old. The little oval was from some sort of brass bracelet. Fun but very difficult day, about as bad weather as I would want to be out in.

I was sad to see them go . Chuck

I have been using the 12" NF coil on my 7000 for over two years. I have found ridiculously small gold with it and at depth as well. The weight shift alone makes it worthy, but it's performance makes it a must (in my opinion). I am sure X-coils are good too but the expense and the wiring changes make uninteresting to me. Also, I can't help but smile at all the discussion of tenths or hundredths of a gram flakes of gold. Not sure it really matters much whether the scale measures one or two decimal's, but again, just an opinion. I do know that the gents I learned detecting and dredging from wouldn't even bother to mention finding flakes that small much less make it the subject of endless discussions. Not being dismissive, just pointing out that times have changed.

50 years ago in PNG I imported this Ossa explorer 250 for riding off track in the "Island of Crocodile gold" Bougainville. It did go up vertical climbs all the time.

A mineralization meter tells you how much magnetite or other similar ferrous oxide compounds are in the soil. The ground balance indication on most detectors is really just a number generated to help a user properly balance out ground phase (conductivity). It does not necessarily correlate to the degree of ferrous mineralization present in the soil. Even if you have a properly ground balanced detector, highly mineralized soil (often referred to as "hot ground") reflects and attenuates the magnetic field that is put into the ground by the detector's transmit coil as well as the received induced magnetic field by the target which greatly reduces depth capability. Many detectors such as the higher end Fisher and Teknetics models; XP Deus, Orx, and Deus 2; Nokta Simplex and Legend, provide a separate mineralization meter. Minelabs tend to not have this indication although the Nox internal algorithms use sensed changes in ground mineralization as keys to adjust ground balance in ground tracking mode and also sense it in Beach Modes to automatically dial back transmit power in the presence of black sand. Having a separate indication of ground mineralization helps the detectorist identify this hot ground situation so that they can adjust the detector to compensate somewhat for its effects. For example, DD coils are slightly less impacted by mineralization than coaxial or concentric coils, so a detectorist might choose to use a DD coil in this situation (most detectors have now gravitated to solely using DD coils so this is typically a moot point). Choosing a coil with a smaller footprint can also help mitigate hot ground feedback effects, which means you should avoid using large footprint coils as they are counterproductive in these conditions, i.e., you will likely not gain any depth advantage as overall target sensitivity will take a hit for the reasons mentioned above and you will certainly lose small target sensitivity and you take an unnecessary weight penalty (applies only to induction balance vlf detectors, as discussed below Pulse Induction detectors are somewhat immune to these effects so you can gain depth in hot dirt with larger coil footprints). Lowering transmit power (if you have that adjustment) sometimes helps. If you can separately adjust for salt effects (usually a beach mode adjustment) that can sometimes help too. And certain frequencies may penetrate better (usually lower frequencies, but there is no hard and fast determination that lowering the frequency is necessarily always better in hot ground > a lot depends on your desired target conductivity). A lot of trial and error is involved. In really hot soils, shifting to a Pulse Induction detector is the best antidote as mineralization has much less impact on depth detection due to the way they transmit and process their received target signals. There are other drawbacks to Pulse Induction detectors (expense, lack of sophisticated visual target ID and discrimination) and they are primarily used for gold prospecting, beach work, or for relic detecting in hot and/or high salinity ground environments. HTH

Hello, I am from Richmond, VA and have just started learning the Deus 2. I picked it up back in March 2023. I was using an equinox 800 during Covid and pick up the mi6 pointer and decided to go with a Deus 2. I still have the equinox but mainly swing the Deus. For some reason I have had more luck with my Deus. If you have any tips or spreadsheets for programming for beach or relic hunting I am game. The family and I have been on vacation this week at Topsail, NC so I have had time on the beach which has been great, we head back tomorrow. I am amazed at the number of fully buried aluminum cans I found, they were in the high 80s- 90 range. I did find 2 rings, one plated and the other might be gold both rang around 80. I did find lots of clad coins. Love this forum and just reading picking up the knowledge.

Garrett very apologetically emailed me this morning about the shipping issue and offered to take it back and said they would replace the arm cuff and make sure everything was OK. I declined returning my detector explaining that was most likely just unnecessary extra work for both of us. I also explained my intent was to establish for my record what had happened in case some problem related future issue were to occur and that I preferred they send me a replacement arm cuff I could have on hand if my repair were to ever fail. Garrett replied a short time later acknowledging my message and a new arm cuff with screws is on its way. I continue to be pleased there is little more I could ask of them.

My wife won some money at a casino and gave me enough to buy a Nokta Legend. I’ve had it about 3 weeks and I really like it. I found a man’s wedding band in a local park Monday. it appeared to be plated. However, when I got home and cleaned it there is a marking on the inside that says “18K-PLAT” Looked it up and it is 18K gold inside and Platinum outside. I think I just paid for the Legend.

Silver coins have been scarce this year. However, I hit one of my park sites in an area that I had only quickly skimmed over in the past with the nox. Yesterday I hit that same area with the D2 in sensitive ft, sense at 94, reactivity 2.5-3, silencer 1, no notch BC at 0, 40khz max freq, disc at 6.8. yesterday I was mainly digging high tones but also a few solid mid tones for nickels or rings. I got a nice 96-97 and about 2-3” deep under a bunch of pines where the soil was pretty dry, I got the ‘53D gw. Then about 10 minutes later I got a 91 mixed in with some iron grunts. Out pops a ‘64 rosie! That brings me to 7 fty. This site will be my future hot spot as there’s more area to cover and I still have a lot of lower conductors to dig.

Gotta say that's the most subdued report of a gold coin cache find I've ever read!

Wow Chase thanks. You explained that way better than I could. Even learned a few things myself. Thats why I like these forums, so many knowledgeable members willing to help. Take care. Mark

I have noticed that on silver vs clad Roosevelt dimes and copper pennies ID 88-90 and are nicely separated from zinc pennies which ID from about 82-86 depending on the state of decomposition in my soil.

I like reading stories about peoples finds no matter how good someone else thinks they are. What would a forum be without people posting their finds, although I stopped posting mine some time ago as I lost the drive to do so. I commend everyone willing to take the time to post their finds and the story to go with them and I thank them for doing so regardless of how "good' their finds are.

That's a lot of good targets and easy on the trash. I hope you have a stylish beach hat to wear.

All probed out privy finds been there done that.

Out on an old local pasture in the UK, that's off the beaten track and has been heavily detected by myself and others. I had the Manticore on All Terrain General - Low Conductors, sens 27, stabliser 3, the ferrous limits opened up a bit top and bottom. I hit a scratchy but repeatable 35, not a belter of a signal but enough to make me dig, so glad I did, as at the bottom of a pinpointer deep hole this beautiful gold ring appeared! There are no date or makers marks on the ring so I'm unsure of it's age, it has a nice weight to it. I've had a look through UK National Antiquities database but can't find anything that matches it. The British Museum in London is currently looking at pictures of it to ascertain what age it is to see if it should be taken under the Treasure Act. One specialist has indicated he thinks it's medieval and a couple of people have suggested it may have had Niello inlayed into it. Still a bit of a mystery, but if anyone could help with an ID i'd be very grateful. Kind regards Stuart

No show stoppers here that's for sure but enough to keep me out there poking around and from getting jaded.The detecting is real tuff in my neck of the woods this summer do to the wet winter and over abundance of ground cover.Small coils and working the bare spots underneath trees and where the deer and other critters have been bedding down and feeding.A couple of buttons to show and a cheapo what I call a trade era ring and some what are probably Hudson Bay Venetian trade beads and a few other pieces of history. This Is The Third Infantry Button That I Have Pulled From This Site. No Back Mark. A Nice Quarter Sized Bow Wow Button Iron Tinned Back The Trade Ring So Called No Stone Or Glass Setting I have found a fair amount of these types of rings through the decades and some had glass and a others had garnets as their settings.Just so that I would not have to second guess myself I brought out my XP # 5 gold classifier that I keep on hand for these kind of sites a dug all around and screened the dirt where I dug it.No luck on the setting but I did get into a pretty good bunch of trade beads.I will be returning with my real 1/4 inch mesh sifter soon and move some serious dirt. Beads After A Soaking And Cleaned Up The Broken Ones Are Called White Hearts And They Seldom Come Out Of The Ground Intact Around Here. Some Early Glass Shards Circa 1850's Early 1860's The Piece In The Center Has Clearly Knapped On I Have Found A Number Of These Also Through The Years At Different Locations And They All Made From The Bases Of Early Black Glass Bottles And Are Crecent Shaped. Thats All For Now Thanks.

Yes. I had this thought as well. An index where general detecting knowledge items and nuggets can be collected and saved for reference. A DP Knowledge Base Section. This already exists in some respects in Steve's site with respect to his Guides and Detector Database. But perhaps a wiki style that enables crowd-sourced contributions from forum members to be collected and indexed. Or perhaps "Chat DPT" ("Detector Prospector Tidbits"). Example Topics: Wireless Audio Technologies How to Secure Site Permissions How to Maximize Site Coverage (Gridding and Tracking Techniques and Tools) Use of Online Tools to Research Site History and Geographic Features The Difference Between Induction Balance and Pulse Induction Detectors How Coils Work Lithium Battery Do's and Don'ts and so forth. I'll discuss with Steve. Thanks for the nudge.

Yes, the forum should have a "post of the week" section where the best post each week is cataloged, some good posts are buried away in sections only some people read but would benefit from reading, a post of the week section would consolidate these good posts in a spot where everyone could check it out. A bit of work, but I think would have a bit of interest.

x2. And just have to add that Mr Steve Howard (the detectorist on the 2019 cover) is a very fine and helpful man. There wasn't left much he couldn't get straight. It really hurt to see them go.😢

Trail 90 for me, that compound low gear makes 4th top out at 20mph. It can handle very steep slopes and being a step-through makes it easy to bail out when needed! 😆 I recently got a trail capable ebike that I’ve been riding everyday to work, and hope to use for prospecting sometime, so the Trail 90 sits a lot now.

Thanks JCR, 5 hours in the heat was about all I could stand, I found the Middle East to be more comfortable. 🤣 This is the Beach of Low Expectations, but it is amusing to find so much stuff. 😀 I've found some old coins and odd relics here and now know why. A Bandana, military/biker helmet style, quick dry sleeveless basketball type shirt, and quick dry or ripstop shorts are my beach couture. At the first beach I usually don "sensible shoes" as the pebbles tear my feet up, I can wear water sandals at the other. 😏 I generally end up with a line across my forehead, so I sunburn the top later mowing the lawn. One must maintain balance in life 😁

Last night I went out for a drive with my old Nox 800. It had been in the garage for about three months... It's like meeting an old girlfriend with whom you spent many harass. And where there was fire... I feel it as part of me. It takes its time to turn on and there it was: BEACH 2, 2 Tones... That photo is from December 15, 2019. I was wading in the middle of winter and suddenly a 50 cm. step throughout the coastline. Strong waves and few forces. It was 20 minutes of glory! All the targets online, the Nox did not stop ringing. It was our first time. We had been together for a year and a half and I still remember it. We had grown up together... How important it is to know and understand your detector well. It took me about 600 hours. With the XT Pro about 200h. have been enough... A great machine.

I am also impressed with Garrett's warranty repair. I had to send my back because the 11" Mono coil had evidently shorted out. I spoke to the repair center and ended up sending my entire Axiom package back and asked that they ensure that everything was okay. I am really glad that I did. They replaced the control panel and all three coils, I had bought an 11" DD, in addition to the 13" DD and 11" Mono. They had it fixed and back to me within 5 business days! The icing on the cake was when they informed me that Garrett had increased the Axiom warranty from two years to three years. I am super happy that they strongly stand behind their product. My only quibble was that I wish that I had received a copy of the work performed order . On my first trip out after receiving my Axiom back, I found a nice gold teardrop nugget. My quibble was consumed by the results. Great warranty, great machine.

I've "heard" rumors of a guy detecting that beach with a foil "Sun"bruaro! Pretty sure it's F350! The reflection blinds satellites, and repels trash targets!! Next he's gonna try a "jiffypop" hat!! Nice haul man!!🏆 Glad "your" beach goers weren't as cheap as mine!! 🍀👍👍

Thanks for sharing the wonderful memories. I too was sad to see them go.

It was like the Christmas Catalog coming in the mail. "Back When" The detecting magazines, Western & Eastern, Treasure Treasure. Probably more ads than stories. But that's how we learned.

I took a trip out to Rye Patch last Wed. Packed the whole family, CEO and herd of Doodle Dogs, towing the 5th wheel toyhauler with RZR aboard. Weather was awesome on day 2, almost needed a hoody at sunup, but that changed quickly. Day 2 I did some quick recon with the 2 big Doodles riding shotgun. Clearly, Rye Patch had seen some significant rain in early June. The roads were rutted and the gullies showed a lot of erosion, with bedrock showing here and there. I detected some places that had produced gold in the past for no joy. The next morning my big Doodle dog was really feeling out of sorts from a recent vet procedure. We made an appointment for Fri morning, so that shut down my detecting. Fri, we hauled her to Fallon and got some medication, then opted to take the Boss and Doodle Dogs home to Fernley. I drove back out to Rye Patch Fri evening, leaving the Doodles and Boss at home. Turns out to be a good decision since the weather turned hot quickly. Sat morning I got out early and detected a long line of exposed bedrock. Since mine were the only boot tracks, I decided to cover a lot of ground looking for the sitting ducks from the recent erosion. Surprisingly, the freshly exposed bedrock was barren, but I managed to get the bigger nugget in a newly exposed cut in the gully side wall. It got hot by noon so I surrendered and sat out the heat in the trailer with generator going and air con on max. Afternoon cooled down some and I went back out to another gully with exposed bedrock. Again, nothing in the exposed bedrock, but I pulled 2 out of the freshly cut sidewall. Sun morning I was out early. No breeze and a promise early hot weather. I put in nearly 3 hrs of detecting exposed bedrock and fresh sidewalls with not much but trash. I did a complete loop, ending up back where I had found the nuggets yesterday. 10 ft from one of my dig holes I got a faint whisper of target tone. I should mention the atmospherics were jumpy and the 6k with 14x9 Coiltek was sparky, I lowered the Sens down to 5 and that seemed to help. The nugget was flat and way down in the bedrock. I'm glad I kept my Dave' Gold Australian pick which makes quick work of the soft bedrock. I was sweating buckets by the time I got the nugget out and decided to call it a trip. Rye Patch is a tough place to score nuggets these days. All the washes I was working have been detected 1000's of times. The freshly exposed bedrock was never all that deep so my only advantage was I was first to detect the newly exposed sidewalls. If you are planning a trip mind the weather, and as always it's a tire killer out there. I saw 2 trucks on the road fixing flats.

Amen & Amen brotha!!!!!------All I want is a 5X10" (or there bouts)-----for my EXCELLENT Deus 2 and I will be happy as a kid with a sweet tooth in a candy store!

Hopefully they will see your post Chuck and write some new music and change their tune.They have covered the bases for what will most likely be largely a European market with the two box.Now it's time to take care of us Yanks with some ridiculously long overdue coil options.They are running out of excuses at this point in time although they have offered none....Nuff said.

I helped rebuild a Cray 1 supercomputer in 1999 for the Computer Museum. We found it in a dump in New York and it took nearly three years to restore it. The hard part was finding an operating system. I think today it's the only working example of a Cray 1. I know when we did the project it was the only one It originally cost 8.8 million dollars and weighed five and one half tons. It required 115KW of 400 volt power. We were pretty thrilled when we saw it boot up after all those years of work. Some of the Cray models had a key slot for the power supply and wiring boxes that went around the base of the computer. These boxes were called benches and served the bench purpose well. Each Cray was individually built to order. If the buyers wanted keys they got keys. The keys I've seen were your standard office file cabinet key. I seriously doubt the key shown was designed to fit a lock. Cray was originally a research and development company established by Seymour Cray. Seymour designed many of the early supercomputers including several of the UNIVACs. Cray was a major contributor to the biggest and most powerful computers in the 50's and 60's. Cray Computer was founded in in 1972 because Seymour got tired of business managers getting in the middle of his computer designs. Cray computer still exists today and is still building the most powerful computers on earth. Seymour passed away in 1996. HP bought Cray out in 2019 but the name and the company were left unchanged.

You can get a WS6 Master Deus 2 setup for less than a Deus 1 or even an Orx, so that's how to fill the lineup cost gap, done. There is no real point of keeping the D1/Orx line alive purely for sub gram gold capability, they are way overpriced if that's the ONLY thing they can do better than the D2, which has them beat handily in every other capability. Time for them to move on and fully embrace the otherwise superior successor they created.

I apologize in advance for my Debbie Downer Reality Check @CPT_GhostLight... but considering this two box coil will cost over $1600 on its own, doubt XP will be pursuing a PI design any time soon (considering they even abandoned that approach for their pinpointer) much less be the ones who will break the PI price barrier. To me it looks like they are married to solely iterating on the Deus-based wireless IB ecosystem from here on out. The other telling and disappointing sign is that XP never even publicly acknowledges (much less responds to) the numerous requests for a small elliptical from their user base. Look at how many people are requesting it in the comments section of the 2-box reveal video and how XP only responds to those who are praising the new deep seeker coil. Really can't afford my own personal back-hoe at the moment so I will be passing on this. Getting the Go Terrain App finally working after 7 years would be a major accomplishment.

A couple of years ago X-coils discontinued older legacy model GPX coils, however demand has been large in their part of the world by relic hunters and big deep gold hunters for a large coil, so they come up with the goods with a 32" Spiral wound GPX 4500/5000 coil. It's an absolute monster of a coil, I can't imagine this being sold into the international market due to shipping a coil this size, hopefully the people in Europe can find some good deep relics and gold with this thing. It's good seeing some life brought into older models with all the excitement and talk these days of the newer models.

It would be a lot of work a consolidated section with the best posts in categories would be great as a sticky up top somewhere or a section like the detector database. Some people over time have done some brilliant posts that are read at the time by a few and then disappear as old posts long gone from common view, if these sort of posts had a home, even if they're edited to make sense outside of the posts chain by admin so they make more sense as an individual post. It would be one huge project I guess especially going back over old posts, probably easier based upon new posts being done but there has been tonnes of real gold in old posts so setting out some categories and copying great posts into the suitable categories over time it would build up quite a good database of information on topics.

Thank you Phrunt and to all of you who posted about your experiences with Manticore, I want to take it but I hesitate the price in France is 2,000 euros, it's still a nice sum. I work on a soft ground without exaggerated mineralization for the relics and beach. Compared to the Nox 800, the 900 and the Manticore have stability problems although the Mc firmware apparently corrects it without altering the performance in depth, at least that's what the sales representative in France says. I also see resale of the Manticore on online sites, the question I ask myself in relation to some of your posts is: 1- is this in relation to the fact that the Manticore is complex to use like the Deus II and that there is a lack of patience from their users in front of an exceptional machine above the 800 or 2 - the Manticore has disappointing results given the false signals. although the firmware comes the right way. the seller in France lets ''for now'' hear a commercial Flop compared to Déus II that I had. I like the Minelab concept with the horseshe such as the Nox 800 and what I like may not please an XP pro and I would be the only one to make the decision, so your multiple opinions interest me because on DP there are multiple types of users and it may be one of his machines to be given a chance.

Excellent idea to take what is certainly the most informative, useful and congenial Forum out there even better.

5gpm , wow you really had to think before pushing them both full ! 🙄 Make that 500 traps.. Yeah they look sweet inside but break out another thousand time is supposed to be repairs not gas !! And repair is an extra zero or two. I suppose you could have sat offshore on the FL treasure coast to "fish" for a big one. Arrrrr. Mom's Saturn is sounding better now , just two gallons RT to the state's biggest beach ! It doesn't take the waves so well though.... Lunch over , I'm going back out detecting now but I'm taking my portable battery fan this time .😉 Too hot for headphones but I think I'll bring my little 9v pink noise generator and plug in the phones hanging around my neck to sound like surf . Maybe I'll find a spanish real ? Whatever I find , it will be in the shade . No sea breeze here . C'mon quahtahs !

Me Cap had a Merc 50 on a 16' Whaler. It loved to leave us sitting. Turned out to be a little fuel filter inside the Merc....

Big ? Naaah 12' Whaler w/a 25 on the back would be perfect ! And way too fast....??for some people but not us crazy pirates 😜 6 gals lasts all day plus. But detecting and not out jumping wave tops, all of a 3 day weekend. A big one to me is 16' , everything else we call tubs. Push too much water. I did manage to get a couple hours in swinging the"beer garden" over by the betting windows on the 4th. Betting windows have pavement all the way to the building so the garden looked better . Only got 25% of it so have to go back. Small haul of 1 clad dime so far. And yes a '65 arrrrrrrrrrgh. They are staining all the picnic tables out on the pavement so the grassy garden was clear sailing. Need to finish soon...

Dain, I’m confidant in the end you’ll be pleased with your Axiom, did you let them know this lack of feedback was an issue for you, I’m sure they will get back to you with an answer if you let them know you’d like more information about your repair.

We can put you down for another nice hunt with all that hard work you put in. Great looking car and some nice change also. Good luck on your next hunt and stay safe out there in the heat.

Not sure about the metal on this one V L? There is a mark clearly visible inside of the band it's a either a 6 or 9 and retains some gold gilt?

My father-in-Law was a guard at a POW camp in France and he had a lot of stories about his time there. Most of the time medals, badges, and insignia were collected and traded by US soldiers as momentos. Anything metal on a prisoner was considered a potential weapon and was removed. He said they didn't keep track of the removed items so the US and French soldiers would take anything interesting. None of that was returned as far as he knew. He also said they never had any problems from the prisoners at his POW camp, they were a defeated army and all just wanted to go home.

If it doesn’t work in mineralized ground (I have no idea if it will or won’t but as an IB I suspect it won’t) then it is worthless compared to a PI. I love the video btw, can’t wait to find septic tanks and all those deep hammers. Guess I will wait until I see some field tests before I render judgement on its usefulness for me, but I’m honestly not interested in paying over $1500 so I can then bust my butt digging a three foot hole to find a plowshare. I find enough of those at one foot. There just isn’t enough buried hoards in my neck of the woods to justify this and not sure if it is good at finding trash pits or huts, especially in the hot dirt and carpets of nails where most reside around here.

Both good questions. I am leery of sand and silt in a telescoping rod, but based on nothing but sand and grit getting in my old ATX shaft being an annoyance. Only way to know for sure is give it a go. As far as the coil a case could be made for either. I’d lean 6” round personally for that extra small gold punch, but maybe that pointy nose on the elliptical would be useful in crevices? If the goal is to cover lots of bedrock as opposed to methodically hunting small areas, the larger coil again would be an advantage.

I would stick to the standard coil on the Zed and look for a larger coil for the 6000 for coverage Finders Keepers in Kal are selling a heap of the 14x9 Goldhawks.

Thanks for the tips! A bit about me - I've hunted for a number of years...but only at the beach. I live in coastal NC so thats where I hunt though Ive hunted up and down the east coast as we travel/vacation. I did have a PI for a while, the whites dual field. Great machine but was too tough here - lots of fish hooks, etc. I realized a PI was not for me unless I was diving or on some of the private islands. I've been happyish with the Equinox 600 since I've had it. It was just as deep as my CTX with stock coils. I can get the sensitivity up to 23 on a good day...but some days it has to stay around 19. While I would love to jump in the buy the Manticore, the one thing I always hated about the CTX was the cost and never felt like it helped me over my CZ21 or Excal. So I'm definitely not looking to spend a lot. I am more or less of the opinion that I will mostly do just as well with the Equinox. I am about the new tech (I work in tech so usually get the latest). 700 really interests me as it seems like the logical upgrade to the 600 for my needs. The dP tone feature looks awesome for me... But after doing some research I came upon the legend, which seems to also check all of those boxes I would want. I'd consider the Deus 2 WS6 if it had an external speaker. I do use the external speaker when I hunt with my kids so they can hear. So it looks like that put my price range in the $500-800. Not worth it for me to get the nox 900, if I was spending over $1000, id just do the manticore at that point. As far as what I hunt - mostly low tide water lines. Also mostly recent drops. Im after gold/silver. After storms we can get some old items and I do travel to some of the islands around me from time to time. I'd imagine its going to be not much different from most places on the east coast.

Yeah, the joys of wireless equipment, indeed. It's one thing when wireless is less than reliable, its another when it just it is quirky and its behavior unexplained like the example cited. Thankfully, it appears he was not undone by the wireless BT phones that come standard with the Legend, though. You don't hear the complaints when wireless tech does work, and though wireless is not as reliable or as foolproof as hard-wired, it is steadily improving in that regard (though wired is really the only feasible audio option if the wireless transmitter is submerged). And, as we know, wires and connectors can still break, especially with the repeated usage and strain that comes with detecting with a wired headphone cable and, of course, there is the snag and tangle factor during bushwhacking and target recovery etc. It appears the hobby is heading towards wireless audio being the dominant approach for detecting. In any event, it is good that technology and the manufacturers are providing us the options to go whichever way makes the most sense for the situation at hand as well as accommodating user preference. Regarding the ferro check "haters". I think its just a matter of many detectorists don't really get what "probability" means when it comes to modern digital detectors based on people asking for more "accuracy" from the ferro check meter. They see a number on a screen and think that it is a 100% probability event. It couldn't be further from the truth, especially considering that detector technology is based on a physical principle that is a relatively crude method for determining composition of a metal based entirely off one physical parameter that is influenced by so many variables. Frankly, its quite amazing just how far manufacturers have taken this principle of late, using sophisticated multifrequency waveforms and fast, sophisticated signal processing to minimize the uncertainties and signal degradation that comes with variables such as ground conductivity, mineralization, target shape/orientation and multiple targets and their impact on target magnetic field strength and shape. We now have a number of pretty sophisticated tools to provide a pretty reliable means for figuring out what is under a coil, sight unseen. Anyway, back to my point, most users don't understand that the ferro check is just a probability meter that provides a visual display of what the detector considers a mixed ferrous/non-ferrous target or targets. It provides an alternative to digital numbers and audio to let the user know that the detector is not 100% certain of the true nature of the mixed ferrous/non-ferrous target under the coil, and to inject the appropriate amount of skepticism into whatever TID Legend has decided is the "most probable" ID for the target at hand. People don't realize that if the signal processing and target discrimination were 100% accurate and reliable, there actually would be no reason to have a ferro check meter at all because you could 100% trust whatever target ID is being displayed as truth. Again, there are very few absolutes when it comes to detecting and no good deed by a detector manufacturer goes unpunished.