Jeff McClendon

A friend of mine has been struggling with finding anything much with his detector. I offered to sell it for him on Ebay. Since I have had it for a few days and my messed up ankle can at least let me stand on it..... I decided to do a little US nickel/US quarter target ID accuracy test video featuring the XP Orx, Garrett Apex and Nokta Legend. It is only 3 minutes long or so. Nothing earth shattering or unexpected in this video from these three detectors that have very similar prices. A surface US nickel, a 4" deep US nickel and a 6" deep US nickel are detected for accuracy and signs of up and down averaging in high iron mineralized dirt. Same for a surface US clad quarter and a 6" deep US quarter. See if you can guess which detector is driving my friend crazy enough to just stop detecting for good.......

So does the original Deus. Chase and I own the Equinox, Legend and Deus 2. We know how good they really are. We aren’t likely to snap at you for taking a jovial swing at any of them. Others on this forum might however especially some Deus 2 high powered owners or people who are going nuts waiting for their beastie. So get ready to duck if you disparage Deus 2 or the Mantis.

Not meaning to overly state the obvious but currently at least for the hobby market, wireless and waterproof don’t exist since Bluetooth transmission and water don’t play well together so the market for waterproof BT over the ear headphones is limited. Serious Detecting appears to have the Quest Equinox compatible headphones in stock.

Steve H may chime in at some point. He has used them all. Oldkoot knows the Legend and is getting to know the Garrett 24K. I have a lot of experience with the MXT, MX5, MX7 which are all good roughly 14kHz detectors and are sensitive to .25 gram and up gold with the right coils and do pretty well for coins, jewelry and relics depending on iron mineralization levels. Some other possibilities are the Nokta Legend, Nokta Gold Kruzer, Minelab Equinox 800, Minelab Gold Monster 1000, XP ORX or a used XP Deus 1. The Garret Goldmaster 24K, Nokta Gold Kruzer, Nokta Gold Finder 2000 and Minelab Gold Monster 1000 are mostly single frequency 45 kHz and higher gold nugget detectors due to the way they are setup, their features and coil selection. The Minelab Equinox 800, Nokta Legend and XP ORX or original Deus can basically do it all. The Equinox and Legend can operate in single frequencies up to 40 kHz or in simultaneous multi frequency programs with 40 kHz being one of those multiple frequencies and they have dedicated gold prospecting modes that work very well. The ORX and original Deus have selectable single frequencies up to 81 kHz depending on what coil is being used and they have dedicated gold prospecting modes that also work very well for smaller gold. They are also the absolute lightest detectors available and are easy to break down, back pack and use in difficult terrain. I don’t currently have an MXT. I do have the Equinox 800, Legend, ORX and the new Deus 2 (which I can’t recommend yet for small gold until there is a software update). I did do a lot of testing and some side by side prospecting with the MXT E Series and the ORX and Equinox. The MXT was competitive with the Equinox and ORX which were running on 40 to 54 kHz as long as the gold or targets were roughly 0.4 grams and bigger. Anything smaller, the Equinox and ORX quickly added an inch or more of potential depth and sensitivity. I have found the Legend to be just as sensitive to smaller gold as the Equinox which apart from the Garrett 24K is the benchmark for me anyway. I am a big fan of the 24K. Unfortunately for me, most of the areas I detect will quickly make the 24K overload so I have to turn sensitivity way down and when I do that the Equinox will out perform the 24K.

Chase, I totally get where you are coming from. The way XP did the user profiles is just weird and for your scenario, awkward at best. I do most of my detecting with Deus 2 WS6 using the Fast program variants so thankfully they are all grouped together and are easy to navigate. I wish the Park program was not sandwiched in between them and Deep HC….and I wish the Relic program was next to Deep HC also. For now, having Mono and Goldfield next to each other has worked out really well for me for gold prospecting. I just ordered the WSA ll headphones with the removable audio module so I can use it with my Detechs. That way I can have a choice of light weight on the ear back phones for warmer weather and excellent over the ear option for colder weather or for gold prospecting where I need really good external noise cancelling most of the time whether I mount the WS6 on the stem or keep it tucked safely away due to rough terrain or water. Great topic…….

The light colored crystals appear to be mostly quartz and some calcite which can both form in a near volcanic rocks.

This is why I visit this site often during my day. I always find something interesting to read even when I may find the topic more akin to raw opinions or click bait than actually being based on facts. Keeping it as real as possible is what I respect the most even when things like detecting in general and differing opinions about different detectors are subject to plenty of subjectivity and site specific conditions. Even when there appears to only be the same old nuts and bolts stuff (especially from me) to read here and debate about, there is also a wealth of solid knowledge in most of these decade of old posts. Thanks for setting this straight from your perspective Steve H and maxxkatt, thanks for giving Steve H that opportunity.

Used Equinox 600s and 800s or a new Legend are ridiculously inexpensive right now. If the release is delayed and you can afford it, pick one up as a backup to the Manticore and learn how to navigate it. Resale value will be good on those detectors for quite awhile and they will keep you out of the Psyche ward.

For me and my soil conditions compared to the Equinox 800, the Legend is just as deep, separates better and has FOUR other big at least for me, advantages. It's actually waterproof. It has Pitch tones for its Park and Field modes so a highly modulated VCO variant for non-ferrous with the option to hear or not hear a separate low grunt iron tone audio. It has a wider target ID spread in the small gold to USA zinc penny range so common aluminum targets are more spread out and don't mostly clump up on top of US nickel target IDs. 16 custom program slots as opposed to 1 on the Nox 800. For me, the Equinox pod is way easier to navigate so far.

I answered on a different forum. Same for me. The current software version for the threshold when using Bluetooth is waaaaaay better than the earlier attempts.

Your Deus will work in creeks just fine with the antenna and a waterproof pouch. I would be very hesitant to use the HF coils with their battery inside the shaft.......The 9" X35 coil on 28kHz works really well however and won't miss much. The problem is the inconvenience of hooking all of those accessories up securely. It is much easier to just turn on and go with the Equinox or even better.....a Legend.

Like GotAU said plus several North American owners on here are waiting for their GPX 6000 repairs to be completed and/or to get their's back from Detector Center.

Unless there is a firmware update included with the board level component upgrade……… and the service agents are not mentioning it? Sounds like a lot of conjecture to me. As long as the GPX 6000 has lower susceptibility to interference from its own speaker and from EMI in general without incurring a noticeable performance loss, I’m good with whatever the fix is.

I sold my ML 80s almost immediately because I AM an orchestral musician and a classical music trained singer and those headphones had way too much bass and the mid and high tones had most of their brilliance removed. So those phones were very bottom heavy. I tried them on other audio sources with the supplied audio cable and they were the same......biased way towards the lower bass range and no way to adjust them enough even with my equalizer.......The WM08 module with any "normal" wired headphones or just plugging in a decently balanced set of wired headphones into the control pod made for a completely different audio experience for me. So did using the aftermarket BT headphones and earbuds that I purchased. So it isn't BS longbow62. Some of us have very different and subjective hearing abilities and preferences. When I am nugget hunting I don't want muffled sound, I want bright and very immediate sound responses for those faint signals. The ML 100s that come with the Minelab GPX 6000 have a much more balanced audio response. I have no complaint with those. The Garrett Z-Lynk headphones are a bit bottom heavy but doable. I have never had an issue with my Z-Lynk headphones or transmitter timing out when being used with other non-Garrett detectors.

It all depends on where one hunts and what types of targets. He needs an actual waterproof detector and one that can handle heavy iron trash really well. The Equinox has proven itself to not be consistently waterproof and it is just OK in heavy iron trash. It also has a very compressed target ID area in the US nickel/modern pull tab range which Manticore doesn't have. If he was a nugget or meteorite hunter in high iron/volcanic rock mineralization, he might be saying something completely different.

I have had three episodes where I looked at my coil battery info on the display when I started hunts and battery level was full. 3 to 4 hours later my coil either had critically low battery levels and/or had unpaired itself. I was not using Deep HC and the other Deus 2 components were not showing low battery levels. ????

Have you done a factory reset? Turn on your GM 1000 by holding the power button down for at least 10 seconds....

The post you can't find is right next to this one. To make it easier here is the link.....

There are lots of white colored minerals in that specimen. My thought is it's not a meteorite. My other thought is it appears to be an intrusive igneous rock that formed in or near the earth's mantle. https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/items/quartz-calcite-magnetite-hematite-micas/

First go to Field 2. Default Field 2 is 50 tones with -9 to +2 rejected so since you want two tones the tone break will be at +2. You want to lower that tone break to 0 or below according to your post. Next press the settings button until you see the speaker icon with musical notes next to it. Press the - button so the display will have a big 2 for two tones instead of 50. Changing the tone break is done by pressing the settings button one more time. You should see the check mark/X icon which is the Accept/Reject setting. Hold down the settings button until you see line under the check mark/X icon. Adjust the tone break using the - or + buttons. While you are in the Accept/Reject setting, you might want to go ahead and accept most or all of the iron range target IDs. Depending on your ground conditions, ground noise and many hot rocks will be -9 to -7 so you could accept everything else and then use the Horseshoe button to check iffy sounding targets that might have some intermittent -7 to -9 IDs.

In the USA, I just filled out Detector Center’s online form on Wednesday night for a repair ticket, described what I wanted done and had a reply from them and a repair ticket number within 12 hours. Already mailed mine to them on the next day………couldn’t have been easier even with me being temporarily handicapped. I agree, Minelab could have at least done what Nokta did with the recent Legend speaker issue. Nokta recognized that Legend speakers were failing, they let their customers know that they were sourcing replacement speakers from a different manufacturer and were retrofitting available stock, then they let their customers know when there were replacements available at their countries service centers. They got out in front of it publicly very quickly. So, Minelab may have had inductor sourcing issues too and needed to retrofit existing stock and then supply enough parts to their worldwide service network. For US dealers to know nothing until this information hit the forums and other social media is a joke. Anyway, I expect I will get a email from Detector Center later next week letting me know to lookout for a return package.

Your photo appears to show the Deus mounted on one of the newer super lightweight shafts that comes stock with the ORX and it has one piece plastic construction for the upper shaft/arm cuff. Directly below the hand grip the area that touches the ground is actually flat. On Deus 1 and Deus 2 shafts that flat area on the stock ORX shaft is rounded with 2 phillips head screws and the back end of the arm cuff area is even higher off the ground and it will topple over in a light breeze. For that glacier remnant cut in your second photo, you can literally remove the coil/lower stem, put the rest of the detector down and just detect with it like using a 50 or 80 kHz Nokta Pulse Dive.....talk about lightweight.

I go back and forth with this question. I still have my ORX with 9" round HF and I still have my Deus 2 with 9" FMF. If I just compare the two using the ORX gold modes and using Deus 2 Mono, which the way I understand it is a facsimile of Deus 1 Fast, I get very similar results using Deus 2 Mono with Pitch tones and disc set at minimum of -6.4. Using Deus 2 Mono, most of the really small sub .1 gram or smaller gold that is being adversely effected target ID wise by iron mineralization will hit between -4 and -6.4 in my area. Small bits of tin hit in the -4 to -2 ID area and most smaller nails come in at -1 to +3. So running disc at -6.4 makes all targets just have a normal VCO tone with no hint of an iron target except for double hits on shallower elongated iron and some slightly mushy hits on tin. Run disc up to +1 to catch the nails and tin with an iron tone......smaller gold will also potentially have iron tones. The same happens with the ORX. If I run disc IAR above 0, small iron and tin begins to break up with mixed iron grunt and VCO audio depending on whether I have iron volume ON. However, the really small .1 gram or smaller gold will be disced out unless I turn the really loud (no volume adjustment) iron tone ON. With Deus 2 Mono I also have the option of using Full Tones. With disc on -6.4 I get everything sounding as it should depending on target ID. I also have the Square Wave or PWM tone option which can make Pitch tones and Full Tones have more definition and modulation if I need it. Deus 2 also has FMF Sensitive FT as a stock program.....with a little tweaking Sensitive Full Tones will slightly out perform FMF Goldfield at least in my area......and both Sensitive programs do very well in high iron mineralization. ORX does not have Full tones or Pitch tones and it doesn't have a Square Wave/PWM option. It also does not have adjustable iron tone volume control. Things to think about, especially if XP improve FMF Goldfield on Deus 2 or add a Mono Goldfield option. Conversely, what if XP updates the ORX with Pitch or Full tone audio and iron tone volume adjustments?????

I have been using Deus/Orx detectors since 2017. In that time I have broken two of the butterfly clips and I am not heavy handed. I have never broken an Equinox coil ear and no other Deus/ORX part for that matter. A drill, short bolts, nuts and short spring got both back into working condition but……..give me a break. Someone on this thread suggested sanding down the coil cover area where the clip connects. I also strongly suggest doing that if you have to really work hard to get the ends of the butterfly clip or the Detector Doodad after market clip over the top edge of the coil cover. It makes it a lot easier and less stressful and it doesn’t hurt the coil cover’s integrity. If you don’t use the coil cover, putting on the butterfly clip is super easy. So, it isn’t “first grade stuff “ depending on how much the coil cover bulges in the area where the clip attaches due to the way the cover fits and/or the amount of dirt and debris inside the coil cover.

If you need the lightest weight possible gold prospecting VLF, especially for really small gold, the ORX fits that bill perfectly for most soil conditions using its gold modes with the HF coils above 50 kHz. Great display with big numbers, iron probability bar, mineralization bar and easy to do ground grab. It also has the ability to hunt in its gold modes with 2 tones by using the discrimination IAR set on 1 or above and turning iron volume ON. Target separation even on partially masked small nuggets is really good. So is its ground handling considering it is single frequency. That same setup with disc. IAR on 1 or more and iron volume ON, makes the ORX a very capable 2 tone relic hunter using its Gold modes also.