☠ Cipher

20 hours ago, phrunt said:

I don't bother using the 11' coils on either, I'm after depth so why not use big coils.

I agree. I bought the CTX as an isolated target and field machine, and the first thing I did was replace the 11” coil with the 13”x17”. It hasn’t come off since and probably never will. It is admittedly cumbersome to swing, but I also have a well made harness that works very well if I need it. I’m very happy with my CTX and see no replacement for it, as Steve said.

I’m over the moon with the selection of detectors I have now. Deus II with 9” coil just arrived yesterday and with that I feel now like I have all my VLF and multifrequency bases covered. 

I’d pay a small fortune for it if it were a top performer, and the UI and graphics potential for a cell phone app based platform seem endless, but unfortunately AMD dropped the ball, so right now machines like the Simplex and Vanquish are far better deals and far better performers. I think Chase was right when he said it will end up a Sky Mall novelty for those who know nothing about metal detecting. Once their machine got into real users hands their claims and demos quickly fell apart and they couldn’t manage the damage control even as the units were dripped out to people who really wanted things to work out and invested early. How they got serious detecting to take it on is a real mystery. They literally won’t sell Bounty Hunters and there are Bounty Hunters that will wallop this product.

Yes, that sounds like their first run prototype. I could also be mistaken. By the time the discussion got to Bluetooth I’d heard enough to put me off until it could be discerned if an update could turn the unit around. It now seems that at least some limitations are hardware based though. 

I don’t remember seeing any issues with lag. I believe the whole setup runs on just Bluetooth 5.0 from coil to phone. 

Last App update on the App Store was 7 months ago when backers began receiving them. I’m told the app is completely gone from Google Play.

17 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

Is it possible they've made improvements since those reviews were made?

Hopefully SeriousDetecting doesn't turn into Kellyco where ensuring the legitimacy of products (Long Range Locators being the example of illegitimacy) takes a back seat to other motivations.  I've had very good experiences with SeriousDetecting and their products up until now.  If this detector doesn't measure up to basic performance standards I hope they pull it off their products page until improvements show that it does.

According to Daniel, whose been testing it for a while for his magazine in the UK, there have been no updates to the machine, nor to any the backers hold, nor have they fulfilled their obligations to the remainder of backers. I agree that this could hurt the reputation of Serious Detecting once they reach users hands. From what I gather they lack any serious depth, yet chatter away, and can’t be properly ground balanced. The GB function seems not to work at all. The depth people are getting is not what was promised, but more akin to a bounty Hunter Gold Digger. Since this happened after a necessary hardware change, it’s even more concerning that a complete overhaul is needed. Also concerning is that the phone grip has been dropping peoples phones and the bad ergonomic design can be felt straight away.

33 minutes ago, kac said:

Spec's don't look bad, curious on performance and control features.

https://www.seriousdetecting.com/product/air-metal-detector-the-smart-bluetooth-metal-detector/?goal=0_0b451a6847-e8b7bd7836-159565445&mc_cid=e8b7bd7836&mc_eid=1b80072cca

Look here https://www.facebook.com/groups/airmetaldetectors/?ref=share

Based on what I’ve read, I would steer clear of these machines. I trust people like Daniel Spencer, Sid Perry, and others who have said this machine is far from ready for prime time, stands somewhere between a toy and a scam. I’ve followed it from concept right up to now. 

I’m glad to hear this as I’m committed to purchasing one out of the next shipment. I don’t want to have a nagging feeling I should’ve bought the Deus 1 or ORX instead. I think the Deus 2 will really round out my collection nicely by the looks and sounds of things. 

While we’re on the topic, here’s another pinpointer that has an Iron Tone. https://www.ebay.com/itm/GER-Detect-UIG-Pointer-Pinpointer-Metal-Detector-for-Gold-and-Precious-Metals-/184539502063?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

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. 

6 hours ago, palzynski said:

Extra range you mean depth ?  

I prefer the Xpointer LOW/HIGH tone to the Profind tones ,the Xpointer sounds like a standard detector then it is very easy to learn/use. 

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? 

14 hours ago, palzynski said:

There are 2 discriminating pinpointers available at the moment ,:

1) QUEST XPOINTER MAX :
QUEST XPOINTER MAX (metaux-detection.fr)

2) MINELAB PROFIND 35 :
https://www.metaux-detection.fr/fr/pro-find-35-c2x30847474

 

I own both of them . I have the Profind 35 since 2 years now and I am currently testing the Quest Xpointer Max . The Profind is a very good pinpointer but I prefer the Quest.  I will post a report on the Quest soon ... 

From my standpoint I would never come back to an all metal pinpointer as the discrimination is a great help in the field for me  , especially for identifying big irons at depth ..

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. 

21 hours ago, Ivan Kraemer said:

Show a picture of how you mounted it please?

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. 

4 hours ago, Geotech said:

Ergo my curiosity about the acceptability of user levels.

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.

On 2/25/2022 at 2:35 PM, nickeldNdimed said:

Can anyone point me to a good VDI scale for Simplex for typical US targets?

I found some tables I can reference but was wondering if there is a common scale out there on the web maybe laid out vertically across their scale or if someone has already done this? 

Like for example, I like how Minelab in their manual for Equinox and Vanquish provide a scale for targets and VDIs common for various countries.  

There’s a couple made by end users. 

26 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

Thanks for your response.  My reply here isn't meant to argue or deny what you say but rather to add a bit of background and request further clarification (from anyone).  Below is from the F75 manual, version M75MBLK Rev. 5, 110614):

In summary, the manual states: The user may choose to operate with DST or without DST.  (emphasis mine)

Thus, unless the manual writer is playing loose (and deceptively) with the word 'without', my interpretation is that DST is (completely) turned off.  Did First Texas later confirm that DST was only minimized with this alternate setting, rather than completely turned off, or is that just what some users concluded based upon their testing?

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

15 hours ago, burlguy said:

 And some of us will be eternally grateful that we got to have such a detector that still is barely rivaled 14 years later. Why the new detectors dont show multi frequency strengths during pinpointing to allow determining of potential targets leaves me stupefied.
 Silver quarters, dimes and clad quarters and dimes along with copper pennies always hit strongest on 2.5, bottle caps nearly never. When hunting trashy sites with lots of targets this really makes things easier as the iron can break up identification but, "frequency strength + VDI" is a 95% benefit. Damn them smashed crew caps thought.

Using the above scored me a 10" dime last night and every one of my coins for the last 10 years.

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. 

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Although I missed the controversy as it occurred before I got back into detecting, wasn't there a rather no-win situation with the Fisher F75 in the first few years after its rollout?  If I recall (from stories I've read) it was noisy, possibly due to EMI, but maybe it was more than that.  So First Texas released an upgraded version with something they called Digital Shielding Technology (D.S.T.) to take care of that noise issue.  Problem solved, right?  Well, not to those who claimed this 'improvement' cost performance.  My unit (built in 2017) allows you to turn off D.S.T.  OK, surely now the problem is solved.  But I remember reading that some people claimed this retro fix still didn't take the detector back to its original performance level.  A typical case of "damned if you do; damned if you don't."  (I may have inaccurate details here.  Possibly the D.S.T. on/off capability occurred with the initial solution rather than in a subsequent step.)

I'd be curious to know if turning off the D.S.T. in the newer models really did take things back to the original.  We all learn after being here a while that just because someone claims something is true or false, and no matter how loudly, repeatedly, or authoritatively they make that claim, there's still sometimes a reasonable chance that they are fooling themselves and effectively trying to fool us in the process.

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!