☠ Cipher

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

It’s always nice to have an extra shaft around for Deus anyway. One could easily become a Deus Lite, with the addition of a coil, for Tagalongs and backup.

Interesting, but I’m too jaded on First Texas to believe it anymore. Even if it arrives, it will likely forgo many of the peripherals we now consider essential, like online updates, built in rechargeable battery, wireless headphones etc. First Texas can in some ways be just as tone deaf and stubborn as Whites was.

Hell yeah, bring this on! Take my money. I hope it makes it to market one day. I’m in the market for a two box setup

It’s on Calabashes channel exclusively at the moment. I sensed there was bad blood there between calabash and this forum right now, so I was reluctant to link to it.

I’m beginning to wonder if this won’t be another F75/T2 situation where those machines came out guns blazing and wowing everyone with amazing fringe depth. Those were the machines to have. Everyone was impressed that Dave Johnson found some extra depth. Then the EMI issues came to light. In some environments the EMI made the units intolerable. First Texas had to employ shielding and while still deep machines the shielding cut that impressive fringe depth down considerably to where they aren’t much deeper than other top of the line detectors. In fact, many machines have even surpassed them. Yet they are still widely reputed among those who don’t necessarily keep up with detector news to be the deepest of the deep because of the impression left on its debut. That could very well happen here as well and would be unfortunate for the sake of accuracy. I’m buying a Deus 2 on the next batch, but probably keeping my equinox around until I see how these issues are ironed out. Something tells me we may see some of the advantages we see now tamped or toned down over time as feedback is taken into account and compromises made in future updates. Yet, by then, it’s initial impression of taking depth up a new notch will be cemented in the minds of many.

I’ve had the V3 and the V3i. I saw no difference in depth, only ground tracking. It was slowed down in the V3i to give a more stable ID, but apparently went to far and it doesn’t keep up with rapidly changing ground the way Vision and V3 do. This is an issue that won’t affect most inland soil, or uniform ground hunters. In fact, for inland fairly uniform soil you should benefit from the more stable ID. I still love my V3i and still use it despite having all the other top of the line machines. The V3i and CTX are still the best cherry picker discriminators ever made. And yes, invest in the Detech Ultimate 13. It will transform the machine

Crazy isn’t it. I’ve seen them go as high as $400. I’m glad I have mine and my spare.

XP will be soon releasing a new black all plastic dive shaft to help hide the unseemly antenna. I do wish the antenna was also black, but this new configuration which tucks most of the antenna inside the shaft is a big a aesthetic improvement. It’s funny that just a week ago Gigmaster DIYed a similar configuration on his own.

I should clarify that there are some Bounty Hunters, maybe a Whites Classic, and a Tesoro or two that can nail Montes nail board test and outperform Deus/ORX for shallow commingled items, but when it comes to machines with fringe depth capability nobody has been able to replicate Deus iron performance. It makes me wonder why that is. They must’ve tried, but it just hasn’t happened. It seems anything capable of hitting fringe targets has to make trade offs the Deus doesn’t. It appears from early testing even Legend will not be able to match or exceed this XP standard.

Accurate, or damage control? You decide

Perhaps we define it differently, as I’m not suggesting they are redesigning the machine from scratch in any sense, but I would call recalling all the units from testers going back to the drawing board. When it comes to moves like this, you have to go more by what they do than what they say. They obviously were not happy with something that necessitated recalling not just the software, but the whole kit, and things are now an open question again, even after todays dubious video update.

To me, it depends on a couple factors. One is how happy you are with the TRX, and the other is how much disposable income you have for another pinpointer. I plan to buy a Deus 2. I have 2 TRXs, 1 Tek-Point, 1 PulseDive, and even a GP Pointer, but when I pull the trigger on the Deus 2 I’m also going to invest in a Mi6 because I want the integration. By itself the Mi6 doesn’t seem to have as much range as the TRX. Only when it’s integrated with the extra sensitivity provided by the Deus, but I’ve also heard users say the extra sensitivity is unusable under most circumstances as it causes falsing and overload.

Are there any advantages to running a sequential multifrequency vs. strictly simultaneous? It might even be interesting to see if the two approaches could be integrated into one machine. Is it true DFX was leased from Minelab as well?

Air Metal Detectors was nearly there, then dropped the ball with a machine that can barely keep up with a Bounty Hunter Tracker 4. They seem to be back to the drawing board now as well.

Well, if nothing else comes along this year, the Deus 2 is generating a lot of excitement around the incremental advances they’ve made in multifrequency performance. I’ll refrain from using hyperbole like “it blows everything else out of the water,” but credit where credit is due, Deus 2 did find some magic somehow, with many measurable advantages. It has me considering selling my equinox at this point, and I didn’t think that would happen until Minelab came along with gen 2 multi-iq. Now hopefully, Nokta Makro going back to the drawing board on the Legend means they will try to match Deus 2 performance. That would be nice if they could do it. I’m surprised to see the Etrac discontinued. I wonder if we might see a price drop on the CTX anytime soon. I have mine, but for others.

Simplex is well built, wireless, waterproof, rechargeable and compact. Definitely keeping that for my backup and shallow fresh water machine. I bought it for $200 WHP not too long ago.

What do you think of it compared to the Simplex? That’s my backup/loaner at this point. Other than Deus 2 I’m probably not looking to keep anything new.

I just didn’t have the heart to ask him to take less. I figured that in asking $225 he probably really only wanted $200, but I just went with well enough on this one. I especially didn’t want to let the TRX get away. Ever since Whites went out of business I wished I had bought an extra. Now I have one if anything happens to my original.

After I bought it I remembered that I had a non-Vrated Super 12” concentric I had mistakenly bought for my V3i. I checked the 9” Spider that came stock on the MX5 and it’s V-rated, so I’ll be keeping that for the V3i and I mounted the Super 12 on the MX5. I must say I’m very impressed with preliminary air tests with either coil on the MX5. It’s a beast. I had no idea So I got an extra or backup Bullseye TRX, a 50” gold sluice, and 9” concentric for my V3i out of it. Come spring I’ll make all or more than I paid back out of the rest.

I’m always combing through the buy, sell, trade mediums to find great deals on machines and gear. Releases like the Simplex and Vanquish have really placed a new ceiling on the value of older equipment. Still, I thought this was a good deal. Whites MX5 Metal Detector Whites Bullseye TRX Keene 50” gold sluice box Garret gold pan and classifier assorted diggers Beach scoop (mid end) $225 I went ahead and bought the lot so I could keep the bullseye Trx and gold sluice. The rest will be sold later in the year.

XP has a good strategy in putting the Deus 2 out there early in some users hands. Seeing what it can do seems to have had a very positive outcome and it’s not uncommon to find comments in the threads where demonstrations have given interested people the impetus to go ahead and preorder, with some even cancelling their Legend preorder and deciding to spend that extra $1,000. I’m closer to purchase of a Deus 2 than I’ve ever been myself, but there are still a few more tests I’d like to see and I’d like to see what the Legend looks like sooner rather than later. So far I’ve not seen anything out of Legend that inspires the kind of confidence and readiness for prime time coming out of the XP camp. XP seems proud as a peacock of what they’ve done here and content to let it speak for itself even in some hands that would’ve torn it to shreds had it not been up to par.

It doesn’t seem factory presets are leaving much depth on the table either, but I’d be curious to see what those last few levels do for depth in a low EMI environment too. I know the main competitor is determined and heavily focused on EMI handling in their next model, which is a good game plan. Deus 2 seems to handle EMI a little better at this point.

Deus 2 definitely comes hot out of the box and it seems a lot of thought went into presets here, but there are likely going to be situations where it’ll need to be toned down, which is usually not the case. Most machines leave a bit on the table for the stake of stability. XP must be pretty confident that this machine can be run on the razors edge in a wide range of environments though. I think Reactivity will also remain one for the tweakers, having such obvious impact on depth and separation. Notch and audio preferences also vary quite a bit among us and from environment to environment. It is a nice feature to be able to eliminate common pests like bottlecaps at the press of a button and I’d like to see more target specific disc features like that.

I’m just getting around to reading all this now. I don’t see it as hijacking at all. I appreciate your information. It’s an interesting new gadget for sure.