☠ Cipher

You can get the Minelab Manticore at only $1,199 from now until 5/6/24

On 8/6/2023 at 8:08 PM, Geotech said:

Yeah, that looks like a faulty display. It's good to know there might be a direct replacement. When Sharp obsoleted that display we looked for a replacement but there was none at the time.

 

What is the greater factor in screen failure over time, age or use?

On 8/13/2023 at 4:16 AM, phrunt said:

As for the Sphinx 03, quite possibly my favourite pin pointer over-taking my Garrett Carrot AT, just need to make sure it doesn't interfere with the GPZ now.

I’m very glad and relieved to see you say that. After the learning curve it quickly leaped to #1 for me too. I just had to learn how far I could push it or not push it as the case may be. I think I now have it right where it needs to be without running into instability. Dead on the line. 

Apparently this is a product idea that may or may not make it to market. I’ve been keeping my eye out for it. In the meantime, a magnet and tape will do the trick. 
 

Wait until you see how long the battery lasts. it’s bonkers for a rechargeable. Very impressed with every aspect of this pinpointer compared to the competition. I can’t think of anything bad to say about it. Every other pinpointer is now just boring to me. 

Back when Whites was still in business there was this YouTube channel called The SilverSlingers, who used Whites products almost exclusively. They decided to do a giveaway of a pink Bullseye TRX. The fact that it was pink, phallic shaped, and vibrated triggered YouTube to terminate the giveaway. You can guess what YouTube thought it was lol. SilverSlingers had to jump through hoops to get their giveaway back up. 

I was prepared to be argumentative about the TRX. In fact I became so obsessed with the whole thing that I angered my family who wanted to get out and do some summer things. I had to promise to take a week away from anything metal detecting related. I’m glad things worked out the way they did though. One thing this has shown me is that there’s not only a glaring difference from one TRX to another (I also have two), but one Pinpointer to another of the same make and model overall. For example, I don’t get the same results you do on the PulseDive. Not even close. Yet there it is. I do get slightly better results with one of my Bullseye TRX than you do on coin sized objects. Same with the Carrot, same with the F-Pulse (Tek-Point in my case). It makes me wonder if they lose sensitivity with age, or if they are just that inconsistent as a matter of production. 
 

One thing I want to say is that Pavel never told me what to do or not to do with the product. I never promised a review other than between us. If they wanted more spotlight on it there were certainly better, more well known figures they could’ve reached out to. I think they just wanted an honest opinion. I was so impressed with it that I felt compelled to do a review, even though most people reading it would never own one. I felt it deserved to be known for all the hard work that must’ve went into it. 

36 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

I just watched the video. Was the distance 1" on that quarter with the new pinpointer? 🙄 Does anyone off hand know what the Garrett carrot does on a silver quarter? I bet it's more than 1"

Her mistake was she measured everything on edge, which is going to be far less depth than face up as most people conduct such tests. 

What we do know so far via Dilek:

VLF operation

Bluetooth connection to headphones

Iron Discrimination

Built in LCD

1 button operation

6 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I'm about as excited about that as well, nothing really...

A red paint job, slightly larger speaker holes to let more noise out and make it easier to clean but still smack where you hand holds the pinpointer blocking the noise, the guy in the video even does it and says whoops, covering the speaker there. 🙂

They've added the desperately needed rapid re-tune that other Pinpointers have had forever onto it so you don't have to keep turning it off and on again when it goes crazy, sort of a bandaid to the Pro Find 35's instability in higher sensitivity settings where the only option is turning it off and on again over and over again or running in a low sensitivity and losing a lot of performance..

10% deeper they say, I recall hearing something like that with the GPZ 19" coil.   I'd like to put that to the test.

All in all they are not selling me one of these.  My 35 experience was so bad they'd need to do a redesign and give it to me for free before I'd want it, not just a few small modifications.  Hopefully they've fixed up the Pro-Find 35's instability and then it would be a reasonable pinpointer for someone that only wants to use Minelab.

I’m yawning along with you. Nothing really innovative here. 

For more info including price ($139)

18 hours ago, jasong said:

Where do you buy these? Only place I see them in stock is Ali Express and it won't ship to my address in any of the listings. The rest are like Russian stores or something where I'm not sure they'd ship to the US either but I can't really tell if they are legit or not either. 

Write info@Sphinx-md.ru

11 minutes ago, abenson said:

If Fisher would simply add wireless headphones, waterproof design and rechargeable internal batteries to a new model. That would be enough for me to take a look.

Not too long ago their attitude towards waterproofing was that most of us never bring our machines into the water. That is changing I think. It’s one of those things where “if you build it, they will come.” Minelab, Garrett, and Nokta have carved out a niche that is now growing into something more mainstream. There’s been a very visible increase in water hunters with the release of all these waterproof detectors

1 hour ago, V3i/MXT Pro said:

Also, reintroduce the TRX pinpointer as a deeper alternative to their Carrot.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why they don’t do this either. They are different enough to run them alongside the Carrot. Plenty of people prefer tip only pinpointing. There are also plenty of people to whom depth matters a lot. I love to be able to pinpoint most targets above the ground before I ever even dig my plug. Most other pinpointers just seem impotent after using something like the TRX. That’s one thing I can say Fisher has done well, is they gave us a deep pinpointer in the F-Pulse/Tek-Point. One of the best.

It seems like the mindset at Fisher is they aren’t going to release anything that is not revolutionary. They don’t seem happy to release something that merely competes. I for one would be happy with something as good as my Deus 2 with a Fisher label on it. I would support their effort to get back into incremental improvements. They are so far out of date now it would seem revolutionary enough for them to release something like a Simplex. 

Here’s an interesting depth test between the Simplex+ and the new Simplex Ultra. Good job Nokta! 

According to an email calabash digger received this unit will have a two tone ID system. One for moderate ferrous and another for moderate non-ferrous. It will ignore small iron as a matter of course. The email also supposedly states that it will utilize FMF to eliminate ground falsing that plagues other two box units. 

Demonstrated here 

I like the looks of this and will definitely be buying one. I especially like the strength meter or spectrograph. I’m a visual guy. 

I thought this was a pretty cool little invention, and wanted to pass it on. Here’s how to get one. https://en.3d-rk.com/online-store/Adapter-with-speaker-and-headphone-output-for-WS4-WS6-WSA2-XP-p328004031

I assume you mean Garrett AT Max. The AT Max is built on an aging single frequency platform with no update ability. The Manticore is Multi IQ, giving you the option to run on different combinations of weighted multifrequency or any one of several single frequencies. The Manticore is going to be much more versatile. That versatility also comes at a high cost over the AT Max. I think a better matchup would be the Nokta Legend vs the Minelab Manticore. The Legend is less expensive than either of those and offers a great bang for your buck, coming much closer to what the Manticore is than the AT Max. 

17 hours ago, Bedrocker said:

SOLD!!! How much?

The answer I’ve seen given to those in the US and the West is to write info@sphinx-md.ru

15 hours ago, Bedrocker said:

SOLD!!! How much?

This depends on where you’re located. In Russia they are priced at 10990 Rub., which is equivalent to $129. I have one because the maker wanted a diversity of opinion, uninfluenced by geographical pride etc. It was explained to me that US and Western sanctions make doing business in this hemisphere too much of a burden, yet I suspect if you wanted one bad enough and were willing to cover the costs you might still be able to get one. But I’m unsure of that as I sit here. Pavel is a member of this forum and maybe he will chime in on this.