Jeff McClendon

If you have done gold prospecting with the Equinox 800 using one of the gold modes then you already know a lot about using the 900 in one of its gold modes. You also have the option of using the 900 or 700 in Park 2 or Field 2 setup sort of like I explained above using DP tones. I have hunted eight different gold prospecting sites with the Equinox 800. It could easily handle the mineralization at those sites. The GM24K couldn't and was very unusable at two of the sites. At the other sites the GM24K was outstanding. That is my experience and others may have a totally different take from their experiences. What makes the Equinox be "high fidelity" as Clive described it, is what makes it an incredible gold prospecting VLF. I wouldn't change that for anything. No one that is experienced with the Equinox 600 or 800 would ever recommend it as a "beginner's" detector unless the one recommending it is willing and able to help that beginner personally for a good stretch of time. I have helped many of the club members in my area transition to the Equinox 600 and 800. Those that had some previous experience have eventually done very well if they put in some time with their Nox. The absolute beginners to a person..........gave up detecting period, as I expected they would. The 600/700/800/900, the Legend and Deus 2 are way beyond the capabilities of even brilliantly gifted beginners, unless they are willing to hunt in the most basic mode with sensitivity on 1/3 or less of max gain for quite some time. Otherwise, there is just way too much audio information for a complete beginner. I don't have a problem with Minelab refusing to spoon feed beginners with tons of advice on how to detect with the Equinox. I'm glad that Clive and Andy have written some good books for using these more complicated detectors. A Minelab Vanquish model is a much better/safer detector for a beginner. Just my opinions from experience.

My Legend and Equinox ground balance between 3 and 8 on many of the places in my area. Legend's mineralization meter shows 4 to 8 bars of Fe3O4. My Deus 2 shows 5 to 8 bars in the mineralization meter and ground balances between 86 and 92. So don't be surprised by a low ground phase number on the Legend along with moderate to high iron mineralization.

This is a repost of something I wrote a week ago. I have rechecked again with the same results....... "Back to the gold prospecting point that people often make. That reason is no longer a reason in my opinion. The Nox 700 due to DP tones, just became a really good gold prospecting detector compared to the Nox 600 being just OK. I did a little comparison air testing and in the ground testing with my Nox 900 using Gold 1 and Field 2 with Field 2 setup to match the settings of Gold 1. Other than the frequency weighting possibly being a little different between Gold 1 and Field 2 (impossible to know for sure) the only other big differences are the true threshold in the Gold modes vs the reference threshold of the other modes, Gold modes have VCO audio for all target IDs with no iron tone and no nulling threshold, versus Field 2 using DP tones the VCO audio is 2 tones with a moveable ferrous break point and nulling threshold. So I changed the ferrous tone break of DP tones using Field 2 multi down to -18 which meant -18 to +99 would give a non-ferrous higher VCO tone and -19 would give an iron grunt VCO tone versus Gold 1 VCO giving a higher VCO tone for all target IDs. The results on a 0.15 gram nugget and a 0.05 gram flake were virtually identical with a 1 to 2 millimeter difference at most in favor of Gold 1. Equinox 900 using basically the same settings but putting Field 2 in 1 or 2 tones like on the Nox 600, the results were between 1 and 2 centimeters of difference in favor of Gold 1. So, the excuse that the 800 or 900 has gold prospecting modes.........at least where the 700 is concerned, basically no longer applies in my opinion."

Why are you only looking at the Equinox 900? It seems to me from your detector usage that a 700 would make more sense.

This is not a VDI chart. It just shows where the gold jewelry finds I have at the moment show up on the low to mid conductor part of the Nox 900 target ID scale along with some very common trash and ammo finds from the parks I hunt. I made this chart for me but if it does you any good.....great. These are air test numbers with the target about 3" from the coil. In the ground at the same depth, they have very similar numbers. Why people are always asking for charts like this boggles my mind. But I don't have the best dirt in the world and my target IDs may not be yours. Making your own chart is the best thing to do. It's easy.

No. Equinox 700 and 900 have 119 possible target IDs. Equinox 600 and 800 have 50.

The Legend with wireless headphones is $599. The Equinox 700 which now comes with wireless headphones is $699. Legend Pro Pack with wireless headphones, external battery pack and 6” coil is $699. Equinox 900 with wireless headphones and 6” coil is $1099 I regularly use the Legend Pro Pack and the Equinox 900. They are extremely close in performance. I have not used a 700.

A 1 or 2 Euro or older Belgium 20 Francs should work fine. They are the same size as the US and Canadian quarters which I use to test the depth meters on Deus 2, Equinox and Legend. Smaller coins may read a bit deeper.

It is very relative based on target size, target type, soil conditions and size of coil. Just find out for yourself. Take a roughly 1" coin and detect it either on top of the ground or in the ground and see what the depth meter tells you.

Like I said earlier, digging deeper targets where IDs can start to wander is just not happening right now. This next bit is totally USA specific so it may not apply to many non-USA people. I will say that Deus 2 and the Nox 700/900 both have very big roughly 60 digit low to mid conductor target ranges between the first non-ferrous ID for tiny foil and the USA zinc penny. The difference is where the US nickel and similar targets occur on their target ID ranges. USA modern nickels air test at 25/26 on my 900 on its 1 to 60 low to mid conductor range. On Deus 2 USA modern nickels air test at 62/63 on its 26 to 86 low conductor to mid conductor range. On actual live dig targets at 4 to 8" depth, I have seen nickels on the 900 hit in the 24 to 28 range and I have seen USA modern nickels on Deus 2 hit in the 61 to 65 range if that helps anyone. I have also seen US zinc pennies have a huge 10 digit or more range on both detectors and the Legend. I really have to get the coil centered over USA zinc pennies to get a reliable ID. The Nox 800 wasn't much better on either denomination depending on depth and soil conditions.

I have no idea who recommended or wanted 119 target IDs for the Nox 700/900 opposed to 50 for the Nox 600/800. On the surface it seems like a great idea to have more target IDs especially more non-ferrous low to mid conductor target IDs. Nox 600/800 was 1 to 20 and Nox 700/900 is 1 to 60. So that's a ton of low to mid conductor target IDs on the 700/900 between tiny foil/micro gold jewelry/tiny nuggets to USA zinc pennies. However, this wide 60 digit range of IDs instead of 20 for the same targets on the 600/800 at least for USA hunters is almost overkill. Nokta got it just about right with their 11 to 40 range with their 30 digit range for the same targets. Maybe there needs to be a stability update.......don't know yet since recovering deeper targets where I live right now would require heavy equipment or at least a jack hammer......

I have hunted with Deus 2 and other VLFs in areas where the iron mineralization was so bad that every coin sized or smaller target that wasn't on the surface gave at least a partial iron response. If I had my iron volume level too low I would have missed some of the deeper targets if they had iron grunts that were whispers.

I am only going to comment on the second video concerning Park M3. Paysteak is very unique. His advice is also very localized to his hunting area and unique. If you hunt targets in the air, on styrofoam, on porches, concrete slabs, are only hunting shallower targets or have dirt with absolutely no iron or salt mineralization, a lot of what he said may apply to you as far as choosing a single frequency over one of the three Multi settings in Park mode. I don't hunt in any of those conditions so his advice about frequency use is useless for me. His commentary had some other very questionable assumptions. The first is that the transmit and return signals were "penetrating" the foil or gold ring in order to detect the high conductor coin target underneath. The second is that on the Legend specifically a selection of single frequency will have more power/depth than selecting Multi frequency because that same power/depth potential will be split in half between the two frequencies being used in one of the Legend's Multi settings. To his credit, he also made some statements that people using version 1.10 software Park M3 need to be very aware of. No doubt, Park M3 will hit very hard on high conductor coins.....sometimes. Jeremy said that "the size of the coin matters". So does the orientation/profile of the high conductor coin in the ground. So, a very low weighted frequency combination used in Park M3 will detect some foil targets very poorly depending on their size and orientation. In fact it will detect any target poorly that is very small or is only showing a very small profile to the coil due to orientation in the ground. Micro jewelry, poorly oriented jewelry/coins will be hard to hit with Park M3 whether they have foil near them or not. If they have iron or steel alloy targets that are adding to the profile being masked........same problem. Park M1 with its middle of the road frequency weighting (note that Jeremy was recommending 15 kHz single frequency for general park hunting) is still the best mode for me, for hunting a variety of targets found in most USA parks with modern trash. Park M2 is great for lower conductors, smaller targets and for more trashy/iron mineralized areas that need a little more natural higher frequency weighting separation and Park M3 appears to be excellent for high conductor cherry picking. Its lower frequency weighting may effect its overall depth in my soil conditions.......which has a bit to do with overall power, but has more to do with the size of lower frequency waves themselves versus high iron mineralization. So, don't take Jeremy's, CD's, TNSS's or my word for anything approaching what your experience may be in your ground conditions. All I personally can tell you is what I experience as tendencies of the Legend where I detect. Learn your Legend on your on and what it can really do.

Nokta's new Legend Beta software update has new bottle cap reject settings and a higher iron filter setting (9) that may help identify brass shell casings and shotgun head stamps with steel primer rings......... Minelab may need to dig deeper into this too. These detectors are so good at latching onto alloys and corrosion but their ability to decide on the "best" ID........????

1800s Minie balls were basically pure lead right? So it is weird. Maybe it is just our nasty dirt Chase. I haven't been able to get this to happen in the milder (low magnetite) dirt samples I have used for testing. US nickels, gold coins, gold nuggets, non-weathered brass rimfire shell casings, wheat pennies, memorial pennies, other USA clad and silver coins/jewelry seem to be fine so far.

I am seeing this with centerfire shell casings and shot gun head stamps when they have different metals for their casings, primer rings and primer caps. I am also seeing it on some corroded rimfire shell casings, alloyed corroded lead fragments and especially USA zinc pennies. These targets need to be at least 4" deep in the dirt I am testing them in which is half to three quarters full Deus 2 iron mineralization dirt for this instability to really get extreme. The target ID spread is pretty big and If I am using 5 tones, the tones will definitely cross over tone breaks. Also, getting iron responses on these deeper targets......... By the way, Deus 2 and the Legend also react similarly to these targets but not as wide of a span of target IDs both in the same testing area and in the field.

Longbow62, I hope your Manticore arrives soon and that it works out for you. If its improvements are equal to those on the Equinox 900 compared to the 800 (probably even more improvements) you should be in business with a definite Equinox 800 upgrade.

I agree Shelton especially when I am discovering all of the details about some of the more complicated, feature rich detectors like the Equinox, Deus 2, Legend and now the Manticore. What seems like minor adjustment to one setting can make a lot of difference and really testing and using the many different programs with those possible different settings choices takes time. There are programs/settings combinations that I have not used yet in a real world hunt scenario on my Equinox 800 which I have had for 4 years!!!!! Obviously, the same goes for the Legend and Deus 2 from my standpoint so I have just begun to scratch the surface on those fine detectors. The Manticore for me anyway, would require even more careful consideration of its many features before I would begin to make a "final" decision about its real position in the SMF VLF world of detectors. Since Manticore has Multi IQ, I already know it will have the potential for excellent target ID accuracy. I would want to find out the depth and accuracy limits of Target Trace in different types of ground. I would also want to know how many targets can Target Trace simultaneously display.......more than three?????....... and what settings changes can improve or mess-up the accuracy and clarity of Target Trace? That would be just scratching the surface of the questions I would have. Similar to Alain however, I know within 5 minutes of use if a detector has potential for my area and the targets I hunt. Just to make sure, I sometimes purchase a used detector that I tried out previously and rejected, thinking maybe I missed something. So far........I didn't.

I am very thankful that XP added a visual target ID "meter" to the main screen on the Remote even though it is tiny and fairly crude. It helps me know for sure that I have removed all of the European notches out of the stock programs and my custom programs. For my area, all of those notches are totally unnecessary and can cause me to miss small gold jewelry and some masked, down averaged non-ferrous targets. Removing all of those notches is tedious for me anyway along with resetting the Silencer, Bottle Cap reject and adjusting tones to suit my hearing and targets and definitely reflects Daniel's and Steve's comments about the disjointed XP user interface menu design. However, I really appreciate all of the adjustability of Deus 2 since I can customize just about any land based program to work really well where I often detect. So for me, none of the default land based programs suit my area very well. Some digging deep into the labyrinthine menu is required.

Deus 2’s selectable single frequency Mono program is basically Deus 1 Fast which is the basis for several of the other Deus 1 programs. I too have found Deus 2 to be just as easy to operate and easier to be successful with as Deus 1 but with much more versatility and overall performance where I detect.

Absolutely, all three detectors in the original post are outstanding gold prospecting specific detectors. However, I agree with Steve. All three could use an external facelift/makeover along with some updated features.

Gold mode, poor sensitivity to sub 0.5 gram targets in every mode and the down averaging of non-ferrous IDs when targets are near iron or other non-ferrous targets. I only have the 9” coil also. Where I detect the Nox 900, Nox 800 and the Legend are just deeper but they are using 11” coils. The 900 and 800 are as deep using the 10X5 Coiltek. If XP can fix the issues I mentioned, I would consider keeping Deus 2 long-term and getting an 11” coil.

That is what I said too. After getting a Deus 2.........bye bye Deus 1. I look forward to a time when I can look at my Deus 2 and seriously consider taking it to just about any detecting situation. Until the update possibly solves a couple of issues.......I can't do that yet.

Three well over 3 pound top heavy detectors using 4 to 8 batteries for detecting in challenging terrain by older folks like me OR stick all of that tech in a beautiful, possibly waterproof, under 3 pound detector with wireless audio, internal rechargeable battery, nice shaft system, good features and with nice controls and screen. Some of those three have one of those qualities but that’s about it. I liked the Gold Racer. I like the Gold Kruzer more….waterproof, wireless audio and internal rechargeable battery. I really like the Legend for the same reasons and it has a really nice collapsible shaft system.