palzynski

In fact this is what I was going to answer to Steve , If I had to use a single freq on a given area containing bricks , hot rocks , ferrrous I would switch to my Deus HF , because of its very efficient audio on such difficult areas . Yes I agree with Steves "For me the single frequencies are more useful for what they do not detect than what they detect". Using an Equinox at 5khz will probably be interesting for searching big targets ( cache Hunting for example ) , because it éliminates small undesirable targets .

Ok you use monofreq for gold prospecting and prevent EMI . Btw on a big coin at 11inches depth on my test box I have noticed that the Equinox 5khz freq is a little better than Multi . But I prefer to use the Equinox Multi on the field because I do not want to miss small targets like a small hammered coin even if I am rather looking for medium/big coins in a given area . I am not a gold propector and usually few EMI where I go , so always on Multi . One of the reasons why I like the Vanquish because I do not really need this single freq feature ...

I always use the Multi mode on my Equinox to benefit of the advantages of both high and low freq at the same time.. I very rarely use the single freq mode .. Why do you use the monofreq on your Equinox ? I am quite curious on this thanks .. Otherwise you are right we will have a better idea of the APex ergonomy after having tried it on the field .. BTW I have just looked the Garret Apex official video today . Very nice video , very clear , they have done a great job with this video. I like the Apex audio which looks to be more stable and silent between targets than the MLs Equinox and Vanquish . To be confirmed on the field ...

Actually I prefer the 540 buttons ergonomy . There are more buttons on the 540 , 10 instead of 8 for the Apex , with more space between them. On the Vanquish I very frequently use the All Metal and the Backlight direct access buttons . What about this with the Apex ? Do you have to go in the Menu to activate them ? Could be a little complex …

The XPs Deus and ORx are still at the top concerning the weight , some figures below . However Garrett has done a great effort concerning the "sweeping ergonomy" with the Apex , thanks to them … Xp Orx 800g Xp Deus 900g Garrett Apex 1130g ( to be confirmed ) ML Vanquish 340 440 V10 1200g ML Vanquish 540 V12 1300g ML Equinox 600/800 11' 1300g Nokta Simplex+ 1400g Teknetics T2 1550g ML CTX3030 2360g

Yes Garrett did a good job , the Apex weights around 1,1kg . They saved weight by using a thin control box with a li/ion battery well done … Still a little heavier than a Deus/Orx but very good … However the Apex shaft is outdated from what I can see , not collapsible, Strange that they did not propose something really new on this ... Concerning the electronics only the field tests will tell the truth , but it looks like a very interesting machine for sure ...

No unfortunately this field is not full of gold coins …🙂 Mainly small little and often corroded bronze coins so not worth the effort digging everything including the ferrous … Never found a gold coin here but probably there are a few remaining , it is just a matter of chance...

Depends where you are … Around here there are areas where there are several thousands of nails coming from very old collapsed houses roofs. Ferrous beep all the time in all metal mode … PI are unusable over here . I have tried a GPX4500 in the 2000s , you become crazy with a PI over here ...🙂 … Quickly sent back the GPX to the shop …. Just to clarify this , I will do measurements this summer on an high iron trashed area that I know very well , however not yet available because cultivated at the moment . It is a large field , around 500 yards X 200 yards , will nails and remaining good targets almost evrywhere in the field .. I will pick up a cubic foot of ground , then will extract the ferrous from the ground and count them one by one. A good way to have a good idea of the ferrous density in the soil . It has been a long time I wanted to do this very simple test ...

I have just seen your video. Clearly I agree no detector will locate a coin buried at depth just under a nail. This because as you said the shallow nail signal is much stronger than the deep coin signal. But on the other hand ,if you have like over here very small shallow coins surrounded by nails , and if the nails are a little away from the little coin, a very reactive high freq machine like a Deus HF set at 30khz or a tesoro Lobo at 18khz may give a good signal. Low freq machines at 5khz will for sure miss this coin. If you look at the history of the detectors , in the 80/90s they were rather running at low freqs like 5khz for the Fisher F65X. And later the manufacturers/users realized that using high freq increases the ability of a machine to find small shallow targets among little ferrous. In France I remember that it was the Tesoro Lobo ( called Redoutable over here) at the end of the 90s which started this high freq little revolution with its miracle 18khz frequency ... So yes we all miss good coins due to iron masking . However in open fields the ground is regularly changing due to the agricultural tasks, so you will perhaps find this year a coin that you have missed up to now because its surrounding ferrous have moved a little bit away ...

Hi , I have just seen your post today . Actually I have a Deus since several years now, I have a WS4 plus a 9inches white HF coil, however I only use it for coins on low/medium mineralized soil. If you are on high mineralized soil , may be you will have to ground balance the Deus using the remote controller. BTW the nr3 program is DEUS FAST and not HOT as indicated by Jeff , perhaps a mistake , HOT is nr 9. Over here everybody uses the mode nr 3 DEUS FAST because it is the most reactive and efficient on the field , but again you have perhaps a very specific situation the rc will show you the mineralization degree of your soil ... Otherwise the Deus is a very good coin hunter and it excels on small coins that you are describing , it has been designed for this actually. But you have to know how to use it , for example the running frequencies are very important . I agree with Jeff a medium sized coil like the 22HF would be more accurate and more sensible to small targets than the quite big 28cm X35. However I do not know exactly your detecting conditions , level of ground mineralization , level of iron trash so perhaps I am not the good guy to answer to this ...🙂

Another very positive post about the V8 coil below from Monte . It looks like everybody agrees on the fact that the Vanquish V8 is a very good coil … btw at this moment most of my test areas are not available ( open fields ) , they will be available this summer when they will be ploughed , so then I will have an exact idea of the V8 performance compared to my Deus HF . However from the few tests that I have already done with the V8 I have the feeling that the Deus HF will still have the edge on ultra iron trashed soils , future will tell ... ………………...…......………......…………………... Having 2 of the Vanquish 540's …. The other, and most-used, V-540 keeps the excellent 5X8 DD coil attached ….. ............................................................... The thread :

Yes when I received my Vanquish 540 I had a concern about its audio I did not want to relearn a new machine because I already have 2 different ones with different audios, a Deus and an Equinox 800. After a few minutes detecting on the terrain I realized that the Vanquish audio is almost a 'cut and paste' of the Equinox audio , so I saved a lot of time , cool ...

Yes actually I prefer the Goldmaxx audio to the Deus audio, the Deus is a little more "numeric" , or there are more harmonics in the Goldmaxx audio I dont know actually… But the thing is when you are used to detecting with a wireless like the Deus it is very difficult to get back to a "wired" detector . When I connect the coil cable on my Vanquish I have at each time the feeling to get back to the prehistoric ages ... 🙂 Hopefully the Vanquish electronics are not dating from the prehistoric ages … 🙂 Yes the hipmount option is a very good idea , but for fields only .. In woods/forests the cable hangs on the branches .. Very unpleasant

My advice is not to invest in a gmaxx or a goldmaxx , adventis , or adx200. I know very well these machines but actually they are outdated compared to a Deus or an Orx . For example they work with 8 AA batteries not a very reliable thing due to the number of contacts ( 16 instead of 2 for a lithium ). In addition those machines are quite heavy around 1,5kg . They are also monofreq the Goldmaxx 18khz , the Gmaxx 5khz , so forget small targets with a Gmaxx … While the Deux/Orx are multifreq ( switchable manually ) from 5 to 50khz depending on the coil models. There are also gold modes on the Deus / Orx , briefly a Deus is much more sophisticated than a Goldmaxx … On the Deus you have 10 modes and 2 of them emulates previous models the Goldmaxx and Gmaxx. But people usually uses the 3rd mode called "Deus fast" because it is faster than the Goldmaxx mode so more reactive on iron trashed areas .Btw I am wondering why XPs continues to produce the Goldmaxx and Gmaxx models , very few people still use them around here .. The Deus / Orx is not really a revolution in terms of audio, to make it simple it is just a "micro goldmaxx" . The Deus reuses the Goldmaxx /Gmaxx electronics basics physically reduced to a minimum , the cables have been suppressed, lithium alim replaced AAs and so on ... Briefly a lot of things have been improved on the Deus vs the previous models. The Deus/Orxx audio is very similar to the Goldmaxx, sounds as simple as a Tesoro actually . But the thing that makes the success of the Deus is the weight at around 850grams . The Orx is even lighter at 750grams ! With such features , ultra light and excellent electronics it is not surprising that this machine has a great success over the world .. The Deus starts at 700e with the "Deus Lite" you have a coil and shaft , plus Wireless headphones , the settings buttons are located on the side of the headphones . It is what I am using since a few years now ( 2013 ) , very simple and efficient ... The Orx starts at 700e , a very interesting machine because it is simpler than the Deus with only 4 modes , coin deep , coin fast and 2 gold modes.

Yes I will test detectors designed for better separation , because 90/100 of the areas that people detect over here contain ferrous. . So a machine that has poor separation has no interest for us … And this one of the reasons why the Deus is a standard here … Low mineralized soil over here . Actually I do not know the detecting conditions in Slovakia , perhaps the soil is more mineralized than here ... Actually I think that a good test procedure would be the following : 1) static depth test on ground boxes 2) static separation test ( board test or ground+nails box ? ) 3) field test on clean and iron trashed areas This for a given type of ground , say low mineralized . If you have both soils , low and high mineralized you have to duplicate the tests , it becomes quite complex ..; Hopefully we only have low/moderate mineralized soils over here in the North of France, so hopefully I do not really bother with mineralized situations 🙂 ...

I have also the 9inches hf coil on my Deus , actually it works exactly the same on the Orx , just you have less features on the Orx , like just 3 tones on the Orx as already been said. ( I have done a full test the Orx a year ago for a shop here in France ) . My settings ( coin hunting , mild ground ) for the Orx : - Low iron trashed area: coin fast , 14khz - High iron trashed area : coin fast , 30khz ( will be more sensible to small targets with this freq ) I use very rarely the 50khz freq for coins because of the depth loss . I just noticed that you can can pick very small targets with this freq , so probably interesting for gold nuggets I do not know. Actually you have made a good choice , the 9inches HF coil is probably the best coil I have seen from XP since I have been using their machines ( the 1st one was the Goldmaxx in 2007 ) ...

I will just give you an example of why the static tests are very interesting , but will never replace "real world" field tests. Once I was testing a new mode of the Deus called "DEEP" . So first as usual I did a static depth test on my test boxes and the Deus was really impressive with this "DEEP" mode , it was picking the coins incredibly at depth , far better than the other Deus modes and other detectors , it was amazing .... So I was really happy with that and I went detecting on the field. I went to one of my favorites test sites. Believe me or not , I just tried this DEEP mode a few minutes , because it was catastrophic and unusable on the field, far too noisy and unstable… However in this case the static tests had been excellent ... btw I suppose that this DEEP mode can be used in only very specific situations , no iron at all , low mineralization , I do not know actually , I never tried this mode again ...🙂 So for me testing a detector is 2 parts : static and field tests, and I have a little theory on this , which works quite well I think :. 1) If the static tests are ok , then you have a good chance that the detector will be ok on the field , but it is not a guarantee 2 ) if the static tests fail , then you can be sure that the detector will fail on the field. For example if I have poor depth perfos on my test boxes , I am sure that the detector will not go deeper on the field, no miracle …. So to conclude these static tests help a lot to try different settings of a machine , but again they are not a guarantee . There are other parameters involved when you are moving with a detector on the field , the ground is changing , the ferrous are never the same .All these things cannot be seen on static tests I think … BTW I will look at the polish test videos when I have a few minutes ..

I have a Deus HF ( white coil ). It is the perfect machine to me for iron trashed areas, as long as you know how to use it , because there are 10 modes availables then it is a little complex. So you must know the right mode to use, and choose the right frequency. Actually the mode that everybody uses over here is the 3rd mode called "Deus Fast" . Then the only setting to change on the field is the frequency , 14khz on low iron trashed areas, 30khz on high iron trashed areas . Also the Deus like other machines has its specific audio so it takes a little time to learn it. But I would rather recommend the XP Orx because it is newer , simpler , cheaper at 700e , and offers exactly the same performances as the Deus, with the excellent 9inches white HF coil. Concerning the CTX actually I have never tried this machine , definitely too heavy for me , even with a harness ... An Orx weights 750grams , a CTX weights 2,36kg … So no discussion on the ergonomy I think ..🙂 BTW I just saw that you have a T2 . On some T2 versions ( called T2 UPG here ) there is a "FA" mode which is excellent on iron trashed areas , even if monotone . Works very well...

Actually around here we are very often looking for small shallow coins among ferrous , this is very specific to European sites I am quite sure you dont have such situations in NZ or in the US .So this is why I think that those nail board tests are interesting, so I will try to investigate on this ... Will look your video later thx

Yes but with the ElNino board test the nails are adjacent to the coin , so it is not exactly the situation that your are describing ( a 3D situation with a nail above a coin ), so the results are different which is quite logical... I prefer to go to a "real world" ( on the field ) to evaluate a detector iron trash separation ability. I have a lot of test areas that I know very difficult for detectors , a garden near a house can be a good place , and it just take a few minutes to me to see the differences between machines on such areas. So again for the Vanquish 540 V8 it is very good but not as excellent as a Deus/Orx , this is just my opinion. And the Vanquish is more affordable than the Deus/Orx , you cannot have "the butter and the money for the butter" as we say over here ...🙂 BTW I never did 2D board separation tests up to now . Just done depth tests with boxes, which are very interesting and help me a lot to evaluate and adjust detectors settings .. But as soon as I have a little time I will try to make a nail board test and see how it goes...

Nice test again , so you confirm that the Tesoro Mojave is the best of this test , with a perfect score silver 8/8 and nickel 8/8 ? One more thing ( that cannot be seen on static separation tests , but rather on the field ): I found the Vanquish V8 noisy on iron trashed areas compared to my Deus HF , probably because of a lack of small irons filtering by the Vanquish electronics . Have you planned to do field tests with your 340 V8 ? I would be interested to have your opinion on this because I think that the Mojave 6inches will do better than the Vanquish V8 on the field. Actually I have the same pb ( noisy audio on iron trashed areas ) with the Equinox 6inches , however with the Equinox this can be improved using a high iron bias level at 6 , 7 . On the other hand I have just been detecting a few hours with my 540 V8 , so perhaps I will find a better setting in the future… And anyway even it is not perfect , this V8 works very well , far better than the V12 in iron trashed areas and thats the most important … And my V12 is dedicated for searching coins in clean areas ...

Nice test El Nino … BTW did you compare the 340/ V8 with your Tesoro /6inches coil on this separation test ?

Previously I used a smaller spade , brand Black Ada ,made in Great Britain if I remember well. Very robust . You cannot dig as deep as the Fiskars does but it is more compact . Definitely a very nice tool .. Below the pic with both spades so that you can have an idea of the size .. BTW yes congrats for your French find … 🙂

Actually I never detect in schoolyards or parks , only in ploughed fields or woods , always with a permission. In such open fields using a big spade does not really matter as the farmers use several tons tractors for cultivation ... However I always refill my holes , even in ploughed fields … I would not detect in a schoolyard or a park because it is usually not allowed over here. This is why some detector function names like Park , Park1 , Park2 look a little weird over here … 🙂

I have been using this V8 coil around 8 hours now with my Vanquish 540. My 540 fitted with the V8 coil , plus a lower carbon shaft , plus 4 ultra light lithium AA batteries , weights only 1075grams ... see pic below. This makes a big difference with the V12 coil and it is a pleasure to sweep the Vanquish with this V8 coil ... I confirm that the V8 is much better than the V12 on iron trashed areas , very easy to pinpoint no pinpointer needed , can detect very small targets like small hammered coins , good surface coverage. However if you compare the Vanquish V8 with a Tesoro fitted with a 6inches coil like above , I think that the Tesoro will probably win the match because more reactive than the Vanquish. The Vanquish to me is rather an "all purpose" detector which is very good in almost all the cases , but some other specialized detectors might be better in certain situations . Looking forward for the results of your tests ...