Jeff McClendon

I am probably wrong or somewhat wrong in these assumptions: the Multi Kruzer/Kruzer came from the Racer type line of Makro detectors and its predecessors and the Anfibio came from the Impact type line of Nokta detectors and its predecessors. Feel totally free to correct me, please.

I still have my original Equinox 800. It also has never leaked. It has been submerged a handful of times for maybe 8 hours total. Many water hunters have their detectors submerged that much in a day and repeat that daily. Some have reported multiple leaking 600/800s. Others haven't reported leaking or just haven't reported in general. I finally had two 11" coils with cracking coil ears last year. That took thousands of hours of mostly dry land use but it did happen. Anyone new to the Equinox that is expecting the 700/900 to be the "answer" as far as constant submerged usage or even occasional submerged usage needs to know there have been issues with the very similar 600/800 in my opinion. How big they were.....I don't know.

I actually liked my former Multi Kruzer a lot. However, your description of how it behaved for you matches the way it detected in the high iron mineralization and EMI around here. The Simplex was actually a lot more stable than the Multi Kruzer The Legend in its Multi modes has no similar issues, even with EMI. It’s hard to believe that the Multi Kruzer and the Legend are from the same manufacturer. It’s like the Legend was tailor made for the ground conditions out here and solved all of the detecting problems I experienced with the Multi Kruzer. I reported the issues I was having on this forum and I got lots of advice, mostly about what I was doing wrong. It had nothing to do with me or a problem with settings or a malfunctioning MK. Just the wrong detector for my area.

Anybody that already owns an Equinox 700/900/Manitcore already has every feature included with the X-Terra Pro plus a lot more. Unless I am missing something, why would anyone that already owns those three detectors or even an Equinox 600 or 800 or a Nokta Legend really need an X-Terra Pro? I get it. I love metal detectors and I really like the looks of the X-Terra Pro. I am so tempted to buy Ridge Runner's really nice ORX package.......but I have a Deus 2 which has a really good Mono selectable single frequency program that is every bit the equal of anything on the ORX aside from the higher frequency HF coils.

Most pulltabs at the parks I hunt have target IDs higher than US nickels if they aren't damaged so I lump them into the same tone bin as zinc pennies/shot bottle screw caps/etc. I do have a heavily notched saved user profile for extremely trashy parks where I just can't proceed without some kind of notching until a good deal of targets have been removed. No notching versus notching for me is all about what the site requires in relation to my serenity/sanity being maintained, how many holes can I dig before the owner of the land or park staff go nuts due to damage and for me to be able to find anything besides just trash.

Maybe this situation also has something to do with no Nel coils for the newer Simplex/Legend. https://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/

Another short, very cold 2 hour hunt with the Legend version 1.11 software, 10x5" coil, G discrimination pattern, Park M1, reactivity 5, iron filter 1, iron stability 3, bottle cap 1, 6 tones arranged for iron and US coins. Hunted a fairly new park with no history of older coins. 7 of 10 bar iron mineralization and multiple trash targets under every swing. The Seagrams and Bud Light steel crown bottle caps sounded really good with some intermittent iron grunts and lots of low to mid 50s (US quarter or bigger coin) target IDs. I was using very low iron bias settings. Ferro Check however, told me these were going to be bottle caps. Squarish pull tabs and US nickels do share the 25 to 27 target ID range with some gold rings so I didn't mind digging them. I have found gold and silver rings at this park in the past. I hunted an area that I hadn't hunted before. All targets were in the surface to 6" range. It's a North facing hillside park that is still frozen deeper than 6". 1944 Wheat and some early 1960s Memorial pennies so silver coins may be present. 3.5 gram sterling silver ring with no stone. Nothing special about these targets but at least for me, clad and scrap jewelry do add up. I am old enough to have worked for 50 cents an hour in the past, so I will take $2.50 an hour anytime!!!!! The Legend can hunt.

Equinox 800 or 900 for gold prospecting in streams......I would pick the 900 with the 6" coil or the Coiltek 10x5" coil and hope that it won't leak. Legend is also a very good alternative for gold prospecting in streams with its 6" or 10x5" coils.

In the "it can do it all really well" segment of SMF detectors, the Legend is the only one that has proven (at least to me) to be capable of that phrase. Deus 2 at the moment is just OK for sub gram gold targets, a pain in the ass to setup for even just coil submersion, no small coil availability and it has a couple of other weird characteristics that only the long awaited software update can possibly fix. After the 600/800 water and coil ear issues, I won't trust the Equinox 900 to be waterproof and sturdy until it has gone through one full North American spring, summer, and early fall of water hunting. I also am just getting to know the Nox 900. So far it is different enough from the 800 that I have to learn what I can expect from it. The Legend took me one hunt to realize that I would have no problem transitioning to it from the 800 since it was very similar but better. The user interface is tedious for me but those 16 custom program slots are awesome.

Legend! I know the Legend is waterproof and I know it can easily hit small sub gram gold when I need a VLF for that. Built solidly and I personally, subjectively like the Legend’s audio the best of the three.

Thanks. These new detectors that I am enjoying: Nox 900, Deus 2 and Legend are amazing.

I hunted a park that I have hunted many times in the past for a couple of cold, windy hours today. I wanted to try out Depth Tones VCO on the Nox 900 in an area that I have gridded with the Equinox 800, Deus 1, Deus 2 and some other detectors. There is tons of ferrous and non-ferrous trash at every depth along with some older coins. Iron mineralization is 7 to 10 bars on Deus 2 at this park. I deliberately setup my Nox 900, 11" coil, with a Field 1 Multi, trashy park pattern that accepted -7 to 0 for some iron audio, 24 to 27 for US nickels, 55 to 62 for US Indian head, early wheat and zinc pennies, and 70 to 99 for anything else in the high conductor US coin range. The nickel target IDs worked out well for US nickels and also snared a few broken pull tabs and beaver tails with no ring pull attached. I did not hit any Indians or early wheats but I did get some deeper zinc pennies. The high conductor IDs accepted range did great with only two very rusty nails recovered that were standing almost straight up in their holes with the nail head facing up. They were 8" deep and were giving mid to high 90s target IDs along with constant iron grunts as I circled the targets. I was fairly certain they were nails before I dug them but digging them was the only way to know for sure. All of the coins in the photo were in the 6" to 8" range and were very close to iron or aluminum targets and had somewhat iffy target IDs but they were accurate enough to get my attention. I did some back and forth between Park 1 Multi, 5 tones, no notches, -7 to 99 accepted and Field 1 Multi DP tones as described above. The DP tones definitely gave stronger VCO audio responses on the deeper coins than the non VCO 5 tones. I could hear the responses using both types of audio but DP was more obvious. Personally, I have not gotten very used to the audio quality of DP tones through the ML 85s. It just sounds weird to me, but it works very well, seems to separate a bit better and is another tool in the tool box. Another 1919 mercury dime, along with some other silver era coins: 1951, 1959 and 1960 US pennies, 1960 US nickel, and some clad dimes and quarters from the 1970s and 1980s.

The first video has an interesting comparison starting at the 3:45 mark. Only one detector turned on at a time during the comparison. Gold is found eventually. The gentleman using the Axiom is just learning it. The gentleman using the GPX 6000 with NF coil knows what he is doing for sure.

There are many ways a target can be "missed" when going over the same area. Here are a few. Lack of complete swing overlap/coil coverage is an obvious way. Using DD coils some targets have different responses at 90 degrees especially if there is a lot of iron trash or iron mineralization. If my detector is setup with full iron discrimination using a DD coil, I may miss some iron masked targets. If I am using some non ferrous notching to avoid aluminum trash a similar thing can happen. Changing the direction of coil approach may change things completely. Swing speed changes and keeping (or not) the coil at approximately the same height above the surface can effect detection of some targets. Removing some targets from an area and then hunting that area again even right afterwards can result in targets being detected that seemingly weren't there before since they may have been partially or fully masked by the targets you already recovered in the first pass. Add to all of that, beaches with tides and wave action are a very dynamic target environment. Just walking/standing on a constantly changing beach can change target depth and position.

Oh wow, I hate to have to say this (being a big Minelab fan) but, there is the Nokta Legend with many coil choices, works with Nox 800 compatible Bluetooth devices and its price is ridiculous and most of all great support and communication.

Gigmaster has started to exclusively use the Legend for East Coast saltwater beach hunting. He has a couple of Legend beach videos on his Youtube site. More to come.

I have no problem using the SDC 2300 as long as I have a sturdy harness system and the terrain isn’t too challenging. But it is not a one PI detector that can do it all in the gold fields I detect in. The GPX 6000 comes a lot closer to being a one PI detector that can do it all for me where I detect. As long as I have a smaller coil like the Coiltek 10x5 and the 11” mono with me, I can trust that the GPX 6000 will hit most of the good targets from the surface to 18” deep without having to use a harness or suffer from fatigue in challenging terrain. I don’t even need to take a backup VLF with me.

I am just trying to follow the original posters idea. I am not trying to argue about it, prove or disprove it since I have never touched a Manticore. I have been a “beginner” user of the original and new Equinox, Deus 2 and the Legend. I have also had the pleasure of helping other beginners learn how to use all of these detectors (except for the Manticore) during actual, in person, first time on live target hunts.

You left out three very important words in that quote........."for a beginner" Your second sentence is something you are constantly harping on even though you don't own an Equinox 600,700,800 or 900, a Deus 2, or a Manticore and as far as I know, you have never used one whatsoever. The Legend you own is a great detector. So, do you have an opinion from experience about how the Legend would be for a beginner/inexperienced user instead of how the premise for this topic should be skewed in the direction you seem to want it to go?

The pull tabs were dug because they were possible gold jewelry targets. Using Deus 2 with its target ID spread in the low to mid nonferrous range, there is very little overlap of pull tabs and US nickels unless the tabs are damaged. I knew those 21 nickels were either nickels or gold jewelry. Same with the pull tabs.

Sometimes. I just do a frequency shift on my detector. I also keep the coil of my detector well away from my pinpointer.

I have found the Fisher/Teknetics Pulse Induction pinpointers to definitely have more depth in moderate to high iron mineralization than my Garrett Carrot or my former XP Mi-6. Set on full sensitivity my Tek-Point will hit coin sized targets in the really bad dirt out here at 4" deep or more which is why I use them. My Garrett Carrot will do about 2.5" max. In milder soil conditions, I don't know if that extra depth really matters.

So, I was at a group hunt today at a local park that was really trashy and has moderate to high iron mineralization. A fellow I did not recognize had an Equinox 800 he was trying to detect with. The coil cable was flopping around, he had the shaft setup way to short for him and he didn't seem to have a clue. I felt sorry for him. I started detecting nearby with my Deus 2 and hit a no brainer US quarter signal that looked to be 4" or so deep. I asked him to detect it with his 800. After I got him to understand that he had to swing the coil over the target (its a motion detector!!!!) his 800 simply wasn't hitting that 4" or so deep target even with the 11" coil. I asked him if I could check his settings. He was in Park 1, 10 kHz, tracking ground balance, sensitivity on 11, 50 tones and his recovery speed was on 8!!!!!!!!. I put Park 1 in Multi and his iron bias was on 6!!!! He said he had recently purchased this Nox 800 from a friend and had just turned it on without changing the settings at all. Anyway, I asked him if I could reset Park 1 and he said yes. With Park 1 in default and ground grab ground balanced, he was able to easily hit that 4" quarter and all of the other coin targets that I detected for him and let him recover for the next 10 minutes or so. He left very happy. I don't want to put words in the original posters mouth, but this was a great example of how most of these newer SMFs have some pretty good turn on and go default settings even for utter beginners, which is what this topic is really about from the way I read it.

Had a three hour group hunt today with men and women from our Denver area metal detecting club at a local park. Screwdriver or probe hunting only by order of the city of Denver. I was using Deus 2, 9" coil Sensitive 5 tones, 95 sensitivity, discrimination 10, reactivity 2, silencer 0 audio response 4. Iron mineralization meter was 8 of 10 bars consistently. I was specifically looking for gold jewelry (skunked) silver jewelry (also skunked) silver coins, older coins and modern USA coins. I collected and threw away a lot of trash that I just picked up off the surface of the ground along with detecting and throwing away quite a bit of gold range can slaw. The 1919D Mercury dime was a full Teknetics Tek-Point deep so at least 9". So was the 1947 nickel and the wheat pennies. These targets were whispers but there were enough correct target IDs to dig. I think I could have found more silver coins but I got tired.