☠ Cipher

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. 

30 minutes ago, sodbuster said:

interesting piece of equipment.   Are the adjustments by app only, or can it be done manually?

Good question. You can make adjustments via the app or manually through a sequence of button presses. Once you’ve used the app though, it’s hard to go back to button sequences. 

I see no reason existing Deus 1 coils couldn’t be made to work with the Deus 2 remote. If the Hoard Hunter, originally intended for the Deus 1 remote, will now work for only the Deus 2 remote, this suggests interchangeability that is inexplicably being held back. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to operate the old HF coils on the Deus 2? 

There’s an innovative pinpointer maker, called SphinxMD out of Russia and they have launched the mother of all pinpointers in the Sphinx 03. The problem for us in the USA, and the West, is our sanctions by design make doing business cost prohibitive. If you’re a fellow techie I suspect you’ll still want to know exactly what it is you’re missing and where the industry will be headed. I happen to have one on hand to review. 

What’s in the Box:

A Sphinx 03 pinpointer. A magnetic holster. A lanyard. A tip cover. A type-c charging cord. Manuals. Optional: A drop leg magnetic holster with pouch and extra tip cover. 

Ergonomics and handling:

This pinpointer fits nicely in the hand. Button placement is dead on. There’s nothing awkward about it. The button is robust and springy, yet easy to activate. The hard shell plastic makes it easy to clean and keep looking nice. It comes with a tip cover with scraper blade.

Features:

SphinxMD was the first to implement a magnetic on/off holster in the Sphinx 02. This feature has been carried over to the Sphinx 03, works as it should and without delay. It is at the ready as soon as it’s withdrawn from the holster. This saves valuable time (and wear) otherwise spent on button operation.

Sphinx 03 has iron discrimination, which when compared to the Minelab ProFind, works exceptionally well. With the ProFind I had to be right on top of iron for the iron tone to activate. By then I’m already distracted. That’s not the case here. The iron tone and LED alert have sufficient depth/range, saving valuable time. The iron tone is trustworthy in that I have not experienced any falsing on non-ferrous metals. If it says it’s iron, it’s iron. 

The Sphinx continues to innovate with the first ever app for a Pinpointer. That’s right, all functions can be accessed and changed to suit your preferences via the SphinxMD app. This is a first for pinpointers in the industry to my knowledge. It was quick and easy to set up and with a long press of the button you’re synced in the app within seconds. Everything can be customized, activated or deactivated from sensitivity and sound on down. Don’t want to use discrimination? You can turn off the alert. Don’t want to use the magnetic feature? It too can be turned off. This is not a wonky novelty app. It works well. This system is actually much easier and quicker to implement than a series of cumbersome button sequencing nobody ever remembers. If you’re a tinkerer like me you’ll enjoy the interaction and amount of customization this setup allows. If you want to set it and forget it, you can do that too as the changes are wirelessly implemented instantly and remembered. 

The Sphinx 03 is also IP68 to a depth of 6 meters (20 feet). I have had a chance to use it under water and it’s integrity held up. It has a built in rechargeable lithium battery. I will update when I’ve carried it through a full cycle. The cap is well threaded and easy to remove, yet fits snugly; a necessary combination for a waterproof and rechargeable pinpointer. 

Other notable features include high sensitivity with high response speed, battery life indication, lost mode, fast detuning with memory function, and automatic Interference protection system which has worked well for me even at the highest level of sensitivity. I have not experienced instability or erratic operation.

Depth/Range: 

Very comparable to the ProPointer AT in this regard. This is not bad at all for a pinpointer boasting a discrimination feature. Discrimination costs a little depth, and so to still be as deep as other leading pinpointers is a plus. Where this pinpointer begins to walk away from others is in its sensitivity to sub-gram and micro jewelry invisible to pinpointers like my Bullsye TRX. The Sphinx 03 also has 360 degree field of detection, rather than tip only detection. 

Aesthetics: 

While this doesn’t matter to everyone, it does to me for a couple of reasons. One is pride in ownership of a well crafted tool. Another is it demonstrates pride in craftsmanship by the manufacturer. The Sphinx 03 is a sporty looking piece of tech, and the tip cap adds to this appeal. An optional accessory for this unit is a nice drop leg holster, also with magnetic on/off. I love drop leg holsters and unlike my SHRXY drop leg holster, the material is smooth and easy to keep clean. It also has a nice snug fit.

I see the Liberator is marked down to $149 and the Minuteman is down to $99. Very good deals as well. I had the Liberator before it was remade, when it was the Bounty Hunter Land Ranger Pro. Back then it was a great deal at around $250. Deep and lightening fast. It also has individual TID notching. 

I’m going to say either a large coil or the Two Box setup they’ve been working on. 

What could it be? 

On 6/10/2023 at 8:16 PM, phrunt said:

  I have a couple of T2's which I believe are just a bit more modern of an MTX, would there be truth in that? A digital MXT?

Both were engineered by Dave Johnson, so it could be that it was Teknetics version of an MXT. 

20 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I've found the TRX to be quite unreliable quality wise, unstable in high sensitivity settings negating it's air test sensitivity performance over other pinpointers that can run in their highest sensitivity levels fine.

In saying that, the price is pretty good, I'd certainly snap up the E-trac.

I wonder what makes the difference. I have two TRXs and can run them maxed out all the time with no fuss at all. If I get a chance to buy a 3rd one I’d probably do it. So far they are the best pinpointers I’ve ever owned. 

MSRP prices are now listed. $199 for Simplex Lite, $299 for Simplex BT, and $349 for Simplex Ultra 

https://www.noktadetectors.com/

37 minutes ago, Digalicious said:

Those are amazing deals. 

Do it now! 🙂

I second that. 

I had an MX Sport for a good while, which is basically a waterproof MX7. I had a different experience. I thought it was a very fast and deep machine with killer iron performance. An AT Pro will not be a step up from an MX7 as it is even slower and has even less depth. 

5 minutes ago, TJ Jeepguy said:

Just in case someone doesn’t know how to disable that.  
 

 

That worked TJ, thank you.

So I tried unpairing and re-pairing. No go. Tried running the update again. No go. It’s a minor inconvenience, but if you have any more suggestions I’ll try them. 

6 minutes ago, abenson said:

So mine did that when I updated to version .71, to resolve it I unpaired the headphones and then repaired them.

Thank you, I will try that 

Ok, I lied. I did the update. Couldn’t wait. Off the bat I noticed that my puck comes on with the remote before it is selected and I have to turn it off when I just want to use the remote speaker. Not a big deal but I never had to do that before. 

Well that was fast. However, I think I’m going to wait until this weekend to update mine, once the traffic dies down and some feedback rolls in.

I’ve been on one hunt and did a couple bench tests on V1.0. I had a pleasant hunt with no iron falsing to speak of. In fact, I dug one plug that had a ferrous/nonferrous mix. It saw the good target despite any iron masking. That was in a modified park program with most parameters left stock. For one bench test I arranged a couple rusty nails over a quarter. I tried this also on 0.6 and the Deus 2 couldn’t see the quarter while the Equinox could. On 1.0 the Deus could now see the quarter. The next bench test was an air test since people were complaining of a lack of depth. I realize air tests are not as useful on a multifrequency machine, particularly in subtraction programs, but nonetheless I noticed a couple to few inches of depth loss in air with most coins topping out at around 13”-14” through multiple programs including mono, whereas before I could go out to around 17”-18” with larger coins. One other thing I did notice was a decrease in battery life on the coil. It depleted noticeably more rapidly. 
 

Calabash Digger just released a video saying XP is working on the problems and has acknowledged them. The solution for those who are unhappy is to roll back to version 0.71. I do wish XP hadve released this update in smaller increments over the last year, rather than letting a year go by and dropping this in one fell swoop. I’m sure many wish they could roll back to a version 0.9 with some new features like frequency max and high square etc. intact while they work on what’s ailing version 1.0.

I’ll bet it’s a helluva machine to have for seeded silver hunts. 

I too have enjoyed using a tracker IV, especially in iron laden sites. It has great recovery and disc. I still look for them in the $50 range, play around with it for a while, and resell again. I still have an adapter that allows you to use screw on coils with any Bounty Hunter metal detector 

3 hours ago, farshsadg said:

I have a Legend metal detector that turned off during charging and does not work anymore. Really, the metal detector is pointless and useless. I wasted 700 dollars of my money.

There’s bound to be some bad apples in every bushel. Did you use the warranty to have it fixed?

Just noticed that Big Boys Hobbies, Serious Detecting, and KellyCo all have the option to buy the Legend standard pack (without headphones) for $399. Can’t beat that. 

I like to have the best of both worlds. One day I’m out with my V3i, which is not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, and the next I’m out with my new XP Deus II. At this point the only thing that holds me back from using the V3i more is I don’t want to put wear and tear on it that will become harder to fix over time. I love my V3i. There’s nothing on the market like it and likely never will be again. Then there’s the Bullseye TRX, which I still consider the best pinpointer ever made. I have 2, and if I could I’d have 5.

2 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

To give you something to complain about.  

Unfortunately, it's a data grab for marketing purposes at this point, but it may also be a way to further control paid subscription feature tiers in the future for the Go Terrain app or the actual machines which, of course, is a double edged sword.  Good in the sense that you don't pay for features you don't personally need or want, bad in the sense their may be additional paid tiers and those tiers may be lifetime or periodic subscription renewal.

I’m hoping they won’t start charging for future updates, particularly if periodically. My heart skipped a beat when I saw they were emphasizing that this was free. Of course it is, I thought, they’ve always been and for every manufacturer and undateable platform…unless…it won’t always be the case. I would hate to have to pay more than I already have, $1600 plus accessories, for what I anticipated from purchase would be an evolutionary platform. I think if they started charging for future updates I’d say goodbye to the platform. 

My update went on relatively easy, along with the tip from Chase to pair the WS6 back up to the remote. The WS6 can be a little tricky getting into update mode, but I got there without encountering any of the trouble plaguing others. The website seems to have calmed down on the 3rd day and I’m glad I waited.