☠ Cipher

I was more surprised by the CTX doing as well as it did, and the Deus 2 not doing as well. I expected the Deus 2 would hit it if any of them would. I knew the CTX had the potential to provide a better ID at depth, but I expected the Nox and the Deus 2 to have a deeper tone, even if it came up as Iron. I’ve only had the CTX for one short season so far, and I’ve probably internalized too much of the malarkey from those who want to see it deemed outdated because they can’t or won’t swing it. The other day an old timer out my way referred to it as an “outdated big box machine.” I suppose you could say it’s ergonomically outdated, but I don’t agree that it’s an outdated performance platform. It’s goals in development were different. It’s a deep isolated target machine built just as the tide was shifting to an emphasis on recovery and iron commingled targets. In any case, I only pay attention to a few testers and reviewers. TheHunterGT has long been one of the few. His review of the CTX and many other machines are worth the watch.

Yes, that’s what I mean. When I had the ProFind 35 I had to be right on top of iron for the iron tone to engage, and by then I’m already distracted. It didn’t get the depth of my TRX or Tek-Point either, so I let it go, but I remember thinking that if it had more depth the iron tone might also see a bit further. The XPointer seems to be more of the TRX and Tek-Point caliber depth, and so I wondered if it carries its iron tone a little further out than the ProFind.

For those of you who have had some time with both detectors, what day you…is the Deus 2 a replacement for Deus 1 in iron infested sites? Is it still to early to tell?

The extra range of the XPointer probably makes its iron tone more effective than the ProFind 35. Are you finding that to be the case?

I’m a big fan of having multiple UIs to choose from. One of the things I’m starting to like about Deus. I’d really like to see one with a signagraph as well.

6:20 in the video

I will try to get a picture up tonight to demonstrate where it goes. Or better yet, I’ll link to the video where I got the idea.

Surprising results in nastyish soil.

When you look at the success of machines like the XP Deus, now the XP Deus 2, the FBS machines, it seems that if the raw performance is there users will accept, maybe even embrace a fair bit of complexity. I’m sure a lot depends on the UI organization and ease of navigation as well, but if a machine develops a reputation for being a beast, particularly right out of the box users will buy it. Some features make these machines a lot of fun to use, like the spectrograph on the V3i, target trace on the CTX, and even Ferrocheck would be a nice feature if it had a bit more range of effectiveness. I think a top end machine ought to have a color screen and graphics, and I don’t think it necessitates a lot of extra weight these days, or am I wrong on that?

Have you ever seen these kinds of lists on YouTube, Google etc, and wondered where they got the idea to include certain detectors in the list, how in the world they ordered it the way they did, and if they’ve ever even metal detected before? So I’m wondering what actual detectorists would say are the best 5 currently manufactured hobby metal detectors out there right now and maybe why. I’ll start: 1. XP Deus 2 2. Minelab Equinox 800 3. Minelab CTX-3030 4. XP Deus 5. Nokta Makro Simplex For #1 some pretty credible people are claiming the Deus 2 is a move forward in the industry. I don’t usually buy brand new detectors, particularly for $1600, but I am now. The Equinox has proven itself as a proper do it all machine. The CTX-3030 is the best discriminator currently offered. Until more is known the Original XP Deus is king of iron infested sites. Finally, The Simplex is the best price to performance ratio on the market. I’m sure that the Legend is going to figure somewhere on many leaderboards, I just haven’t seen enough of it yet to decide where it might fit. My eyes are certainly on it though. The idea is not to debate or argue over anyones choices, but just to see what models are consistently popping up and how they differ from some of the pseudo lists we see from year to year from “mainstream” sources.

There’s a couple made by end users.

Hi, admittedly my impression comes from these two posts. There are others where Tom discussed it, but I don’t remember ever seeing First Texas confirm or deny that some level of DST is always engaged. https://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,77035,77037

It does seem that the V3i not being quite as popular as it could’ve been has caused many to throw the baby out with the bath water. Multifrequency spectrograph and multifrequency pinpoint were great ideas then and great ideas now, but when this was discussed with NM for example, they were reluctant to mimic anything about the V3i because of its reputation for complexity and feature “overload.” Another reason you may not ever see these features again is because metal detecting manufacturers would then have to get honest with us about how many simultaneous frequencies they are actually using. You can’t have 3 frequency spectrograph and pinpoint on a machine running 2 frequencies at a time, for example. But boy is that multifrequency pinpoint no motion effective in commingled sites. It made up for the slow recovery of the machine overall, and was actually an amazing tool for determining where one item ends, and another begins, as well as their composition. For those who love the V3i there has been and likely will be no equal anytime soon. I plan to keep mine alive as long as possible.

My memory is that the non-DST mode did not turn it off, just down to a minimum level and did still cost depth to those in low EMI environments.

One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday morning is watch salt and clear water diving/metal detecting videos. This morning I happened to notice that Micheal Oliver had some kind of small external attachment on his PulseDive which he claimed gives him extra depth and was purchased through detect-Ed. Initially I had my skeptic hat on, but hear me out. I suspected, based on how the attachment looked that it was a magnet filter of some sort housed in a strap. So I got out my PulseDive, a ruler, a quarter and various sizes of magnet filters I pulled from a TV set. Lo and behold, I was able to boost depth on a quarter from the usual 6” to as much as 7 1/2 to 8” depending on the size filter I used and placement. The only issue, which is easily addressed is affixing the magnet filter to the device (externally, no operation needed) just below the coil. Try this for yourself. It’s pretty eye opening. And I didn’t think it would work for beans.

Very good point Steve!

I agree. Default settings, advanced user settings etc. There are ways to keep the novice out of trouble if they don’t want to learn. I understand perfectly minimization on a machine like the Simplex. When it comes to your top of the line however, it should cater to the advanced user or provide the advanced user access to advanced controls. Everyone can have their cake and eat it too it would seem. Part of the problem quite honestly is that Nokta Makro is hyper aware and very sensitive to what often amounts to unearned criticism during the learning curve. That hyper awareness is often a double edged sword. It leads to engagement with customers and incorporating feedback, but the sensitivity and the rush to get to the top of the industry often makes for bad optics. More controls are more chances for controversy in their view I’m sure. But as they are learning, controversy can arise by omission as well. Better to ensure the machine has the ability than to leave it out.

I’ll have my 9” version as soon as the next shipment hits the US. Can’t wait. This will be my first full Deus product. I previously had the Deus 1 lite, but didn’t bother much with it. That was in the very early days. I think I’m also going to buy the dive shaft. That will be my full setup and I’ll make a Deus 2 lite out of the stock shaft and “puck” with an 11” coil for backup and tag alongs.

Nice! Will there be an all black option? The red looks nice too though.

I payed $1,100 for my CTX, then another $200 for a 17” coil with Grey Ghost underwater headphones. It’s been worth every penny. Not only is the CTX one of the best discriminators ever made, it’s also fun to use, and this is a lot about having fun, otherwise why do it right. There’s also the lock and key factor. CTX is strong where Nox is weaker, and vice versa. It’s nice to have both.

https://doczz.net/doc/2452635/white-s-v3i-advanced-posts-“book“ This has been linked to before and then was broken, making this information hard to access. Here’s the lastest working link. What I did personally this time was I took screen shots of each page, cropped them to size and then forwarded them from photos to iBooks which created a PDF file I can always access from my phone, computer and tablets.

We know they are working on something new, but we just don’t know what. Apparently Tom Dankowski is involved with what will either be a next gen equinox or next gen CTX level multi-IQ variant. Nobody knows what stage it’s in other than probably prototype of its in testing. Nobody knows what features it will have or whether it will have a color display like CTX. I guess the E-trac has been discontinued, but not sure what that says about the next machine. We do know the focus is heavily on ground elimination and silent EMI mitigation. It also sounds like they want to be innovative, considering everything up to smart glasses. This is what I’ve gathered from Dankowski’s forum so far anyway.

I’m glad my soil is not as severe as some have here. I know what would be missed if I couldn’t get past the 6” mark here in upstate NY. Machines like Equinox can whisper on a 12” silver quarter here, but struggle to do it under ideal circumstances. I certainly wouldn’t be hitting a 14” dime like some videos are demoing. It must be nice to have that mild a soil. A dime would come in around 10” max under the best of circumstances. More realistically in the 8”-9” range. That’s where I tend to make the best finds anyway.

I’m hoping for a 9” coil myself. I told my dealer my preference and he said he’d try, but his last batch was all 11”. Normally that would be fine with any other machine, but the demos seem to indicate that the 9” keeps right up with the 11” depthwise, plus has the advantage of a smaller footprint. I’ve encountered this before with the Fisher 1280x. The 8” coil was just as deep as the 10” coil version and was much easier to manage underwater and in tight spots.

I have and love both. Steve is absolutely correct. They have lock and key abilities. To me, the CTX is better bought gently used, but that’s my philosophy with most things. Let someone else pay $2,500. When they are done admiring it in the corner of a room I come along and buy it for half the price. Of course with $2,500 you get a warranty, but to me I trust my eye and instincts that I’m getting something that would be least likely to need servicing any time soon. You made the right choice in purchasing the 800 first. I bought mine in the same order and don’t regret either purchase. CTX is a lot of fun to use