abenson

Updated the Manticore a few days ago and took it out today for a few hours. After a while I noticed I wasn't digging anything very deep. So I burned a zincoln penny in my 4 bar dirt at 5" and it was nothing but iron grunts in all programs but prospecting. Changed every setting I could think of and ground balanced a bunch. But still no depth. Pulled out the 900 and the Deus 2 and they both hit it just fine. Dug down to 7 inches and buried the penny, D2 and 900 still picked it up but the Manticore was now completely silent. Maybe a download gone bad or just a bad update in general, IDK. could be linked to my bad dirt. Going to go back to the previous version tomorrow and do some depth tests and then update to the latest version and depth test again.

It really isn't a bad beach machine. I never had a problem with it as a beach unit. On land there are better options IMO.

It would be cool if it was a PI. Maybe a program added to the remote and an accessory coil would allow PI capabilities. Probably way off, but I can keep hoping.

It would be nice to have coil options. But I'm not that worried about it since I still have the Equinox 900. I would say I use an 11" coil 90% of the time anyway. If I need depth I switch to a PI, if I need separation I grab the Deus 2 with 9" coil. I really find it hard to believe the Manticore is the most sought after detector in ML history, at least here in the US. I know people that wanted one but have now said no way after seeing some of the videos on YouTube. I've got 2 friends myself who have decided to pass on it after using mine for a few hours.

Below is a video I did in back in about March of this year. I was at Digstock in NC and many of the home sites had shredded aluminum on them. I was continually picking coins from the sea of aluminum trashy sites that others were giving up on. It also worked at telling pieces of 1/4 copper tubing and rifle cartridges. Will it work at a park to tell small pieces of foil from rings? I don't know. But I do know that target trace will work on telling can slaw from coins. I'm not out to prove anything to anybody. Use the TT to your benefit or don't, I really don't care. I do enjoy using my Manticore and it's been a great detector for relic sites this year. At about the 3 minute mark I explain and show how it works.

I haven't read this whole thread but I can tell you that TT can tell irregular shaped targets from round targets. I've called it many times while I've been hunting with the Manticore. Can slaw is especially evident on TT. Doesn't work on deep targets but it does work on targets down to about 5".

Sounds like some great improvements.

Nice bunch of finds! Looks like you had a good time and dug plenty to keep you busy.

I'm liking 1.1 OK. Took it out about a week ago to a silver mining camp where the mineral bar on the meter was maxed out. Used a program based of Fast with bottle cap reject 2, Silencer up to 2 and notch at 10. Worked pretty good IMO. Didn't find any coins but I did find a lot of relics. I'm really not that concerned about the ID on most items as I'm generally digging everything above 40 at those types of sites anyway.

Well I certainly don't consider myself an expert gold prospector. There are many people on this forum that have found more gold in a day than I've found in a year. But I have used both PI and VLF's detectors for beach, relic and gold prospecting enough to know when each should be used. Right tool for the right job. I doesn't scare me to wander into a sea of trash with a PI and a small coil, if the reward is big enough. But at the same time if a VLF will get the job done I'm all for using one. At sites with high mineralization I see little sense in using a VLF no matter what the target size is. Unless the trash is so thick you can't swing without hitting 3 or 4 targets. If I used a VLF at those types of sites I'm confident I would be leaving more behind that I would find. Example the last small gold nugget I found with the 6000 at about a inch deep, the Manticore was calling it iron laying right on top of the ground. Do I dig everything I hear on a PI? No, I make a dig discission off what the target sounds like. Do I miss gold doing that probably, but that's my form of discrimination with a PI. If there's lost of trash, put on a smaller coil. Some of the best finds I've made over the last 10 years have been with a PI. I'm in the camp of using a PI with no disc.

So mine did that when I updated to version .71, to resolve it I unpaired the headphones and then repaired them.

All beach programs are the same as version .71

https://www.xpmetaldetectors.com/en/ba/the-blog/deus-ii-v1-0-update-instructions.php XP would like to express its gratitude to all users for providing valuable feedback following the release of version 1.0. We appreciate your input, and based on your feedback, we are pleased to introduce version 1.1: Bug Fixes: We have successfully resolved the issue of remote control rebooting or WS6 freezing in very rare configurations. Other Improvements: The FE.TID (Ferrous Target display) setting is now enabled by default. If you prefer not to display ferrous target IDs, you can turn off the FE.TID setting. We have made corrections to the SILENCER function in programs P1, P2, P4, P5, and P6. Now, Silencer levels 0, 1, and 2 provide the same rejection as in V0.71, while higher levels from 3 offer better iron rejection. The program 3 SENSI FT uses different Silencer close to V1.0.

I think in general people jump to conclusions to quickly when they get anything new. I've done it myself. I used version 1.0 a few hours on Sunday and after making some adjustments to a few programs I really didn't see any real issues with the update. In fact there were quite a few things I really liked over version .71. People need to use the new version 1.0 at least a good 50 hours in my opinion before they make any rash decisions about it's performance. Obviously it's going to perform different from .71 and is going to take some getting used to.

Although I have the GPX 6000 and it does great on both relics and gold nuggets for me, I think the Axiom is probably a better choice for most people that want to use it for things other than gold nuggets. Not having iron reject doesn't bother me at all on the 6000, it was only good to about 6" on the GPX 4000-5000 anyway. At this last DIV there were quite a few people using the Axiom. I think I saw about 7 different people using them. Below are some of my finds from DIV in April. I found about 3 times the amount of shells frags shown and another fuse.

Wish I could be there!

After getting the 6000 I rarely use a VLF for gold anymore, unless it's really trashy and even then it's debatable as to whether it's even worth it. But I'm with Jeff. Using the 800, 900 or Manticore in default gold modes in Nevada or Arizona is an audio nightmare. ON the 800 I would usually drop my iron bias to zero, recovery to 4 and reject target ID's -9 thru -6 then it was doable. But even then a nugget smaller than a 10th of a gram practically has to be sitting on top of the ground to hear it. Even half grammers are hard to hear at a few inches.

I'm just out enjoying the great weather hunting with mine. No real complaints except I wish they had the small coil available.

Nice bunch of coins and relics Jeff!

So the triple beeping is both edges and the center of the coil hitting the coin at shallow depths. Probably due to the nature of both the Manticore and 900 being high gain detectors. I'm guessing the wide variance in the ID on the 4" deep dime is your high mineral dirt. My dirt fills the Deus 2 meter about 70% and I get the up averaging on both the Manticore and 900 on my 6" deep clad dime. But I also saw the same thing on my 800 with a 6" dime. If there is a problem with the 900, it's not real apparent in my soil. In any case hope Minelab gets it sorted out for you Jeff.

Could be your mineralization. I know your dirt is worse than mine. The only wild ID's I'm seeing are deeper targets, like dimes at 7" and then it's up averaging to the high 90's. If I was seeing that same issue you described I would have never got rid of my 800. At this point I'm pretty happy with both the Manticore and 900.

Although I would love for Minelab to give an option to choose between having the 50 tone version of the old 800 as an option to use on the 900 and Manticore, I'm not holding my breath. But if they make the ID more stable that would be great too. My biggest challenge has been learning the new ID for all the targets I hunt. I've literally got to dig everything from 20 and up at relic sites now. Jeff I'm not really seeing what you are on either the 900 or Manticore in my hundreds of hours of use now on both. No I can't tell the difference between a clad dime and a copper penny every time. I can call nickels most of the time on either machine, the tab separated from the ring does get me sometimes. Honestly I don't hunt parks all that much. But when parks were the only places I could get this winter I did quite a bit of park hunting with both the 900 and Manticore. Double and tipple beeping on surface coins yea, in the ground an inch or more no I'm not. The difference may be that I'm running all tones exclusively on both machines, recovery at 3 or 4 no matter the site and I've never hunted above 23 sensitivity on either machine. I've found especially on the Manticore that high sensitivity levels are counter productive and yes you will get erratic ID's when the sensitivity is run to high. I will say I prefer the 900 in iron trashy sites and for gold hunting, I prefer the Manticore over the 900 at parks and beach sites. I've been debating about get rid of one or the other and for now I'm keeping both. Once a small coil comes out for the Manticore the 900 may go.

April Fools

He will be missed. I have spoken on the phone with him a few times and about a year ago bought a metal detector from him. We had a good hour long visit at his home here in Utah. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

Weird. However in the 50 or so hours I've used the Manticore in parks and house sites that would have bottle caps I haven't dug a single bottle cap using the stock ferrous limits in the Fast or High conductor programs. My beach is old and doesn't have bottle caps, so I can't say if in the beach programs I would have an issue or not.