Chase Goldman

Yes. Tony's are white and are good phones. If you just want something that has good volume and a long cord that can withstand the elements and take a dunking or two, I highly recommend the LS.Pelsos sold by KellyCo.

Frankly, due to the small form factor of the Deus/ORX, I really don't give it much thought. It bothers me about as much as whether or not my pinpointer rolls to the side when I set it on the ground. With a case cover on the remote, or often with no remote attached to the stem at all while in use (I keep it in my chest pocket) it really is no big deal. You have to use one to know why I feel this way. Different story with my more traditional detectors like the Equinox or F75. Prefer those not tipping over.

The 9.5"x5" elliptical is a laser beam. Great coverage (9.5") and pinpoint separation and 5" swing clearance in trash which is driven mainly by the excellent recovery speed options in DEUS/ORX. Frankly, I wish ML had come out with this form factor and size for their small coil option for the Equinox instead of the 6 inch round.

Agree. XP has been enormously successful in the UK. The Deus design sets up very well for the type of relic and old coin hunting done there. Similarly they tapped into the Aftican gold craze with their budget gold detecting version of the Deus. But this ORX gambit and other forays into the US marketplace (especially how they market their products in the US) has often left me scratching my head.

Yep. XP has an uphill climb to compete effectively, offering only compactness without groundbreaking performance above the crowded competition. Like I said, if XP was offering a choice of two of their coils with ORX at that price point, it could be interesting. Fat chance they will do that though and they would really need to add a few features back to the coin programs for more widespread adoption. Instead of filling a market niche, they may have gotten themselves into a divot...

In the case of Deus and ORX adding a wired coil would only INCREASE cost. All the brains of the unit are in the coils. That is why Deus units can be run using only the Coil and their proprietary wireless headphones. No control box needed for actual detecting. Most UK users only own a Deus control box so they can custom program the coil (where the custom programs are actually stored) and then they leave it in the car and detect in the fields using the headphones and coil only. ORX needs the control box, though. It can't be run in the Deus lite setup, sans control box.

Hope so.

Agree with that. I have wanted to do this owning two Equinoxes and I intentionally kept one rolled back to the original firmware. The difficulty for me lies in the fact that I only have one 6 inch coil and two different shaft systems (Anderson and the OEM shaft) so even switching back and forth with a dedicated lower shaft is difficult. The best I can do right now is compare the two with the 11" coil. I have done that and am analyizing the video I took of that test to see if I can come up with some conclusions. Thing is, it won't shed much light on falsing because I did the comparison testing on neutral beach sand because I was looking for target ID stability, depth, and audio quality. Maybe I can run some tests with the 6" before things freeze up.

Yep I totally agree with your cost analysis for the gold hunter, Steve. Someone looking for a packable, compact solution for deep wilderness gold hunting cannot do much better than ORX from a value perspective. Deus not required. And agree it is less attractive to the general detectorist looking to break into the Deus/ORX universe. Caveat: unless that user is willing to look at used Deus units... The Equinox effect cannot be ignored. CTX and DEUS detectors are being dumped on the used detector market in droves in the wake of new Equinox acquisitions. Someone who is vigilant can possibly pick up a good, used non-lite Deus system for a pretty good price. Those prospectors who don't need the compactness of Deus/ORX might also give serious consideration to the Equinox 800. A capable gold prospecting detector at the same price point as ORX but with a ton more capability for general coin, relic, and beach detecting. As far as Deus Lite vs. ORX is concerned, I lean towards ORX for two reasons. 1) You need the control box for either DEUS or ORX to perform pinpointing and 2) Although the Deus Lite headphones with version 5.2 software can now be used to alter several more user parameters than before, those parameter alterations cannot be saved for future use - you have to have the control box to save any customizations or set up the customizations on every use without it. So all things being approximately equal price wise, I guess I would lean towards ORX in the absence of a good deal on a used full up Deus setup. Finally, a general comment on ORX pricing. I still don't quite get where XP is on the ORX pricing. I am not a detector manufacturer but I do work in a field that produces high tech gear. Pricing is usually driven by competition (see Equinox), customer demand for unique features your detector can offer (light, compact, high range of operating frequencies, good ferrous rejection, high recovery), Research and Development investment (pretty miniscule here considering ORX is simply a subset of Deus programming and capability and the coils, which XP touts as the brains are identical), and finally production and material costs (pretty small based on the automation XP employs at its manufacturing facility and should be practically identical for Desu and ORX). The reduced feature set alone should not be the cost driver because the programming and cost of the remote vs. Deus should be exactly the same. So the only thing that can actually be reducing cost is the reduced R&D investment, competition and demand. We will have to see if a reduced demand signal than what XP was expecting combined with pressure from ML will drive down the MAP. That may take some time to reach price equilibrium following release and whether XP will "juice" the ORX with additional Deus-like capability with a future firmware upgrade. Should be interesting to see how this turns out.

They can, and with a little tweaking, it could be a great budget alternative to the Deus (I hope they do) but to make it a true budget alternative, the pricing needs to be more in line where the marketplace is today on mid-capability detector pricing. I provided some ideas as to how XP could do that and perhaps still make money. But there is no denying the fact that how ML has priced the feature-rich Equinox, they have created a huge disturbance in THE FORCE - otherwise known as the mid-priced detector market.

It actually does have an external speaker on the remote. See my detailed rundown of how the ORX compares to the Deus here. As far as price is concerned, priced about the same as the Equinox 800 for what it does do seems a little steep to me.

I remember now when you first posted that monster rotary hammer pic. Yeah I am not a big fan of detecting with a pick axe and throwing plug clods next to fire to thaw out the finds - BUT I HAVE DONE IT! lol. I'll take a cold winter rain mosh pit detecting session any time though, if its a good site.

After going through the user manual and Gary's video both posted by TNSS (thanks David!) here is my take as an experienced Deus user/instructor but WITHOUT laying my hands on one: Basically you have 2 slots occupied by the Deus Gold Field Program (called Gold/Fine Gold) and 2 slots occupied by the Deus Fast program (called Coin Fast/Coin Deep) and 2 open slots. Sensitivity and Disc are fully adjustable 0-99 (IAR is used for the Gold Programs instead of disc). Tones are either Pitch (Gold) or 3-Tones (Coin) with the low tone corresponding to iron, based on the disc setting, and which can be turned either off or on - that's it, no adjusting iron volume level. No full tones, no pitch tone in Coin mode, no 4 or 5 multitones, no audio response, no notches, no silencer, and the mid and high tone breaks are not adjustable. A threshold tone can be set in the Gold modes. Reactivity can be adjusted from 1, 2, 2.5, 3 - which are the only reactivity settings I have used on Deus anyway. For ground settings it is manually or automatically set with ground grab if there is enough mineraluzation, but no tracking mode. You can select a salt range for wet salt or alkaline soil conditions. Fully adjustable coil frequency settings within the capability of the coil you attach to it. No TX power adjustment, No Target ID normalization across frequencies, no apparent target volume modulation with depth, and no depth meter. So that's it. The difference between the two preprogrammed gold programs is the default sensitivity setting, the default frequency setting (31 khz/51 or 74 khz depending on the HF coil you use or 17/25 khz for the x35 coil) and the reactivity setting. The difference between the two preprogrammed coin modes is the default reactivity setting (2.5 for fast, 2 for deep). If you are using the HF coils, both coin modes are set at 14 khz. If you are using the X35 coils, Fast Coin is set at 17 khz and Deep Coin is set at 8 khz.Otherwise, it is apparently geared toward the gold seeker with a pair of very simplistic, yet effective coin/relic mode programs thrown in for good measure. Likes: Complete compatibility with all the new Deus coils and the MI6 pinpointer and App (if it ever gets released) which means all Deus frequencies are available to the ORX user. Simplified Menu navigation and user interface (perhaps too simplified in SOME areas). You get almost the same Gold Field experience as you get with the Deus except no audio response setting and Rx capped at 3 Like the large TID and IRON probability displays when you get a target hit Overall, I like it better than the Deus lite package Made the amazing Deus light-weight, low-profile package even lighter. Perfect for grab n go and on the go, carry-on travel. Dislikes Still priced TOO HIGH for what it is IMO, needs to come down a few hunge and the headphones should just be included at the lower price point. XP perhaps missed a business opportunity here to partially eat into a crowded mid-range detector market. Alternatively, they could offer it at the advertised price point but with any two coils. They could possibly get a lot of existing LF legacy coil Deus users to buy in on that simply so they could get their hands on two of the "new" coils with the ORX stuff as a bonus. The Coin mode is perhaps too simplified with no way to vary Transmit Power Tones - 3 tones are it (with the ability to turn the lower iron tone off or on), No Full Tones, No other multitone options, Cannot adjust the Mid and High tone breaks and no Pitch in coin mode. No Audio Response Setting - Gary noticeably struggled with lack of target audio modulation and had to guess as to target depth. It must be locked at 5 or 6 which means no change in audio intensity with depth. No overload indicator or depth meter No independent silencer setting adjustment - (I wonder if it tracks with reactivity setting or if it is turned off?) No negative Disc No Notches No ID Normalization Tracking GB would have been nice, but can live with the ground balance scheme provided Would like a few more custom memory slots to enable custom frequency interrogation of targets though it appears you can only step through the modes sequentially by pressing the # button vice the +/- buttons like on the Deus so negative points for a user interface step backwards but with only 6 slots, no biggie. In the end, I think they went slightly too far on the tone simplifications in the Coin modes and there needed to be something (like audio modulation at least) that would give the user SOME idea of depth. If it had pitch AND full tones in the coin modes (and perhaps priced a little lower) I would probably pick one up for rucksack use when swinging my PI detector in Culpeper or as a grab and go travel machine that I would not freak out too much about if someone decided to lift it (the cool thing about Deus and travel is that you can break it down and separate the parts (coil, control box, headphones, and coil) so if someone lifts a bag, you can still retain some of your investment). CG P.S. - The ORX is compatible with all XP DEUS coil types except the first generation/legacy LF coils.

Worse than the Deus does today. They are complimentary detectors. The Equinox is very good at some things the Deus is not good at (wet salt beach for one) and the Deus is probably better at ferrous/non-ferrous unmasking in my experience. This is VERY watered down compared to Deus. Effective, but watered down. It dedicates TWO memory slots to the Gold Field program which I personally like to use but is a totally foreign concept to Deus users who use their machine primarily for Coin and Relic hunting. It is a gold machine with rudimentary but usable Deus coin shooting programs thrown in for good measure.

Gray 35 degree days in winter are what I call PERFECT detecting days around here in the VA-MD-DE-WV-PA area (as long as the ground is not frozen). Lol.