Jeff McClendon

I don’t have an 11” coil. They are not available for sale separately until at least October…. I am not going to buy another Deus 2 with an 11” coil just so I can make this test or any other appear to be more equal. What aspect of this testing would have been improved if my Deus 2 was using an 11” coil? Maybe I missed something that you noticed. The only slight differences between the three detectors were Deus 2 was a little harder to ground balance and Deus 2 didn’t see as many targets as the other two detectors during the sweep of the gridded area. I stated in the write-up that most of the targets that made up that difference were shallower than the flagged targets. I don’t think the 11” coil would have made ground balancing any easier in that highly mineralized dirt and the 9” coil had ample depth. I thought the Deus 2 did great.

Sorry you are having problems updating. Dirtshark. I sent you a private message..... I just did the update 7/5/22 and so far everything seems to be working fine. I know Bill....Dirt Fishing put out a YouTube video today about an issue with nickel target IDs. Mine is not doing what his is in his video and I have my User Profile 4 setup similar to his. But mine was on default settings before I set it up for Bill's Trashy Park Goldfield program and his User Profile for the video he made may have had old settings in it that made something weird happen. I think he needs to reset his user profile #4 since doing the update did not seem to change any of my saved settings in my other user profiles

There is very little wrong with 0.71 unless you want to use it a lot for very small gold prospecting. Its Goldfield mode needs some work on sensitivity to small gold nuggets/pickers below .25 grams which is the size of lots of the remaining, easier to find, near the surface gold in many of the places in the Western USA which might indicate bigger, deeper gold nearby.

I don't know if I am unbiased........still trying to get the foul odor of the release of Deus 2 and the Legend out of my nose, but I wouldn't hesitate to use any of the three in 95% of the hunting scenarios out there. Great detectors that are super close in performance and lots of fun.

I still don't see a sensitivity issue with the Legend after more testing. It is quite sensitive in my opinion. So far, the most important settings using the Legend Gold mode are using the Multi setting if possible, ground balancing and choosing the right level of discrimination to handle hot rocks. Some places I have taken the Legend, I can get away with rejecting the first two target IDs and still not lose small nuggets that potentially could have their TIDs pulled down into the ground noise target IDs (1 and 2). Other places, any small nuggets are swallowed up by the mineralization so running with nothing rejected or maybe just target ID 1 rejected is the only way to be sure that detectable small gold is not missed. I have the same decision to make with the Equinox 800 at the same sites. Simon, if you are able to run your Equinox with part of the iron range rejected like -9 to -6 without losing borderline small nuggets you will probably be able to do the same with the Legend. Like Andy B. has said in his two Legend gold nugget videos, being able to run the iron bias at a less aggressive setting may also really help these small nuggets keep from being called iron/ground mineralization so easily..........or maybe it won't help. We'll see.

Thanks for the question. Those three copper Memorial pennies all have the same target IDs out of the hole. 2” air test Deus 2 TID 91-92. Legend TID 46-47. Equinox 800 TID 27-28 Any upaveraging seen on those targets was most likely due to the presence of natural and man-made iron in the ground near those targets along with depth. My Deus 1 will upaverage copper pennies that deep at that park up to 99 or just give — — for “don’t know” if it can hit them at all.

All three had similar discrimination settings meaning the lowest 1/3 of their iron target ID range was rejected to help deal with ground noise from the high mineralization. Personally, I think it has to do with an engineering/design choice. Deus 2 seems to have its overall gain or some other background setting (frequency weighting??) adjusted to ignore really small targets. The Legend is more middle of the road and the Equinox is adjusted to really hit hard on a more wide range of target sizes including really tiny ones. Just my opinion from really testing all three on tiny gold nuggets, micro jewelry, tiny lead targets and tiny aluminum.

Thanks. I did it for myself really. I am especially trying to find the roughly reliable depth limit in my dirt conditions for Deus 2 with the 9" coil. Just like anybody else with some experience, I want to choose the right detector for the site. I can't do that until I know what it can do. Hopefully, I can find a spot as trashed as this one but with even deeper targets in the future.

I finally had a chance to do wild target comparison testing in a Denver Colorado area public park using Deus 2 9" coil, Legend 11" coil and Equinox 800 11" coil. Absolutely nothing is implied by doing these tests. I don't work for these detector companies and I gain nothing from doing this testing except for the knowledge it gives me. I am sharing this experience here on this forum. I am not trying to prove anything whatsoever. I liked all three detectors before the test and I still like all three detectors very much. They have many similarities and just a few basic differences at least when it concerns this test, on this day, in these ground/target conditions. So, the ground was damp, temperature was 82 F with light breeze and partly cloudy. Deus 2's mineralization graph consistently displayed 10 out of 12 bars, so highly iron mineralized ground. I chose a 30 foot by 7 foot area and flagged six targets. Actually I only had six flags but there were seven targets. Target number 2 was actually two adjacent targets. I used Deus 2 to first locate and choose these targets. Target depths below include 1" of grass/ground clearance. I chose these targets to flag because: ---they were fairly obvious deeper targets, ---there seemed to be iron, low conductor, mid conductor and high conductor non-ferrous targets included in the target selection ---all of these targets had consistent enough target IDs and tones for me to make an educated guess about what they were before digging --- all of these targets were probably coin sized and at least 6" deep which was determined by audio response, displayed depth readings and they were all out of range of my Teknetics Tek Point pinpointer set to Max which usually means 4.5". You can stop reading right here if you want. All three detectors had very similar results on these seven targets and the information they gave was remarkably consistent and accurate considering the depth of these targets and the high iron mineralization. However, before digging the flagged targets I ran all three detectors over the grid area and counted the number of targets that I determined were solid 2 way response targets. They could be ferrous, mixed ferrous or non-ferrous but they had to have repeatable 2 way responses. Size was not considered. Most were shallower than the flagged targets by their audio responses and depth readings. After the test I recovered 15 of these targets that were in the surface to 4" depth range before stopping since the grid area was starting to look really bad from my recovering 22 targets including the flagged targets. I used the Legend to recover those 15 targets. Deus 2 detected 31 targets that matched that description in the 30' by 7' area. The Legend detected 43 and the Equinox detected 54. Those were detected 2 way repeatable targets. There were many more that weren't 2 way repeatable by the way. So, this was a small area with lots of targets that could cause masking, etc.!!!!!! Settings: Deus 2, 9" coil, Detech over the ear headphones with WS6 Puck installed.......Modified Program 2 Sensitive, 5 tones, disc. 10, sens. 95, Freq. shift 3, Iron Vol. 3, Reactivity 2, Audio response 4, Bottle cap reject 1, Notch OFF, Silencer 1, Ground Balance 86 (I chose the Sensitive program because it ground balances the best in the iron mineralization present here of all the higher weighted programs with very few spurious ground responses in the Coke 23 to 25 range) Legend, 11" coil, stock Bluetooth over the ear headphones.......Park Multi 1, 6 tones, disc. 0 to 3 rejected, sens. 26, freq. shift 10, recovery speed 5, iron filter (fixed) 8, iron volume 4, no notches, ground balance 9. The Legend ground balanced easily with no issues with spurious ground responses. Equinox 800, 11" coil, Avantree Studio Pro over the ear BT headphones, Park 1 Multi, 5 tones, disc -9 to -5 rejected, sens. 22, freq. shift 8, iron volume 4, recovery speed 5, F2 iron bias 2, no notches, ground balance 2. The Equinox ground balanced easily with no issues with spurious ground responses. Target 1 6.5" deep small aluminum ring pull with just the ring....no beaver tail All three detectors detected this target correctly. Deus 2 TID 62 Legend TID 25 Equinox 800 TID 12-13 Target 2A US Jefferson Nickel 2004 Lewis and Clark "Keel Boat" and Target 2B unidentified mixed aluminum/iron target Both targets were 7" deep and they were 3" apart. All three detectors detected both targets separately and correctly. Deus 2 target 2A TID 62, target 2B TID 83-85 with iron audio responses Legend target 2A TID 26, target 2B TID 40-41 with iron audio responses (targets were too deep for Ferro Check reliability) Equinox 800 target 2A TID 12-13, target 2B TID 22-23 with iron audio responses Target 3 7" deep 1977 Lincoln Memorial copper penny All three detectors detected this target correctly and easily. Deus 2 TID 89-90 Legend TID 47-48 Equinox 800 TID 27-28 Target 4 7"deep 1959 Lincoln Memorial copper penny All three detectors detected this target correctly even though there were iron targets/responses all around it which made the exact location of this penny tough to pinpoint. Deus 2 TID 89-99, Legend TID 48-60 Equinox 800 28 to 39 Target 5 9" deep 1965 Lincoln Memorial copper penny This target was detected correctly by all three detectors even though there were iron targets/responses all around it. By far the toughest target of the test. Deus 2 TID 91-99 Legend TID 50-60 Equinox 800 TID 30-39 Target 6 8" deep 3" long late 1800s to early 1900s square nail All three detectors detected this target with mid conductor falsing and with iron responses. I guessed a very corroded zinc penny, mangled aluminum screw cap or nail before digging. Deus 2 TID 81-88 with plenty of iron responses, Legend TID 38-44 with plenty of iron responses (too deep for Ferro Check reliability) Equinox 800 TID 21-25 with plenty of iron responses. This test did teach me one really important fact. Not on a soapbox here just stating the obvious. There were many people including me that doubted the ability of Nokta Makro and XP to come up with effective simultaneous multi frequency operation that could compete with the Equinox platform. We all experienced the release of Deus 2 and the Legend and all of the turmoil and vitriol that went with those releases and with the hype both positive and negative afterwards. I will just say that in particular.......the Legend is an outstanding metal detector. Its precursor, the Simplex (I detected this park with one) simply would not have hit these flagged targets in this dirt very well if at all and certainly with very poor target ID/tone accuracy. The same goes for the original Deus 1 (also detected this park with one). So both companies have released great SMF detectors no matter what anyone says to the contrary.

Simon, at this point I don't see anything lacking in the Gold Field program on the Legend aside from some tweaks to the threshold tone and the release of 1.08 which should give it the possibility of running it in the gold fields with the least amount of iron filtering possible. Even now, it is way better than Deus 2, easily equals Deus 1 and comes really close to the Equinox 800. I have been strenuously testing all three in terms of sensitivity using its M multi frequency mode and its selectable single frequencies where it is over an inch better than Deus 2 on the same .25 gram and smaller targets. It does well in ground balance ground handling and in its great feature set which includes Ferro-Check. Legend is about to get a mineralization graph too so at least among the gold prospecting capable or at least advertised as capable detectors I have, the only VLF that beats it soundly (it beats the rest of mine too) is the Garrett 24K. Compared to the Gold Kruzer ........I would pick the Legend everytime simply due to selectable single frequency or SMF operation, recovery speed adjustments, Ferro-Check, easy to use preset ground handling discrimination patterns and its single digit notching just to name a few. The Gold Kruzer may be operating at a slightly higher frequency but it does not compete with those features since it has no notching, no recovery speed adjustments, only 1 frequency, and no form of discrimination using its Gen mode. Fast and Boost will work in milder ground only. Micro is a great little 2 tone discrimination mode but it is no deeper than Gen. In the testing I have documented for the Gold Kruzer, it is no more sensitive or deeper than the Legend.......

At the moment (1.07) the Legend's Gold Field mode has only one audio option......single tone (no iron tone) highly modulated VCO audio that works very well. Whether it needs audio boost......I don't know. Right now and especially after the 1.08 update, I would mainly use 2 tone (after the update Pitch Tones) in Field mode for relic hunting with wide open, no discrimination Gold Field as a cross reference. But that is just me. In my dirt conditions I am not seeing a big difference depth wise on coin sized objects using Field or Gold Field with similar settings.

This is still a real good question for me and I own all three....Deus 2, Nox 800 and Legend. I used to think I had everything covered by owning an Equinox 800 and the original Deus. The original Deus is a great detector for the right soil conditions and for dense, older iron trashed sites. Deus 2 can do what the original Deus did really well and so much more and so much better too. However, in the places I hunt, I see little to no difference in overall depth on coin sized and bigger targets so far, between the Legend, Equinox and Deus 2. In fact, Deus 2 is coming in 3rd for depth but I just have the 9" coil.......... Deus 2 is coming in first for coins on edge or in weird orientations in dense modern trash. That is saying a lot since the Equinox and Legend are very good at that also. Deus 2 comes in a distant last place as far as sensitivity to tiny targets in any mode compared to the second place Legend and just ahead first place Equinox even when using their 11" coils from my experience. This insensitivity vs sensitivity to tiny targets is a good thing to use to ones advantage. So a person hunting for silver coins in a sea of tiny aluminum or tiny iron trash may really appreciate that tendency that Deus 2 has to ignore many of those tiny targets while still hitting coins on edge very well. A person hunting for tiny gold nuggets or micro jewelry (.2 grams and smaller sized) may not find much with Deus 2 however. The Legend falls somewhere in between but closer to the Equinox which will light up the ground big time on a huge size range of targets, especially tiny ones, but it also gets killed by EMI worse than the other two detectors from my experience. After the Legend 1.08 update, its place in this triumvirate may become more clear.

Dilek's first paragraph in her update synopsis under Legend Update says clearly that Iron filtering and Stability are available in Multi using Park, Field, Beach and Goldfield. The only exception is the Stability function is different in Beach mode. If she had said there was no Iron Filter/Stability in Multi Goldfield I would have gone ballistic!!!!!

Iffy did a very short preliminary basic iron filter video using a 2” long Colonial nail positioned horizontally 1” higher and 2” away from a Mercury dime. Setting 8 nothing but iron with the dime totally masked and both targets sounded like one target. Setting 4 nail gave good ferrous response, dime gave good non-ferrous response with no audible falsing. At setting 1 the nail was just starting to chirp when Iffy moved the dime out of the way. So personally, I think Nokta Makro need to add a couple of more increments to the low end in order to get that nail chirping a little more. I already answered what I think some at Nokta Makro were thinking back in January…..just my opinion.

I get similar “iron halos” around most deep targets in much of the mineralized dirt I detect in using the Equinox, Legend and Deus 2 if the coin sized or so target is 6” deep or deeper. Using little or no iron bias, finding the best recovery speed setting and getting a very exact ground balance (if possible) are some ways that seem to help. So does using a higher weighted frequency program like the 2 programs on the Equinox and the Sensitive program on Deus 2. I haven’t done much with the Legend yet to try and help this issue since I knew these updates were coming. Hopefully the new M3 frequency weighted option will help too.

Not sure what your question is there at the end of your post……..but as I have said before, I am fairly slow when it comes to thinking quickly and clearly. Iffy’s short 3.5 minute video is embedded into Dilek’s misspelled post “Legned Update” Iffy did not mention or adjust the Iron Filter fine tuning Stability settings on camera. Personally, I think that some among Nokta Makro engineering were convinced that the Legend was geared toward just above entry level detectorists so keeping iron bias at a fixed high level would make Ferro Check and easy/shallow ferrous trash target identification almost “fool proof” if used according to the procedure and expectations outlined in the manual (not withstanding the YouTuber who did otherwise in about 60 videos that have now been taken down from his site). Equinox engineers set the Fe iron bias too conservatively and caught a lot of flak for it and “fixed” it when they released the much more robust F2 iron bias setting. So, some employees in one company had lower expectations for their detector and its potential buyers while another company had some employees who thought a middle of the road approach was good enough too. Their customers wanted more from the Equinox just like many Legend buyers.

Check out the Iffy Signals video posted under this topic.....Legned Update (misspelled by Dilek, don't ask me to spell any Turkish words!!!) That video shows how an Iron Filter setting of 8 (even with Recovery Speed on 5) turns a colonial nail and silver dime about 2 inches apart into what sounds like one iron target with only iron target IDs. A setting of 4 gives two distinct, separated targets with accompanying ferrous and non-ferrous tones. IDs are still showing masking and averaging. So an Iron Filter setting of 4 along with Recovery Speed 5 allows both target's position and conductivity to be heard distinctly. A setting of 1 with Recovery Speed still on 5 lessened even more, the amount and length of the iron response and the dime was even easier to hear. Unfortunately Iffy Signals did not show target IDs when the Legend's Iron Filter was set to 1. So, with a setting of 8 on that nail/dime target scenario, the nails iron response is amplified/expanded and masks the dime. With a setting of 4 both targets are easier to hear but IDs are still skewed. With a setting of 1 that Colonial nail still sounds like iron but with a shorter response (and no falsing!!!!) and the dime is very easy to hear and apparently is not masking the nail enough to make it give non-ferrous false responses. Who knows what a real in the ground scenario would sound like......looking forward to experiencing that.

The YouTube critics that actually have/had a Legend needed to hold off on their final opinion until the latest software was released. Those that never ran a Legend but just listened to the critics referred to, got some incomplete information. I'm glad you didn't listen to them.

Check out this 1.08 Legend Iron Filter video by Iffy Signals Very impressive.....

Maybe Detect-Ed or some other Australian XP dealer can order one for you even if they don't list it in their catalogue.

Independent field testing underway...Release to happen soon. Not in order from her video….. 1. Iron Filtering from 1 to 8. Current 1.07 value equals setting 8 which will also be default in 1.08. 2. Iron Filtering Stability setting….fine tuner for iron bias when set to 1 through 7. Not active on default setting 8. 3. VCO “Tone Pitch” audio added to Park, Field and Beach. 4. Mute button (long press of frequency button) 5. Factory reset when in User Profile, long press Pinpoint button until FD. 6. Selected setting will blink (not just box around it blinking) 7. Audio Gain adjustment in Park, Field and Beach for boosting audio on weaker signals. 8. Third Multi setting M3 for use on wet ground, coke and conductive ground in Park Field and Beach will lessen/eliminate 10 and 11 (ground) target ID responses 9. Last discrimination setting before shut down will be retained on startup. 10 Threshold tone frequency (pitch???) for Park, Field and Beach will be default 10 and Threshold tone improved. 11. Headphone and speaker audio can be ON at the same time for videos and training. 12. Sensitivity will automatically be lowered during the setting of Notches. 13. Mineralization indicator. 14. Audio during ground balance improved. I think that is all…… Currently, no price increase. 10X5 and 12X9 coils coming soon. Thank You Nokta Makro, especially Dilek for accepting suggestions and Burak Tunc (happy birthday!!!) for making them happen!!!

I run my Mi-6 in Pulse at 46 to 48. I literally have to have the Mi-6 within a foot of the RC/coil in order for it to pair consistently. Even at 48, my Mi-6 can barely hit a 3” deep coin sized target. My Teknetics Tek-Point can hit the same coin sized target at 4.5” on the highest sensitivity setting even in high mineralization………. The Tek Point and Deus 2 seem to play fairly well together also. Mi-6 in standalone mode also gets 3” or so on a coin sized target. So, even though I really like the Mi-6 stealthy pairing with Deus/ORX/Deus 2 it basically cannot match the performance and consistency of my Garrett Carrot or especially my Tek-Points.

Deus 1 to Deus 2 progression provided many improvements to XP's flagship detector line. For me, the charging procedure is not one of them. The Deus 1 WS4 was also a standalone detector but it was dependent on being paired with the Deus 1 remote control for software updating. Now with Deus 2, the WS6 is capable of being a totally independent, updatable standalone detector. When a person buys a separate WS6, it comes with the single lead cable included. The Deus 2 being fully waterproof required a change in charging/data port to make it waterproof. XP made several business decisions related to that. They added the screw on charging/data connector plug to the 3 way cable instead of just making a new dedicated charging/data cable for the RC. XP could have completely changed the way they charge the other components too, but they decided to keep the 3 way cable with two mini USB plugs, the mini USB receptacles on their other chargeable components along with the awkward coil charging contraptions and also kept the single lead which used to be used to update the Deus 1 RC for updating/charging the WS6. I wish they had not made those business/unwilling to change the design decisions......but they did.

The two mini USB connectors on the 3 way cable and the cable for use with the WS6 puck are the same size and type = Mini USB. The difference is the actual exposed lengths of the connectors. The connector on the single lead is definitely a bit longer.........so I am not sure where the USB B and C reference is coming from. The connectors will both fit well in the WS6 port. Where the confusion is for me (or XP may need a different English language translator/proofreader) is what is printed in the manual and the included Erratum single sheet that came with my Deus 2. The Erratum pages shows using the single lead cable for charging and data update of the WS6 as opposed to the manual showing updating the WS6 with the single lead cable on page 30 and charging the WS6 with the 3-way cable on page 38. Deus 1s used the 3 way cable for charging the RC and the WS4. The single lead cable was for data update of the RC but I used it for charging it too. So, who knows.........I have charged my WS6 with the 3 way and the single lead and they both seem to work fine for just charging the WS6.

I am experiencing the same annoying behavior too. It is great to be a more silent detector user in public areas but the inconsistent pairing and Mi-6 inconsistent sensitivity levels after pairing should not be happening with a detector at this price level.