Jeff McClendon

I really like my Deus 2 whether it's with the full remote or the WS6 Master. I really like my Manticore too. No, these detectors do not have equal performance and unless you are hunting only by ear with both detectors, the WS6 as Master even with the big ID numbers just can't come remotely close to giving a similar amount of onscreen information as the Manticore. If a person has poor eyesight.....forget about using the WS6 as Master if you want to use its display for more information than just big target ID numbers. Manticore with the M8 coil vs Deus 2 with 9" coil for small gold nugget prospecting or micro jewerly on land is not equal. Otherwise Manticore with 11" coil and Deus 2 with 13X11" coil is very close for most other detecting. I was not an early adopter of the Manticore. In fact, I really didn't think I remotely needed one especially after buying a Nox 900 and really disliking it. I got the Manticore itch when I started to see some good reports after the first Manticore software update and M8 coil release. Now after owning one for six months, I am really hooked and I have only been using All Terrain General and the Prospecting modes. Multi IQ+ is much better than Multi IQ on the jacked up 900. Depth is fantastic, EMI resistance is really good, I really like the many audio themes and advanced features and the 2D screen is not a gimmick. I'm glad I got mine before the price increase happened.

First, Gary Blackwell is a member of this forum and even though he does not post a lot, he is still a member and may have time to read comments that are directed at him especially about programs like Tekkna. I believe his main point was to just try it and see what you think. 1. If you did and you like it great. 2. If you did and you don't care for it and have given constructive criticism, fine. 3. If you haven't tried it and you are negatively speculating .......why? I have only experimented with it myself indoors so I have no opinion....(making myself learn the Manticore at the moment since I have a good idea about what Deus 2 can and can't do). I have just about stopped giving tips and tricks on any forums whether they are my own or someone else's. I am tired of having some people try to shoot down, overly critique and interrogate me about things I have offered as possible aids for gaining more information about targets when detecting. Most of those people fall under #3 above.

The heading for the chart says "Enhanced" which to me normally means "made it better". If the heading said "Expanded" I would accept that as factual. For me so far the "enhancement” of adding 50 extra target IDs between the ferrous non ferrous tone break and US dimes compared to the Equinox 600/800 is total overkill and for me anyway overload. "Enhancing" that target ID area by 10 to 20 target IDs would have been more reasonable in my opinion. That overly expanded range of target IDs is the only thing that I don't particularly like about the Manticore.

If I am in an area with fairly healthy grass and damp dirt conditions it's pretty easy. I just cut a 6” long maybe 3" deep slit with my screwdriver, get under the first three inches or so of grass on either side of the slit, gently spread it back out of the way and start removing material with my 8” bladed screwdriver. I end up with a 6" long by 2 or 3 " wide hole. If things go well, all the dirt goes back in, I tamp it down with the butt end of my screwdriver and squeeze the two side of the slit turf back together. That’s the plan. Sometimes it’s too dry for that to work very well but I can usually make it look like I wasn’t there. I return to the these parks at least twice a month and I have never seen any lasting damage from my holes. I have seen dead plugs and dead grass in a circle from idiots with shovels. We don't get frost, dew or fog here very often so the ground dries out really fast. Humidity rarely gets above 25%. This time of year is the best time to go deep when the ground is thawing out from snow cover. Another snow storm is on the way so more silver could be found in the next 2 or 3 weeks before this clay ground hardens into cement. The two silver coins found relating to this topic were found on a SW facing hill under a pine tree so no grass, just pine needles and dried dirt so no issues making it look like I was never there with a screwdriver. Found four more silver dimes in that area with Manticore during the last two hunts I did on Sunday and today.

Yep, the target information coming from the Manticore in this situation could have turned out many ways. Even when I started digging the first hole, I wasn't completely sure that there were co-located ferrous and non-ferrous targets present. Out here digging in this soil, I have seen an interesting phenomenon on occasion and I definitely experienced it when digging the silver Washington quarter. After removing the first 3 or 4" of dirt plug or in my case cutting a slit and folding two small plugs out of the way, I started smelling a very distinctive organic/metallic odor and saw light grey and white bits of material mixed with the soil almost like fertilizer. That continued down to the quarter which also has some material loss and a whitish to light grey coating. Sometimes I see this when I am about to dig a silver coin out here. I did not see any of that around the Walking Liberty half...........

I just try to tell it like I remember. Its a good mental exercise and hopefully it helps others in some way.

I have a buddy that is absolutely killing it with his Nox 600 for silver and wheat pennies at this same park that we and our entire club have been hunting for who knows how long. I personally don't remember finding anything of interest or removing a lot of surface trash at the exact spot where this spill was recovered, but another hunter may have removed something recently that changed the combination of targets just enough to make this find scenario happen.......or the Manticore with 11" coil really is that good. Had I gone over it with Deus 2 using my 13X11" coil, I think I would have heard these targets. Equinox 900 or Legend with 11"......maybe.

We have not had any super cold weather hear since early February. We have had some snow each week but the ground for the most part has stayed thawed out. So, moist to damp soil conditions even deep have made deep target hunting conditions just about perfect. This usually only happens for a little while in early April and then the soil dries out fast and hardens and digging gets really tough. My silver coin and wheat penny count is absolutely off the charts for 2024 using Deus 2 and the Manticore in these ideal soil conditions. Unbelievable.

I was hunting one of the original Denver area parks that was built in the late 1880s. Shovel digging is not allowed at these parks so recovery is with a screw driver or probe. I have found plenty of wheat pennies, a couple of Indian head pennies, several Barber, Mercury and Roosevelt silver dimes and two silver Washington quarters at this park in the last four years after first getting the Equinox 600 and 800. I was deliberately hunting an area that I knew would not be too wet or frozen under some trees at the edge of a popular sledding hill. I have hunted this exact spot many times with the Nox 600/800 with 11" coil and Deus 1 and Deus 2 with their 9" coils. I am guessing I have hunted this area at least 10 times since it is near the top of the sledding hill and fresh dropped jewelry and coins happen in that area every year. I was actually looking for gold jewelry but I was also interested in deep high conductors. I had my Manticore in All Terrain General Multi, sensitivity 23, recovery speed 5, iron bias 0, and I had the horseshoe button engaged so that I would hear all target responses including iron. Ground balance was 4. This ground has plenty of magnetite, square nails, modern nails and is loaded with many years of aluminum and steel trash. There are very few places to ground balance. I heard a deep iron signal, saw red numbers and decided to turn on it and I was able to hear some faint, very short intermittent high conductor tones along with lots of iron tones. I pinpointed the target area with the Manticore's onboard pinpoint function and was able to isolate two separate targets and saw them clearly on the 2D screen with one upper area iron and the other at the high conductor far right edge of the non ferrous line. Depth was 8" on the depth meter. I dug the high conductor farthest right target first and it turned out to be the silver Washington quarter laying half way on edge at the center of the dig hole about 7" deep. My handheld pinpointer was still picking up a target on the left edge of the hole which turned out to be the business end of that iron skeleton key in the photo. It was laying horizontally. I recovered it, filled the hole and rescanned. I got a coin sized high conductor target response plain as day with target IDs ranging from 90 to 99 with very few intermittent iron responses about 6" to the left of the hole that contained the Washington quarter and skeleton key. Depth was again 8" on the depth meter and only one solid target trace was at the far right of the non-ferrous line on the 2D screen. Basically, I was starting to freak out. I certainly had not heard any target responses like that with the other detectors that I had used at this spot. The Walking Liberty half dollar was about 8" deep standing straight up on edge at the center of the dig hole. Basically, the Walking Liberty half and the silver Washington quarter were in a spill at the same depth with the skeleton key laying roughly horizontally between them and they were all under the Manticore's 11" coil at the same time. They were situated sort of like this but buried under about 7" of iron mineralized dirt.

I have not used a Nel Snake coil. I have used the Legend LG15 and LG24 coils for gold prospecting. Both work really well. My only complaint with the LG15 is I wish the coil ears were more center mounted.

Just Google 1909 S VDB Wikipedia has a decent article about them. Ebay has plenty of them for sale so check there for current value. Price range in my 2020 Red Book coin value book is Good=$600 to MS63=$1,350. Some have sold for way more than that. The one I found....who knows what it is worth due to the corrosion damage. No doubt about its authenticity though.

found it about 10" deep in a gravel layer at a local Denver public park.

I don't pay much attention to US wheat pennies except to let me know that similar date silver coins may be in the area. So this ugly looking, corroded wheat penny did not even raise my blood pressure until I got home and took a close look at it. I had forgotten about the 1909 S VDB "Unicorn" status as the number 1 wheat penny key date aside from the unobtainable 1943 Bronze pennies. It's got great detail and a nice patina but those corrosion bubbles........ Anyway, Manticore may have paid for itself with this find plus several other nice silver coin and gold jewelry finds. Very impressed with the Manticore (compared to the Equinox 900). Thanks Gerry's Detectors @Gerry In Idaho for making my day with a super fair trade for this Manticore a few months ago!!!

It's definitely the headphone speaker quality and has little or nothing to do with Garrett's wireless system. Maybe it would be possible to upgrade the MS-3 speakers or use different baffling on the present MS-2/3 speakers......

I really appreciate all the work that Garrett and Steve H. did to make the Axiom work so well in the USA/North America. For me so far, it has been almost a dream PI detector. Easy to setup, easy to swing and it finds gold and deep coins, jewelry and relics for sure almost effortlessly. I know that it has not had the best reception in OZ and I accept that. Here in the USA, it is working great for me wherever I have used it. I don't care for the audio quality of the MS-3 headphones (don't like the wired MS-2s either). It is one of those detectors that I always look forward to using and I hate it when I have to turn it off at the end of a hunt.

Setting the discrimination pattern on A is fine. So is using the custom setting and just discriminating target ID 1. The G pattern discs 1, 2 and 3. That could be too much. Personally, changing swing speed to match changing recovery speed doesn't really apply to small gold nugget detecting in my opinion. If I am swinging too fast on mineralized ground while looking for sub gram targets........just a bad idea in general.

The Axiom received a software/firmware update after Chris Ralph’s video

He said it was 0.1 gram at the beginning of the testing. Honest mistake. The only surprise for me was how both detectors were able to run maxed out sensitivity wise without going threshold bonkers crazy. I was never able to run my SDC 2300 above sensitivity 3 without it going nuts from either EMI or the ground itself. Same with the Axiom. So far I can run it at 4 max. Above that so far, the ground conditions where I have detected with it cause it to be very unstable. Excellent testing and video. Thanks for posting it Lead Detector!!!

Your Legend with LG 24 or LG 15 should have no problem finding any of the ones in the photo if they are 6" (for the bigger ones) or less deep. I wouldn't expect much more depth with the LG 24 or LG15 if your ground has any mineralization. Running up the sensitivity won't help that much either. The smallest ones may end up in giving iron target IDs if they aren't really close to the surface so running in the G discrimination pattern with recovery on 1 or 2 and iron filter above zero, you may miss them. I definitely would where I most often detect. Personally, I would use one of the 0.1 gram or so nuggets for a test nugget at that site and adjust your recovery speed up a bit so that you get a really sharp response. If recovery is too low (slow) it will elongate hot rock and larger target responses and those little nuggets may get bypassed. Same with the iron filter. Adjust it as low as possible so those smaller nuggets aren't turned into target ID 1, 2 or 3 responses.

What size gold are you expecting to find with the Legend at the EMI Heavy Iron Trash Site with the LG24 coil?

The ORX in its 2 Gold programs using Disc IAR has an iron volume On/Off setting so those prospecting modes have 1 or 2 tone VCO capabilities that the user can control somewhat. Also, the HF coils are totally compatible with the ORX since they were designed for its predecessor (Depar). They are only partially compatible with Deus 1 as far as ID normalization, etc. Deus 1 from my memory, does not have an iron volume On/Off or 0 to 5 setting in Goldfield.

For just gold prospecting, I would pick the ORX with HF elliptical coil over a Deus 1. Both do very well in hotter soil by the way as long as the targets aren't very deep. If you want gold prospecting capabilities, better hot soil performance, an excellent jewelry detector and coins and relics too, Deus 2, the Manticore and the Legend are great options. For me so far, Deus 2 is the best for really iron trashed sites, does very well for coins, jewelry and relics and works fine for gold prospecting. The Manticore is really hot for small gold nugget prospecting and is very good for everything else too. It still falses too much on iron for me to say it can outperform a Deus 2 in thick iron. The Nokta Legend is just a versatile, do everything very well detector at a great price. Nokta did a great job of analyzing what the Equinox 800 was capable of and matched or bettered it with their Legend but without 600/800's waterproofing and build quality issues. I also wouldn't hesitate to buy an Equinox 900 if I was mostly using it for beach hunting and gold prospecting. I just don't care for that detector much for coin, jewelry or relic hunting. It is just too unstable as far as target ID accuracy on land and falses even more than the 800 in thick iron trash.

Do you have a Deus 1? I doubt that there will be any major Deus 1 or ORX software updates in the future. Deus 1 and the ORX in Goldfield can be set on several different frequencies depending on which coil you are using, including roughly 18 kHz, 31 kHz, 54 kHz or 81 kHz. Deus 2 using its Mono program can be set on roughly 7, 13, 18, 24, and 40 kHz. Mono can be setup to mimic and easily compete with Deus 1/ORX Goldfield by switching it to PWM Pitch tones, lowering the disc to -6.4 and turning on the threshold tone. Deus 2 FMF Goldfield has the Frequency Max feature that changes the highest used frequency in its multi frequency mixture. It can be set on 40, 24 or 17 kHz. At this point with Deus 2's coil availability, it is not quite as sensitive to really small gold using its FMF Goldfield mode as some of its competitors running at around 40 to 48 kHz. It's close though. Deus 2 using its Mono selectable single frequency mode is very competitive even with the 9" coil. If XP were to offer a smaller land based only Deus 2 coil and a higher selectable single frequency for its Mono program like the 54 and 81 kHz on Deus 1 and the ORX with the HF coils, or offer a selectable single frequency Goldfield program things would get even better for Deus 2 especially if that smaller coil also bumped up sensitivity on smaller gold using FMF Goldfield.

Here are semi realistic direct comparison results for small gold nuggets and a USA nickel test of Deus 2 9" coil versus Manticore M8 coil. Deus 2 version 2.0 FMF Goldfield, Disc IAR 0, Sensitivity 95 of 99*****please note*****, reactivity 2, audio response 3, threshold 4. Manticore Goldfield Multi, Prospecting audio, no discrimination, Sensitivity 20 of 35 ******please note***** recovery speed 4, threshold 4. I used a pair of Nokta Legend headphones and a wired audio cable with both detectors. EMI was an issue. I used a 0.05 gram nugget and a 0.15 gram nugget under 1" of moderately to highly iron mineralized Arizona gold field dirt. This dirt's magnetite mineralization almost filled up the Deus 2 iron mineralization meter. I used a 0.25 gram nugget under 3" of the same dirt. I used a 5 gram USA modern nickel under 4" of the same dirt Any depths reported beyond those were "air gap" depths swinging the coils an inch or a few inches above the top surface of the dirt. Here are the results of each detector giving 2 way hits. 0.05 gram nugget under 1" of AZ dirt no air gap: Deus 2 Good 2 way hits. Manticore Good 2 way hits 0.05 gram nugget under 1" of AZ dirt and 1" air gap: Deus 2 No response. Manticore Good 2 way hits 0.15 gram nugget under 1" of AZ dirt and 1" air gap: Deus 2 Good 2 way hits. Manticore Good 2 way hits 0.15 gram nugget under 1" of AZ dirt and 2" air gap: Deus 2 Weak 2 way hits. Manticore Good 2 way hits 0.25 gram nugget under 3" of AZ dirt no air gap: Deus 2 Good 2 way hits. Manticore Good 2 way hits 0.25 gram nugget under 3" of AZ dirt and 1" air gap: Deus 2 No response. Manticore Good 2 way hits 0.25 gram nugget under 3" of AZ dirt & 1.5" air gap: Deus 2 No response. Manticore Weak 2 way hits 5 gram US nickel under 4 " of AZ dirt no air gap: Deus 2 Good 2 way ID 62. Manticore Good 2 way ID 26 Those target IDs were correct. 5 gram US nickel under 4" of AZ dirt and 2" air gap: Deus 2 Fair 2 way ID 00. Manticore Good 2 way ID 26 Manticore target ID correct. 5 gram US nickel under 4" of AZ dirt and 5" air gap: Deus 2 Weak 2 way no ID: Manticore Weak 2 way ID 56

Between the 900 and Manticore for the specific type of detecting you mentioned........Manticore. If you gave me a choice between Deus 2 and the Manticore for the specific type of detecting you mentioned.........Deus 2 all day, everyday.