Jeff McClendon

The original poster was directing the content of his post for stock, out of the box with ground balance use specifically by a beginner. I don't know if he meant a total newbie beginner or a person with detecting experience but no experience on the detectors listed. I can't comment on the Manticore. Out of the box with a ground balance, the Equinox 900 in Park 1 or Beach 1 with judicious use of the horseshoe button and Deus 2 using its General or Beach programs would work very well right out of the box for a first time user if the area detected did not have coke or any other major ground condition. Not implying that head to head they would hit all of the same targets equally but it would be close. The Legend however, in its Park M1,M2, M3 and Beach Dry using the ground and full discrimination patterns when needed has a default iron filter setting of 8 and a bottle cap setting of 0, which is not a good setup in my opinion. Something a little more middle of the road like iron filter 3 and bottle cap 1 or 2 would be more in line with general hunting at a park, playground or dry sand saltwater beach with normal trash levels and would match up better with the settings on the Equinox 900 and Deus 2. Almost everybody using these detectors is basically a beginner at this point especially if they have had a lousy winter and if they haven't been able to do a wide variety of detecting with them, so the original posters premise is very valid in my opinion. For a complete newbie detector user trying to run one of these detectors with no one to show them the ropes, they have my sympathy.

Pressing the wireless button on the Equinox 900/Manticore control pod for 2 full seconds is where I sometimes would screw up. I just didn't hold it down long enough. Now I just hold it down until the headphones pair.

There are some "sort of" work arounds for this extreme lowering of the non-ferrous target IDs into the iron target ID range while still having non-ferrous audio by lowering the Silencer, etc. That should not be necessary however. It's been more like a year and a half😪 Luckily at least for me, Deus 2 is still a very fine SMF detector.

I was trying to duplicate the results of the ferrous/non-ferrous target separation test video that was posted by the original poster. Then I went a few steps further and tried to find where the 800 would sort of equal the 900. I had to set the 800's iron bias on a setting of 0 (using Fe or F2) and then raise the recovery speed to 8 just to get some sort of two way hit on the non-ferrous target I was using for the test. The non-ferrous target response length was so short that I could barely hear it but it was there. I have never used a recovery speed setting of 8 in the real world.

3 hours ago Sinclair said: Mind you: There is no "and" - it's FE or F2. They're completely independent settings ☝ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Correct. My statement referring to having to set iron bias on Fe=0 and F2=0 meant that I did the testing using the Fe iron bias setting adjustments and then did the testing using the F2 iron bias adjustments. The 0 setting using either iron bias version gave somewhat consistent non ferrous tones combined with a recovery speed of 8. I have been too lazy to find out if Fe=0 and F2=0 are exactly the same value of iron bias. Just to be safe I leave both settings on 0 most of the time. They definitely don't mean zero iron bias is being used. Why Minelab didn't just start the iron bias settings at 1 is beyond me. At least for me, it is easy to go into the recovery speed/iron bias setting area of the Equinox 600/800 and accidentally leave the iron bias on Fe instead of F2. So, leaving both on zero keeps me from screwing up the iron bias setting too much.

After thinking about my experience some more with the GPX 6000 last week at the LSD, I agree with Steve H and some others that the GPX 6000 is almost as sensitive to small targets as most higher frequency VLFs without their ground/hot rock handling issues. At least at the LSD, the GPX 6000 had very predictable and controllable hot rock responses. In addition, the ground was very damp. I could have run the GPX 6000 even hotter on manual 9 or 10 with no issues but I didn't see the point in pushing it since bedrock was only around 8" or less in the areas I was hunting. Thanks for all of your responses. I can't wait to get back out there.

Your first post had it about right when you said "Run each detector in the closest stock program with just a ground balance" Finding out what stock programs are the "closest" on all four detectors might take some time but your idea is a good one especially for first time users that don't want to adjust anything for say normal coin, jewelry or relic hunting areas that aren't too trashy and in normal to moderate iron mineralization.

The ORX has a battery in the control unit and in the coil or with the HF coils a wired external battery in the lower shaft that is super easy to replace. The ORX was released in 2018 and the control unit, coil and audio modules have a 5 year warranty. If this ORX was purchased new in 2019 or later, it is still under warranty. As far as the warranty on the batteries in the coil and control unit, I believe they have a 2 year warranty but I don't know how a dying battery in either of those major components is handled as a warranty repair. Personally, I have been using XP Deus/ORX components since 2016. I have never experienced a battery failure or even indications of battery life degradation. From my experience, the ORX with either white HF coil is an outstanding gold prospecting detector with excellent sensitivity to sub gram gold, excellent target separation and excellent mineralized ground handling. It's ergonomics using the HF coils and its telescopic shaft system still have not been equaled by any other dedicated gold prospecting detector.

Loren used to be a member here. Not currently however.

The X-Terra Pro is basically an Equinox 700 without the Multi SMF setting and 4 digit notching instead of single digit notching. Compared to the Simplex, the X-Terra Pro has some features that the Simplex lacks like all of the audio, 1,2,5, full tones and VCO pitch tones, along with recovery speed adjustments too. So you get Minelab tones along with VCO if you want it to sound more like the Simplex. Someone may say "It doesn't have iron bias"......neither does the Simplex. They don't need iron bias since they aren't SMF detectors that mostly process the non-ferrous parts of the multi frequency return signals. The X-Terra Pro's reported performance and its features make the single frequency offerings from Garrett and FTP look kind of silly.

I definitely did my "civic duty" cleaning up the areas I gridded. Hopefully it will unmask some gold targets for somebody else someday. I can't remember what the cutoff date was for those GPX 6000 made before the audio mod was incorporated into the later models. Seems like it was in September 2022......it's in one of the lengthy GPX 6000 problem topics on this forum somewhere.

This was the first time I was able to use my audio modded 6000 with the 10X5 Coiltek so I was digging absolutely anything that remotely whimpered just to see what that combination could do. It certainly cleaned up a lot of trash.

For me, the stock 11" Mono coil is hyper-sensitive to EMI. The Coiltek 10X5" is not as sensitive to EMI and from that plate of trash, it is very sensitive to really small sub 0.1 gram targets even without using maxed out sensitivity levels. It also is very easy to swing. If I wanted maximum small to mid sized coil depth and more coverage I would definitely use the 11" coil. If EMI is a problem and the terrain is crying for a smaller coil, the 10X5" is definitely an improvement. I have not been able to use any of the Nugget Finder coils yet.

I'm back in Denver Colorado. Got to coach girl's high school golf in the snow/cold/yuck.

I got to spend a day and a half on some claims in the Little San Domingo Wash area north of Phoenix Arizona this week. I also got to meet up with Bill Southern (Nugget Shooter) for a few hours too. Thanks Bill! I mostly wanted to see how the GPX 6000 with Coiltek Goldhawk 10X5" coil and the audio mod would behave. Finding some gold was secondary. The GPX 6000 was super quiet running at sensitivity 7 or 8 with a stable threshold tone and only sounded off on some of the metamorphic magnetite filled schist and gneiss which also tended toward ironstone. Those hot rocks were easy to recognize and kick out of the way. The threshold only got a bit wobbly when aircraft were in the area. I did manage to find a 0.11 gram rough looking LSD nugget. The photo is of the targets that made it into my nugget containers which are 35mm film canisters. The GPX 6000 with the Coiltek 10X5" was super easy to swing for two 6 hour sessions, easy to pack and hit some incredibly small targets. Those are .22 long rifle shell casings which give a good size comparison. I really enjoyed using the GPX 6000.

3 to 6

10” easily on US dimes and copper pennies using any of the land based programs set on one of the Multi settings using the 11” coil. Those aren’t just very iffy hits. I get enough accurate tones and IDs to make a dig decision and know what I’m digging as far as conductivity. Mineralization meter on my Legend consistently reads 6 to 10 bars of Fe3 O4 Magnetite mineralization.

Very impressed with my GPX 6000 Coiltek Goldhawk coil. It is doing very well here in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.

You have to attach an antenna wire for the ORX to have its coil submerged. You also have to find some waterproof wired headphones. The last and for me the most important is to take into account that the white High Frequency ORX coils also have an external, wired battery that lives inside the lower shaft which will also be submerged. That shaft is not sealed so even though the HF coils are supposed to be waterproof, I personally never dunked mine due to that external battery. If you do get an ORX specifically for underwater use, I would seriously consider one of the X-35 coils that have a battery that is waterproof sealed within the coil itself. The Legend is one of my most trusted detectors for build quality and waterproof integrity. It can also be setup so many ways both for audio variations, target recovery speed variations and for hunting condition variations. Give it some more time if you pick up another one and don’t compare it to the Impact. They are two extremely different detectors. Comparing the Impact to the newer, waterproof Anfibio is more apples to apples.

February 29th

A few more Deus 2, Sensitive 5 tones, square wave audio finds from today. Three wheat pennies, Roosevelt silver dime and a vintage curtain hem lead weight. I also found three 1965 quarters and a 1965 clad dime, so just missed silver by a year. Got another almost $3 in clad and plenty of pull tabs to add to my growing collection. Got 5 US nickels that the Equinox 800 and me missed previously due to too much aluminum/nickel target overlap. Deus 2 did very well in rapid fire aluminum/rusty iron trash.

I like to contribute to this forum whether that is talking about me and my detecting experiences or supporting others. I don't like to argue with people especially when there is an agenda involved. I just report what I experience whether others think it is right or wrong or not applicable or just dumb. I still have too many detectors (6) but I love them all for what they do similarly and differently and for the experiences I have using them.

This forum and another has page after page of some members arguing, asking for and outright demanding video proof or test results so that they can feel good (or not) about what they purchased since those videos and results prove that detector W has the same performance as detector X, Y or Z????? Usually, those same people do not own more than one of those detectors and sometimes don't own any of them. It's ridiculous. Why would I setup an Equinox 800 and an Equinox 900 and a Manticore with the same numerical settings and conclude that the "test" or "video" is fair? Conversely, why would I spend hours trying to find out exactly (impossible) which settings on the Equinox 800 equal the corresponding settings on the Equinox 900, Manticore, Legend or Deus 2? Throw in a CTX 3030 and an Etrac too for good measure. For what purporse? Other than just learning one's detector, ultimately all of these types of testing are way too subjective, especially where I detect, to have much validity for anyone else. They definitely can help me personally but when others do them in soil conditions that I will never have or in static tests indoors or in moderate to high EMI with test targets off of the ground, I get next to nothing out of them other than that is one person's experience.

Snow has just about melted here in the sunny areas so no need for a snow shovel! Ground is frozen solid at about 6" depth. 30 degrees F with or without wind chill is just about my limit. 8 F........I would have to be paid a lot by someone with a lost ring for me to do that.

Had a couple of hours after work today to get out and detect in 30 mph north winds at a school playground. 10 gram .925 sterling and garnet ring, 14K gold filled 😪 ring and a POG Slammer Whammer Heavy Metal game piece that just about gave me a heart attack since it is the size of a Morgan/Peace/Ike dollar. Deus 2 is pretty fun on modern trashed sites. Using Sensitive 5 tones square wave audio. These weren't difficult/advanced targets. They were in the 4 to 6" depth range. Had time to dig over $3 in US clad too. Clad pays for gas at least for my short trips.