Jeff McClendon

Absolutely. I have purchased newly released detectors from Minelab, XP, Garrett and Nokta during the last 4 years. All of them, every single model (two from Minelab) had either hardware, board level component or software issues right out of the box that either required physically shipping them back to a repair center or doing several software updates. The days of advanced metal detectors being perfect or even close to perfect at release seem to be over at least for the time being. Hopefully some very multilingual people at Minelab are carefully reading and watching (God Bless them by the way whoever they are) all of this online material about the Manticore. Give them a pay raise Minelab.

The next update for the Legend will be a Beta software update which was publicly announced by Nokta. They are openly requesting constructive end user feedback and even gave some feedback guidelines. Talk about breaking the mold….

I did not watch the posted video so I can't comment. I don't know if frequency weighting has been changed on the Equinox 900. Using 1 tone to full tones shouldn't effect the frequency weighting either. DP tones on the Equinox 900 are VCO medium to high tone for non-ferrous based on proximity and signal strength and VCO low iron grunt for ferrous. So highly modulated 2 tone audio. The only thing that comes close to that on the Equinox 800 is the VCO 1 tone highly modulated audio in the gold modes. From using the Nox 800 gold modes for gold prospecting and relic hunting when compared to the only slightly modulated audio of the other modes, the Gold modes VCO audio was deeper in moderate to high mineralization. Unfortunately it was limited to the Gold modes. So in the ground I hunt in the most, the gold modes are the deepest on coin sized objects not Park 1 but that is due to iron mineralization Now with DP tones the Nox 900 isn't limited to just using it in the gold modes and it is now 2 tone for the other modes which is a big plus for those that need a little extra depth and target separation caused by the highly modulated audio that doesn't drop off as quickly on deeper, small, or masked targets. Target conductivity should not matter due to using DP tones other than ferrous/non-ferrous. Frequency weighting will matter for target conductivity. Just my opinions.

Similar to Deus 1, Deus 2 and the Legend, DP tones may also have a target separation advantage for the Equinox 900 and the Manticore hopefully.

What is confusing you Dave????? Sorry the three separate columns are not lining up well. They look great on my Mac. They look bad on my IPad.

I got to do a little air testing today since we received 9" of heavy wet snow in Denver last night. These again are air tests. From my experience with the Equinox 800 Gold mode's VCO audio which is similar to DP tones, these results are normal. DP/VCO is just deeper even on actual in the ground targets. I tested the Nox 900 vs Nox 800 using the Coiltek 10X5" coil using 5 tones in Park 1. Then I put the Nox 900 in DP tones.... Here are the results. Same settings for both detectors.....Park 1 Multi, sensitivity - 20, volume - 20, threshold - 0, discrimination pattern - all targets accepted, recovery speed - 5, Iron bias - 1 800 5 tones 900 5 tones 900 DP tones US Nickel 11" 2 way hit no ID, 11.5" 2 way hit no ID 12.5" 2 way hit no ID 9" 2 way hit good ID, 9.5" 2 way hit good ID 11" 2 way hit good ID US Zinc Penny 10.25" 2 way hit no ID 10.5" 2 way hit no ID 11.5" 2 way hit no ID 8.25" 2 way hit good ID 8.5" 2 way hit good ID 10" 2 way hit good ID US Clad Dime 9.75" 2 way hit no ID 10.5" 2 way hit no ID 11" 2 way hit no ID 8.25" 2 way hit good ID 8.5" 2 way hit good ID 9.5" 2 way hit good ID US Quarter 11" 2 way hit no ID 11.5" 2 way hit no ID 12" 2 way hit no ID 9.25" 2 way hit good ID 9.5" 2 way hit good ID 10.5" 2 way hit good ID

Deus 2 = 25 to 29 Legend = 11 to 14

Me being an inland gold jewelry hunter.......Here is an Equinox 900 low/mid conductor targets photo. This was done in Park 1 Multi, sensitivity 20, recovery speed 5, iron bias 1 using the 11" coil with the targets being passed about 3" from the center of the coil opposite the coil nut. This photo is of targets that I find often that are regularly shaped. I did not include random bits of foil or can slaw and I also didn't include damaged/bent pull tabs which can definitely change the target ID. BIG DISCLAIMER........this is a photo of air tested target IDs. Even from my little time behind the 900, some of these change slightly with depth, soil conditions and search mode used. So this photo is for reference and for hunt strategies only and is absolutely not definitive. It starts with tiny gold chains and earrings and ends with a copper jacketed 40 S&W hollow point slug. Coins are 1853 US $1 gold coin, modern nickel, Indian Head penny and zinc penny. Women's small engagement/promise rings are in the teens. Bigger rings are everywhere up to almost 60. The highest reading gold ring I have is 18 K and weighs 10 grams. Targets are placed below their target IDs.

All of the places I have used the 900 that I have reported on have EMI issues. They aren't so bad that single frequency is required but they have plenty of EMI. I already reported on that above. I also have had similar results inside my home and in my yard. Normally I have to keep my Nox 800 below sensitivity 20 and nearer to 15. I have been able to have the Nox 900 no lower than 18 sensitivity inside and as high as 22 in my backyard without being driven mad. That is an improvement unless sensitivity 22 on the 900 is equivalent to 19 on the 800. From my experience so far, Minelab didn't change the sensitivity gradient between the Nox 800 and the Nox 900. They just added 3 more sensitivity levels on the end of the Nox 800 existing 25 scale. So, if that is true, EMI is being handled a bit better by the Nox 900.

The ground has thawed out enough to do a couple of hunts with the Equinox 900. Yesterday (12/26/22) I did some comparison testing and a short freshwater beach hunt where I dug every target and got to help an 8 year old that I met there named Penny conduct here first hunt with a tiny but actually decent kids detector that did very well, . Today I hunted an incredibly trashed park where much of the trash is actually zinc pennies!!!! So, most of the beach hunt was for comparing Nox 800 and 900 depth and EMI mitigation. I was able to run the 800 even in Gold 1 at 22 sensitivity with just some minor chatter. I was able to run the 900 at sensitivity 25 with similar amounts of chatter. Stating the obvious, the 900 at 25 is more sensitive than the 800 at 22. I did a buried 0.1 gram nugget test in Gold 1 with those sensitivity settings and everything else the same using the 6" coil in moderate mineralization. Nox 800 got clean hits with correct ID at 2.5" depth and had clean 2 way hits with iron ID at 3". The Nox 900 got clean hits with correct ID at 3" depth and had clean 2 way hits with iron ID at 4". Manticore and Nox 900 and their iron handling (or lack of it) is all over YouTube and the internet....... I dug 3 iron targets and 45 non-ferrous targets including a crinkly sounding .925 silver bracelet/necklace with with tiny stars on a microscopic chain that had upper range iron tones mixed in around the edges of that target. Anyone that has some time on the Equinox learns that many solitary iron targets will have iron tones toward the center of the target and can have progressively higher non-ferrous tones on the edges of the target almost like a high tone halo. This silver bracelet/necklace was exactly the opposite. I also got a mens tungsten ring........a ring is a ring for me anyway. So, yesterdays freshwater beach hunt demonstrated that the Nox 900 is every bit as good as the Nox 800 with no drop off in performance, with more sensitivity and with good EMI mitigation. Today I went to a park that is full of zincolns. I searched an area that was about 20X50 feet and I dug every shallow target (ground is still half frozen) that gave a two way signal for about half of that area. I had to change my strategy from exhaustion and from my pinpointer batteries and my spares all being basically dead or dying. Anyway, I wanted to see how well target ID accuracy was on co-located non-ferrous targets and on co-located ferrous/non-ferrous targets. Most of the iron targets are deeper at this site so I didn't get to try that out on the 900 very much. I did not dig any steel crown bottle caps for some reason.....I had iron bias on 1 with -10 to +99 accepted using Park 1 with recovery speed on 6 and sensitivity on a quiet 25 using the Coiltek 10X5" coil. I was getting a lot of ground feedback from being semi frozen and moderately iron mineralized so I rejected -19 to -11 which took care of most of it. I dug 99 zinc pennies, 29 copper Memorial pennies, 1 1926 wheat penny, 8 Jefferson nickels, 11 clad dimes, 4 clad quarters, a Sacajawea $1 coin, a 1947 5 Franc coin from France, a nice brass cross, and a nice .925 silver braided ring along with 30 or so pull tabs, some other non-ferrous junk and 3 iron targets. So basically, I got some really good, dig a lot of targets time behind the 900. Zinc pennies near the surface have very wide target IDs from 58 to the low 80s. Nothing new there, Nox 800 does something similar on near surface corroded zincs. I just lifted the coil a bit and the IDs stabilized between 60 and 65. The other US coins recovered could all be easily "called" before digging even with very little Nox 900 experience. The only real surprises were the brass cross and the holed 5 francs coin. The silver ring was about 5" deep and had a rock solid ID of 81. This target sounded different and very beautiful. I was not surprised with it being a ring......since I have had that experience many times with the Nox 800. So, similar to the Nox 800, when I get a single digit ID on a non-ferrous target and the target appears to be coin sized using the onboard pinpointer for sizing...........I am digging that target. The ring had pull-tabs and two zinc pennies within 3" from it but I heard it clearly and like I said it had a super solid ID. So, target separation on the Nox 900 is excellent.

You haven’t used a Legend. I have. You’re spending too much time over on “Friendly”

You can buy a new Legend with a 3 year warranty for less than an out of warranty Equinox 800.

After comparing the Equinox 800 and Equinox 900 for about a week for performance, build quality and for ergonomics, I see absolutely no reason to purchase a brand new Equinox 800 and then upgrade the shaft system a week later to a carbon fiber collapsible shaft. The 900 is a better detector in every aspect since it currently includes a collapsible carbon fiber shaft and the excellent 6” coil for small gold nugget prospecting. I am seeing slight performance improvements over the 800 also along with substantial feature improvements. So, for the money, the 900 is the smart choice. The Nokta Legend is a better choice over the Equinox 800 also after months of comparing the two personally. Deus 2 is a fine detector also, but if you plan to do some gold prospecting with it, I currently can’t recommend it. The Equinox 800, 900 and the Nokta Legend are far superior to Deus 2 for that type of hunting. That may change a bit when XP release the next software update.

I am not a drama monger. I am also not a potential Manticore buyer at this point. Like Carolina and Chase and others…..I am going to wait. Part of the reason for waiting has not changed from the moment I learned of this detector. Personally, the way I hunt right now and what I hunt…..I don’t need Target Trace. That not needing it is now being reinforced by the field testing after purchasing that has been reported online as videos or forum posts concerning the Manticore, Target Trace, Iron Limits and iron targets clearly reporting as non-ferrous enough to dig them. I too have learned the Equinox audio iron “tells” and tricks that go way beyond what the display may say in terms of target ID. As Abenson said earlier and I will support……previous iterations of the Equinox can have non-ferrous responses from iron and steel targets occurring absolutely anywhere on the target ID scale.

The setup that Carolina referenced that is made by XP has worked for me with the WS4.....I probably won't be using it with my WS6 since I bought a Legend for that kind of hunting. Hang it anywhere you want. The end of the antenna just needs to be within a few inches of the WS4 or WS6 out of the water off course. I just taped the end of the antenna on the outside of the bag right on top of my WS4 and even under water it worked.

That really sucks…………. So far, no problems with mine but I might have 3 hours using it and only half of that was outside before this whole area became a block of ice.

Never hunted there but ground conditions may require SMF instead of single frequency to get decent depth. Overhead power lines may limit you to 18kHz or higher single frequency which won’t be bad for mid conductors………depth?????

Are you asking about the best single frequency setting for Deus 1 or the new Deus 2?

Somebody got through to me early on that I wasn't a marsupial inside a pouch and I could stop using the word you and we when I really, truly meant just little old me........ I haven't held a Manticore either so I've tried to keep my comments about it within the realm of reality. I have held and used its little brother the Nox 900. I wondered about that short coil screw working loose. I wish it was a bit longer. I have yet to have a Vanquish or GPX 6000 coil screw work loose.....with their similar design but I do pay attention to them.

I believe that "guy" is Carter Pennington from DetectorPro.....could be wrong.

Your observation about basic Iffy target investigation techniques is really important even for a detector as advanced as the Manticore. It would be too easy to just depend solely on what Target Trace is indicating in one swing plane and ignore contrary info from a 90 degree shift and swing. Maybe the Manticore user did turn on those ferrous targets Off camera and decided to dig anyway. Or, maybe the visual iron indication from Target Trace has an effective depth limit that isn’t the same as the raw audio depth limit. I experience this often with XP detectors and others where the visual target identification tools reach their effective limit well before the audio tools on deep targets.

This is a Manticore and Deus 2 side by side park hunt video in a northeast USA park where plenty of silver coins have been found by the detector users in the past using Etracs and CTX. There are several targets that show the Manticore display clearly before digging along with lots of good information. The only thing I wish they had done is have the detectors using external speaker audio. But this was in a public park and they were concentrating on the deepest targets where headphones are essential. No BS, no editorials, no implied bashing and most of all.....no drama. Just two outstanding detectors and two very experienced detector users hunting together with live digs.

For those that wonder, this being a prospecting site..... Nox 900, Nox 800 and the Legend air testing their Gold Multi modes with almost identical settings on 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.85 gram nuggets.......we are talking in terms of sixteenths of an inch or a little over a millimeter in difference on each of those targets using their stock 6" coils. Nox 900 is still really hot for prospecting folks, just like its predecessor. What took some getting used to for me is the default really high pitch of the Gold modes VCO tone. Lowering the threshold pitch will lower the VCO (DP) tone some but wow it is set high. The same goes for using DP tones in the other modes. Doing the well documented YouTube video test with raised nail, coin and nail on the same plane as the coin.......DP's super high pitched squeaks and ticks on heavily iron masked coins......I don't know if I can get used to that sound. The volume of the iron tone can be adjusted in DP along with its tone break. The volume of the DP non-ferrous tone can also be adjusted but its actual pitch only seems to get adjusted very slightly if at all, by adjusting the pitch of the threshold tone unlike in the Gold modes. Someone who knows more about this DP tone option, please chime in here. I did quite a bit of separation/unmasking testing and the Nox 900 did a bit better than the Nox 800 using the same settings. Basically that means that during the same test the Nox 900 was able to give repeatable 2 way non ferrous responses while the 800 gave solid one way non ferrous responses but only sporadic 2 way. That was using the test described above with two 1800s square nails and various US coins with one inch spacing between the targets. I did not compare the DP tones to the 800 since that would not be fair. I did do some DP tone Field 1 and Field 2 testing with all the iron target IDs accepted and all rejected. I made sure to adjust the default tone break and accept/reject settings first back down to zero. I experimented with a low iron tone volume level and with turning up the threshold tone while rejecting iron target IDs with the horseshoe button. The threshold using DP tones is a live threshold so that is an alternative to getting constantly bombarded with iron audio at some sites. It may also be "live" in other tone and mode configurations too. The threshold is not "live" in the Gold modes........waaaaahhhh! I believe Strick mentioned that the Manticore (could have been Nox 900) VDIs seem to be more jumpy than the Nox 800. I noticed something similar in the hunt I did the day I got my Nox 900 but chalked that up to the ground being half frozen and really acting weird. I did some more testing today on USA modern coins buried at 4" in moderately iron mineralized dirt. The 3 to 4" depth mark is where IDs can really be impacted in the dirt I often hunt in. The Nox 800 and Nox 900 both did very well on those coins but instead of 2 or at most 3 solid target IDs for the Nox 800, that got expanded to 3 or 4 for the Nox 900 on the same coins. For instance a Jefferson nickel read 12/13 on the Nox 800 in Park 1 Multi. It responded with 26/27 and a frequent 28 on the Nox 900 in Park 1 Multi during 10 sequences of left/right full swings. So the numbers for that nickel could jump from 26 to 28 and back with a 27 alternating. At least all of the targets had repeatable, sequential numbers with no oddballs, all over the place numbers like I have seen with some other SMFs sometimes (Garrett APEX.......). I am definitely liking the extra IDs in general however. The stock Equinox 900 ML85 Bluetooth headphones once again are too bass heavy for my liking but they are not nearly as muffled sounding on higher pitches as the Nox 800 ML80s. The Equinox 700/900 shaft system, angled hand grip, and arm cuff are fantastic and a huge improvement over the Nox 600/800. The Equinox 900 has three levels of red backlight intensity so only the highest level looks really red. The mid and low level in daylight looks really nice in my opinion along with how the buttons light up as well. I haven't tried the vibration feature or the flashlight yet. Too early to comment on overall sensitivity aside from the max 28 on the 900/700 versus the max 25 on the 600/800. I also haven't done any EMI testing yet. Chase.....I still haven't found the back button and so far, only one user profile slot ☹️

Just a quick post about some weights for recently released detectors for those that want or need to pay attention to swing weight. I weighed all of these on the same scale. Your scale may give different results but the difference between different detectors should be close. All weights include coil covers. Deus 2 with 9" FMF coil, WS6 mounted on the shaft with the XP Neoprene shaft mount = 33.2 ounces Deus 2 with 9" FMF coil and full remote mounted on the shaft = 35 ounces Nox 900 with stock 6" coil and stock lower shaft = 37 ounces Nox 800 with stock 6" coil and Detector Innovations Tele-Knox shaft system 37.7 ounces Nox 900 with Coiltek 10X5" coil on the Detector Innovations 18mm Tele-Knox lower shaft which fits the Nox 900 shaft = 41.6 ounces Nox 900 with stock 11" coil and stock lower shaft = 44.1 ounces Legend with stock 6" coil = 45.5 ounces Legend with 10X5" LG24 coil is 46.1 ounces Nox 800 with stock 11" coil and Steve Goss one piece carbon fiber upper shaft (no counter weight) = 46.5 ounces Legend with stock 11" coil = 52.6 ounces

That is good news. Deus 2 may definitely be a better choice for you. It is by no means a perfect detector but compared to Deus 1 for coin/jewelry/relic hunting............it is a great upgrade. If you happen to hunt at saltwater beaches or submerged fresh water, Deus 2 handles that very well too. good luck, Jeff