Jeff McClendon

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.

I really like knobs until I bump them. I don't like a Six Pack on top of a stick however. Any of those three detectors put into an APEX/Axiom type control box with a collapsible shaft, internal rechargeable battery and wireless audio........I would buy it for sure.

🤔 Why does Garrett aiming the Ace Apex at beginner level or people on a budget mean they should severely limit its detecting ability by giving it only one choice of audio features that make its beginner level performance even worse? What other Garrett SMF VLF detector would get its feelings hurt if the Apex got a one tone/two tone audio option software update? 💬

I am posting these two videos again for those that are interested in these detectors, especially the Manticore target trace screen, and how they do on these static tests. These are just videos....no need to get bent out of shape over them or draw any earth shattering conclusions. Iffy states that the detectors used are in their stock default programs in the Deus 2 Manticore video. I believe the only adjustment he made in the Deus 2 Nox 900 video was to turn off the Notch feature in Deus 2 FMF Fast and to put Silencer on 0 and to turn on the iron audio on the Nox 900 by simply pressing the horseshoe button. He does adjust the Nox 900 recovery speed AFTER showing that the stock settings are doing just fine. Other than that, no tweaking or five minute, hope it works customization, try my so and so program by supporting my channel, etc., like some testers do. Deus 2 and Manticore Deus 2 and Equinox 900

Would you rather take a chance and dig some iron that sounds like non-ferrous along with real non-ferrous targets with the iron filter on 1 OR avoid digging any iron and non ferrous targets that are nearby with a higher iron filter setting causing only ferrous audio responses that you can forget about and walk past?

I would still own the 24K or the Goldmonster 1000 if they had decent ergonomics and were really easy to pack up or deploy from a backpack. Gold Bug ll.......I could care less no matter how well it detects. On another note, the Garrett Ace Apex would be a decent gold prospecting detector right now if it had an all metal type one tone VCO option. Why Garrett handcuffed that detector with too many tones which just make it even more jumpy and unstable as its only tone option is beyond me. Even a 2 tone ferrous/non ferrous option.....Garrett what were you thinking?????

I thought that was very funny Strick. Too bad others didn't get your humor. Edith's singing from "All In The Family" is a good analogy for the way Deus 1 and Deus 2 PWM audio effects me. I either want to howl with laughter sometimes or just turn it OFF. I do use PWM sometimes but I am super thankful that XP gave me the choice of Square Wave audio on Deus 2. It still gives plenty of information and is more pleasantly tonal for my ears than PWM which I would equate to the awful sounds I make due to my very poor classical violin/viola bow control when playing. I am a woodwind/brass/vocal guy so give me Square Wave Audio anytime over PWM. I won't compare Deus 2 audio to Minelab’s Vanquish, Equinox, or Manticore audio. No point. XP's Deus 2 and Minelab's latest SMF VLFs are still very different detectors with different strengths and weaknesses so I will leave it at that instead of getting territorial.

Rick, the next update is a Beta update. No one needs to do the update at all. You can wait until it is declared by Nokta to be an official update or instead it is scrapped. I too really like 1.09. I don’t detect in dirt that allows for Beach MW or any of the single frequency choices to perform any better than SMF choices already provided in 1.09 on in the ground, actual targets. I do see a very slight difference in air testing. I will do the update but that is because I already have some of the pre release test software on my Legend.

You might want to investigate the YouTube videos by Detector Comparisons....Carter Pennington and his friends comparing the Manticore with Deus 2. For me personally, as far as the Nox 900 negatives: the expanded target ID system also expanded the number of normal possible target IDs for some targets if they aren't near the surface compared to the Nox 800. Also, as much as I really appreciate Minelab adding Depth Tone audio which is a lot like Pitch on Deus and Deus 2, it just sounds weird and has some echo effects which I haven't gotten used to yet. If it sounded more like the VCO audio in the Equinox Gold modes I would have no problem with it. I would really like to have a mineralization meter on the Nox 900.......... The ML85 wireless headphones have less muffled audio than the original ML80s BUT they are still subpar in my opinion. I bought and received a $30 Bluetooth APTX LL transmitter to plug into the audio port on the 900’s control unit. Using the aftermarket wireless headphones and earbuds I already owned from the 800 on the 900, the audio is much more balanced, present and lively. Never seen, held or used a Manticore.

Yeah, Deus 1 had an onboard clock and a huge amount of features but......no speaker volume control, similar with the ORX.......go figure.

I second what Steve said in his reply. I too have a freshwater beach that I hunt that has about 2 to 4" of imported local magnetite laced sand followed by naturally forming 2 to 4 inches of magnetite laced mud and organic muck sitting on top of bedrock. So the maximum depth for coin sized objects is 8". This spot has been used continuously by settlers and locals since the mid 1800s so there is plenty of mostly rusted iron from nails, barbed wire, railroad junk and from ranchers mixed in with that mud and muck. The Equinox 800 will call silver coins as mostly iron if they are in or below that mud/muck layer so it is next to impossible to distinguish between high tone falsing iron and actual good non-ferrous targets no matter how I set it up. Deus 1 could not even hit coin sized targets in that mud/muck. Deus 2 is slightly better than the Nox 800 at not skewing IDs so much and at unmasking at this site so far. I haven't tried the Nox 900 or the Legend there yet.

Steve, at least Deus 2 actually has an external speaker volume adjustment feature within the remote.......... My new years resolutions for this year were to sell the metal detector tech I don't need, don't purchase any more detectors for one year and to really learn what I have and how they compliment each other and especially what their weaknesses are. So I made sure I bought the Nox 900 before January 1st and I sold two little used detectors last week which easily paid for the Nox 900. Now, I hope I can keep that no new detectors resolution🙄 I am fortunate enough (not because I have tons of money.....I definitely don't) to have an evolving metal detector budget that I can play with that I set aside when I retired from full-time everyday work. I also live in one of those places where most SMF detector tech offers a huge advantage over single frequency VLFs especially on deeper coin sized targets. So, I continue to have and use the Equinox 800, Equinox 900, Nokta Legend and XP Deus 2. Right now, the only detector out of those four that I would totally trust to perform well and easily without much hassle in any detecting situation I might face would be the Nokta Legend even though its user interface for me anyway kind of sucks. Maybe I will trust the Equinox 900 more later on after submerging it and getting more used to its expanded target IDs The Equinox 800 that I still own is just a really solid performer but I wouldn't take it to a thick bed of nails site looking for world class unmasking and I won't be submerging it. Deus 2's user interface as it is currently configured was not hard for me to learn since I have many years using Deus 1 and the ORX. Deus 2 still has some pretty big weaknesses that I have already discussed on here so I won't repeat them. XP's next Deus 2 update will hopefully address them. The charging of three or more components is tedious to keep up with for me. Three times I have arrived at a hunt site with a dead coil battery.........and I checked the battery level for the coil before I left. It was half full. I rarely use Deep HC. Attaching wires for underwater and putting components in waterproof pouches, hey it works but...... I paid less than $600 for a Nokta Legend and $60 for a pair of lightly used Nokta waterproof wired headphones. I plug in the charging cable on the back of the Legend control pod and I'm done. No wires to knock off, control pods to knock off, etc. That detector has paid for itself and then some really quickly by the way. Now, since this is the XP forum, Deus 2 for me anyway as of right now is the best performing SMF VLF detector for detecting 0.5 gram targets and bigger on land in a carpet of iron trash and/or modern aluminum trash that I have ever used IF the targets I am after aren't deeper than 6 to 8". Deeper than that, iron mineralization here really skews the target IDs and attenuates overall depth, but that 6 to 8" is heavenly compared to Deus 1 and the ORX. Just for fun, I can get my Deus 2, Nox 900 AND my GPX 6000 in my Minelab backpack along with extra coils, my lunch and other gear........Paid $50 for it and it has really held up to some punishment and still looks great. Those XP backpacks look fantastic too by the way.

The X/Y Profile screen is already a fairly good 2D screen for one target.

Andy is a very practical guy. Why would he publish a Deus 2 book when its software is nowhere near finished? He waited for the Legend's version 1.09 which was very smart of him since that software is very close to being a definitive one. An advanced Legend book may come later when the Legend's 1.10 software has been made official, not Beta. When XP release their next Deus 2 update and it is proven to be bug free and an improvement....maybe a book will follow soon after.

Again, Again, this is very hard to judge and its very subtle. Like Andy said, he couldn't hear a difference. Plus, indoor testing of EMI is a joke. All I can say is that for example, if the sensitivity level 20 on the 800 and the 900 are equal, sometimes I get slightly less EMI on the 900 at 20 than I do on the 800 at 20 using the same settings and sometimes I don't notice a difference. Due to the bad weather, I have only been able to detect outside three times comparing the 800 and 900 for EMI and I got similar inconclusive results. I will say that I have not yet encountered a situation where the 800 was handling EMI better than the 900 using the exact same settings. Thanks Andy for letting me post in your topic.

Thanks Andy for the very fair and detailed report. I still own an 800 that has the Tele-Knox shaft system and I have a really nice Nox 900 from Gerry's Detectors.....thanks Gerry For those that are satisfied with their Nox 800s.....I get it especially if you are not a water hunter and you have invested in shaft upgrades like I did. All of the 600/800 coils are interchangeable with the 700/900 by the way. I was able to put the new 700/900 11" coil on my 800 too so they are also reverse interchangeable. My original Nox 800 11" coil ears are finally cracking so that is a good thing. As for the "fluff".......I haven't noticed any yet. The obvious exterior physical and feature improvements are real even if one might not use some of them very often like the 3 levels of red backlight, the flashlight and the handle vibration. They do work. As for actual performance improvements.......they are subtle but they are there. EMI is very close between the 800 and 900. Actual detecting.....here is an example: It's around 18 degrees F here and frozen solid so the only testing I can do is indoor in the least EMI affected part of my house which is my basement. I have a 14" Garrett green gold pan filled with clean but moderate to highly iron mineralized dirt from my backyard. No detectable targets in this dirt even running a GPX 6000 and the Nox 800 in Gold 2 over it. So its clean enough. I have 18 targets glued to thick plastic strips that are the size and thickness of medical wooden tongue depressors. There are forged and modern nails, steel, tin, 0.25 gram gold, lead, aluminum pull tabs/can slaw, brass shell casings, and US clad coins among the targets. When I turn them over I have no clue what they are. I put each one in order under that 4" of mineralized dirt three times. Nox 900 and Nox 800 were setup identically in Park 1 multi 5 tones using the 6" coil. I also used the Nox 900 in Park 1 multi using DP tones. All three tests were done with all target IDs accepted. The Nox 800 and I in 5 tones scored 9 correct, 2 partially correct and 7 failures to at least get the conductivity right. The Nox 900 and I in 5 tones scored 10 correct, 3 partially correct and 5 failures to at least get the conductivity right. The Nox 900 and I in DP tones scored 12 correct, 1 partially correct and 5 failures to at least get the conductivity right. The dirt is nasty, hard to ground balance and gives spurious iron responses around most lower conductive targets. I have thousands of hours on the Equinox 800 in 5 tones and these are my target strips that I made and I tested the 800 last. I thought for sure the 800 would win easily. The reason it didn't win and the same goes for the Nox 900 in 5 tones is solely chalked up to DP tones. The 800 and 900 in Park 1 multi, 5 tones simply could not detect two of the targets. The Nox 900 in DP tones detected them and gave the correct audio and target IDs. Those two targets were a half inch roughly square piece of rusted tin and the 0.25 gram gold nugget. I am well aware that using Park 1 multi to detect small tin pieces and small nuggets is not optimal due to its frequency weighting. That is not the point. The point is even using Park 1 multi, the 900 using DP tones easily hit those two ferrous/non ferrous borderline targets. For you Manticore folks, I believe something similar to DP tones lives in the Deep audio and Continuous Tones settings along with Prospecting audio. That is all a bit murky for me so I could be wrong. So, the performance differences are subtle, but they are clearly there even with me having about 15 hours of using the Nox 900 and less than an hour using DP tones.....

I just put my Legend in 5, 10, 15, 20 or 40 kHz single frequency with Pitch Tones and I basically have a Multi Kruzer............

Many times when I read responses to this question, people refer to the need or no need for gold prospecting as a reason to pick say an Equinox 600 vs an Equinox 800. To me that was and is taking away from the other great features that you don't get comparing the 600 to the 800. Most of them are audio related like wireless headphones, the WM08 module, being able to custom fit the tone breaks and actual audio tones to ones particular targets and hearing, along with having the option to use 20 or 40 kHz single frequency in a high EMI situation where the max 15 kHz on the Nox 600 might not get far enough away from the offending EMI's frequencies. Comparing the Equinox 700 vs the 800.......wow, that just got a whole lot more complicated in my opinion. The 700 comes with the awesome collapsible shaft system, much nicer arm cuff, beefed up 11" coil ears and the clincher for me anyway......DP tones in all six search modes and the ML85 wireless headphones are included with the 700. The shaft system and nicer arm cuff already saves around $150 for after market shafts for the 800. Not having to buy wireless headphones (you did with the 600) saves some more money, DP tones are something else and hopefully the 700 really is waterproof since it has an actual IP68 rating compared to the many flooded Equinox 600s and 800s. 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. PLUS, the Nox 700 and 900, due to DP tones, just got a lot hotter on micro gold/platinum/silver jewelry too in their Park, Field and Beach modes....... compared to the 600 and 800. I would get the 700 everyday over the Nox 800 and I would strongly consider the Nokta Legend over the Nox 800 too.

There are some great deals on used SDC 2300s at the moment online. They are very tempting. I was very tempted and almost pulled the trigger. Then my shoulder and back reminded me about where I often detect for gold nuggets and I stuck with my GPX 6000. Everyone that has held/used both on this forum has commented on the ease of use weight wise of the Axiom and GPX 6000 compared to the SDC 2300, the GPX 5000 series and the GPZ.

Since the SDC 2300 is waterproof, it also has proprietary waterproof audio jack connections . You will need an adapter cable with a female 1/4" plug-in along with the proprietary male plug-in on the other end in order to use your Z-Lynk system. They cost around $75 to $100 depending on availability. With the Axiom, Z-Lynk is included or not depending on which bundled package you get. At any rate, with either package, your Z-Lynk headphones will pair up easily. You are saying the SDC weight is manageable. Ash kept saying the SDC is light in the video you posted. In my opinion the SDC is not light......why was Ash using a guide stick and why do many users use a full harness system with the SDC 2300..... I never used a harness with my TDI SL or with my SPP. I don't use a harness with my GPX 6000 using the stock 11" coil or the Coiltek 10X5. I have heard that a harness is not necessary with the Axiom using the smaller coils. So manageable on relatively flat land and manageable on a mountain side picking ones way around shrubs, trees, boulders and talus slopes are two utterly different things when using the SDC 2300.

I have not been able to hold an Axiom but I will take the word of others on here that its ergonomics and weight are as good or slightly better than my GPX 6000. I have owned two SDC 2300s. I am no weakling (5' 11" 205 lbs) and have worked out all my life. The SDC 2300 for me, is a very heavy, unwieldy 5.7 lbs whereas the GPX 6000 is a very lightweight feeling 4.1 lbs with the Coiltek 10X5. I also hunt on my knees a lot at 10,000' elevation in between boulders and bushes on mountainsides. Never again will I use the SDC 2300 at any of those locations. Just my experience.