Daniel Tn

Sure, other companies have put out newer models onto the market.  But it seems like we've went backwards instead of forwards. 4 AA batteries in a T2 will last 40 hours of use.  Detectors today won't last 8 hours with their internal batteries.  They are supposed to have more power which increases battery consumption but that's not translating into more depth/performance. In fact, put a 11" size round coil on a T2 like these newer machines have on them and do some comparisons.  The biggest advantage the others have is: waterproof?  That's only for situational hunting; not everybody hunts in the rain or water.  The other might be SMF but that really only shines in salt environments.  It would be nice to see some signs of life from them but hey, what they came out with in 2007/2008 is still hard to beat.

Nokta has always been quick to come out with new model machines. You could say, this is one of the negative things about them.  The Simplex+ hasn't been out all that long and now it is being replaced with new hardware, etc. For dealers, that means they have Simplex+ machines they will have to practically give away and customers that might have the Simplex+, will also be hit with low resale value.  Especially if Nokta comes out swinging with even lower prices on the new units to combat the XTerra Pro.  

I've not had any other NEL coil besides the Tornado.  The SuperFly is much thinner and lighter than it for sure. On my T2, it air tests a minie at 18 inches in all metal BP mode activated, and 16ish inches with regular all metal. In ground, in my 2 bar dirt at home, I don't have anything buried in my test garden that is beyond what it can hit and also correctly ID.  I like this coil size because now days, every detector out there is coming standard with the same size coil and that makes it easy to do comparisons.  The dirt I found the dropped minie in (in the picture) was NOT 2 bar dirt.  It was actually 4 bars and creeping into the real hot dirt zone.  The Manticore and Deus 2 were very chirpy there and I had to back them off to get them to smooth out. Same with the T2...but at 70 sensitivity, I was still digging stuff deeper than my pinpointer is long. The dirt there has been "turned" or back filled in some spots.  I got a sweet 70s signal that was right at 12 inches down and pinpointing right in the bottom of the hole. I would have bet $100 it was going to be a deep minie ball.  Nope. Screw cap to a liquor bottle.  😄 

I'm fixin' to go hit a spot on our property that my dad cleared out with his Bobcat.  I noticed he kicked up old brick and blue feather rim china in an area clearing out scrub brush and stuff. The little 8x6 SEF is about to get a work out...and maybe the 5" round coil too.  

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

You're not it's target market 🙂

It towers over the machines in it's price range I think.

 

You better edit that.  The Nokta lady will go ballistic on ya for speculation without having an X-Terra and Simplex 2.0 in hand to compare.  

That Iffy Signals video made me say "nope".  

3 hours ago, BigSkyGuy said:

I have a permission for a field which contains cattle during most of the year, but is flood irrigated at times. When the ground is dry my detectors work well, but during times when the field is partially flooded I need to use Beach mode on the Equinox, otherwise, the chatter is unbearable. I attribute this to cow urine, leaching from salt licks, fertilizer, evaporation of standing water following flooding, or all of the above.

Same here.  100+ head of cattle in the same fields for 100+ years definitely has an impact on it. Just look at the ground where their hay rings are and such. One local farmer has ran Jersey cows his whole life.  He owns 1200ish acres and is 83 years old...his daddy did the same thing on the same farm and so did his dad.  Those fields are some of the hardest to detect of anywhere I go locally.

Super Fly feels balanced to me.  I also have the DeTech SEF 8x6 but I thought it felt heavy for its size.  All I know is...after putting it on the measuring stick, I was all smiles. Whoo-doggies!!

On 3/4/2023 at 11:06 PM, phrunt said:

I am pretty sure I'd rather a X-Terra Pro for the incredible price that it is than a far more expensive detector like a F75 Ver 5 LTD Turbo Max Power Camo 2023 Special Anniversary Nitro Edition and it's a fraction of the price.

 

The F75/T2 is still one of the best platforms on the market.  Without getting into pulse machines, there's nothing I've found that is deeper.  It all still comes down to what you look for the most when you hunt and selecting the best tool for the job.  For deep coins and relics in the US...especially in bad soil...you're not going to find a machine to beat that F75/T2 platform without getting into pulse machines.

As far as the XTerra.  I would hope the selectable single freqs work better than other machines with the same offering.  I've always found the selectable freq machines to be lacking when compared to the straight forward single freq machines of the same kHz.  The Simplex machines will already have the market in that arena due to already having coil options for everybody's liking.  

Yes, that is the Super Fly coil.  

Well it likes dropped minies.

Got home and just put the T2 on the measuring board.  Moment of truth....motion all metal. 95 sens. .58 cal minie ball = 14.5 inches loud and clear.  If you wanted to go by just a consistent whisper, you could say 15 inches.   This is on par with my buddies pre DST unit.  If I put that bad boy in BP mode and flip over to all metal mode, it gets it at 16 inches and a very nice bass thump at 14-15.  Very impressed and happy with that.  That's how it should be.  

Chase -- My first few trips to Culpeper was with the F75. I can tell ya...nothing is going to read right.  Almost every target I dug had an iron ID.  Seemed like the numbers were 11s and 13s most of the time.  I dug a breast plate just 10 inches or so deep...total iron signal til it was out of the hole.  I think I had 80 something dropped and carved bullets, 20 or so buttons, a plate, and other odds and ends like j hooks, bayonet scabbards, etc on my first hunt up there with it.  But...my buddy had a TDI and he came over to the little spot I had found and was pulling stuff left and right after I had pounded it for 2.5 days with the F75.  I had a TDI by the next hunt lol. That was my intro to pulse vs vlf.  The next hunt there (Coles Hill) I went back to that little camp to get leftovers and never left it for 3 days. I pulled over 100 minies out of it, close to 50 buttons, and another breast plate.  I never got to hunt there with a GPX.  

Chase -- Are you referring to the newer 12" weird looking coil by Fisher?  I have one for the F75 you can borrow if you don't have one. No sense in paying $200 just to try one. I did not notice any real difference in depth over the stock coil but it certainly is lighter weight. I ordered the Super Fly coil for the T2 last night.  I really liked those machines paired with the DeTech Ultimate 13 coil...but that Super Fly looked bad to the bone.  

The F75 I have is just a standard one with DST.  It doesn't have boost or cache processes.  It is quiet in both 9.0 and 9.1 all the way to 99 sens.  The older F75s seem to have an amplified/boosted audio signal in all metal.  The hits are much more of a "thump". But you'd never get one of those to 99 sens without it going crazy.  Fortunately all you needed was 70-80 and that is better than what this newer one does at 99.  Minie balls are 1/2 oz lead, .577 in diameter.  They ring up between a round pull tab and zinc cent on most ID machines.  

I received a black T2 that I traded for today and just got about 15 mins to play with it before work.  When I saw the box, I died a little inside.  There on the box was the logo showing it is a DST model.  Ughhh.  Oh well.  I put it together and ran outside for a quick check.  To my surprise this unit gets chatty at about 95.  No bad but a little bit.  The biggest surprise was the all metal thump is there on this one!  This one behaves much closer to the older models.  I've not put it on a ruler yet but all I really needed to see (or hear) was that it successfully grabbed every target in my test area and did it rather well.  Even in disc mode I was getting a 10" dime with correct ID. Dirt at my house is just 2 bars though.  I'm tikled with that result.  This T2 does have BP mode but I didn't even try it. I'm definitely keeping this one and sending the F75 down the road.  

As deep as possible.  Remember...9 or 10 inches in the air does not equate to the same in the ground. It will be a lot less, especially in mineralized ground. My Buddy's non neutered F75 can detect every signal in my test garden and even IDs the deepest one correct.  My neutered F75 doesn't make a peep on 3 of the same targets. It wouldn't be any different "in the wild" either.  

Yes, that is correct.  On this F75, 9.0 seems to be OFF and 9.1 is ON.  I say that because 9.1 is even weaker.  You lose about another 1.5 to 2 inches from 9.0 to 9.1.  Despite it supposed to be "off" there is still something going on behind the scenes.  Yes, that is also comparing the two with the stock coils.  We even tried swapping coils to see if maybe the coils had something to do with it....didn't matter.

Something I had forgotten about since last having an F75:  the newer DST model F75s have been neutered from what made them great.  They have a VERY weak all metal mode now.  To get a good one, you'll have to find one that hasn't been updated and is a non DST model.  Just an example for you...the F75 I recently traded for is a DST model. With it at 99 sensitivity, it will only AIR TEST a .58 cal Minie ball out to 9.5-10 inches in all metal.  And you have to really be listening to hear it. By comparison, we tested my buddys original non updated F75 on the same minie ball and his unit sounds like it has an audio boost enabled in all metal and is much more powerful.  We couldn't get his to 99 sens due to chatter but with it on 80, it was calm and could detect that minie out to 14 inches.  Yes, that's a 4 inch difference.  Whereas the newer one was weak and barely hearable at 10 inches...his was a "no doubt about it" signal at 10...very pronounced.  We could actually turn his sensitivity down to 60 and 70 and still get better distance than the neutered F75 at 99 sens.  I traded a CZ70 Pro with George here on the forum for a T2. I'm hoping like crazy that it's a non DST model lol. Or at least isn't as badly neutered as the F75 I have.  

I certainly am guilty of buying the latest things out.  I guess my quest is more to find the best "jack of all trades" machine out there.  The problem for me has been, these multi task machines still fall short of the solo detector kings...the ones that may only do one thing REALLY well, but nothing else can beat it for that purpose. For me, I relic hunt and freshwater beach hunt, and maybe once a year, I will saltwater beach hunt.  I'm right back to the F75/T2 myself.  For hunting fields and woods...hard to find one to beat them!  The beach scenarios...are not the F75/T2 Forte and will require a machine better at those tasks.  

Edit:  The DST models SUCK.  The F75 I traded the ammo for...well I would rather have the ammo back.  My understanding was the DST could be turned on or off.  Well it can...but it's NOTHING like the original F75s without it.  They've neutered it so bad it's not worth having now.  

On 2/21/2023 at 4:28 PM, Keith Southern said:

Good report Daniel..

Now you know why about a month ago On Toms forum I said if i could only have one machine it would be a T2. No Boost mode either a classic model😉

People were like ???? but you got to know what ya know at the end of the day.

Keith

 

 

Keith,

I was trying to buy my buddies T2 while we were hunting but he wouldn't part ways with it. Luckily, one of my other buddies said he had a new in the box F75 he'd part with. He wanted $400 for it but I traded him some 5.56mm ammo for it and so now I have a F75.  Even though the T2 and F75 are similar...I always favored the T2 for some reason BUT for a few boxes of ammo in trading even, I will gladly take the F75.  The very first thing I did after getting it was order the Fisher 5x10" DD coil. After my Arkansas fishing trip, I will start saving for an Axiom and between the Axiom and F75, I should have all my local hunting covered. The only wild card would be not having a water machine for the beach.  For that I will probably buy a Manticore again when they become more available down the road.  

I have a guided trout fishing trip coming up in March. After I get back from that, I'll start squirreling away $ for either a used GPX or new Axiom. Heck at this point I'm thinking I'll just go for the Axiom since that gets me away from a harness and battery. Those Diggin in Virginia guys usually unload machines after a hunt and they have one coming up next month.  I think it and a machine like the T2 would handle nearly 98% of all the hunting I would do.  Of course if you've followed my posts for any length of time, you know I am like a revolving door with hobbies.  I don't ever keep anything for very long, in order to fund new adventures. And fishing is always my #1 hobby. I'm just seasonal when it comes to detecting. 

I think the Axiom may be my next machine.  I've ran the GPXs from the 4000 thru 5000 but hate being tethered to the darn thing.  I've seen a few videos of folks relic hunting in the red dirt like I have here and doing well.  I don't have to have 100% GPX performance...I think any pulse is better than the VLFs in bad soil so I will still be winning.  I just wish they were a little cheaper priced or at least let a man choose the coils.  I'd rather have the two DD coils vs a DD and mono. I have a while to ponder on it.  

32 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Great report Daniel, thanks. I have just two comments to clarify a couple things for people who only hunt lower mineral conditions.

This is what I saw with Equinox and was why early on I recommended not using real low recovery speeds in bad ground. This conflicted with advice coming from the low mineral camp to run very low recovery speeds. That’s fine in moderate soils. In extreme ground, it will cost you. Why? Hunting extreme ground is like hunting a bed of nails. Too low reactivity lets the ground mask everything while faster recovery speeds or reactivity allows for better see through capability. But too high is not good either of course. To quote myself from 2018 “Lower settings = more depth and faster settings = less depth is totally wrong unless you detect in the air.” 

Long story short very low recovery speed or reactivity can hurt depth in very high mineral ground and/or hot rock situations due to ground and hot rock masking.

It should be obvious that large coils “see” more ground. In extreme ground and on a single target, increasing the coil size increases the amount of ground the detector has to deal with, while the target size remains the same. The ground in these cases is an undesirable target, and you are making the ratio between the desired target (bullet or gold nugget) and the undesired target (ground and hot rocks) worse by using a larger coil. This leads to the counterintuitive situation where in the worst ground, going to a smaller coil will actually increase target definition and perceived depth over the larger coils. Large coils may actually overload and lose all ability to detect at all, unless transmit power can be reduced, which effectively reduces depth, but allows the detector to function. The Equinox Beach 2 mode does this automatically and despite the name is a fallback mode for extreme ground of any sort.

And so long story short again, stick with stock coils or go to smaller coils in extreme ground. Larger coils may not only not add depth, but can actually lose depth in the worst ground!

So I wasn't loopy?! Haha I figure somebody that's not hunted bad dirt would have a hard time believing my post.  Thanks for the reinforcement!  

Yes the bashing is horrid on the Facebook groups.  I answered a question last night regarding the D2 and Manticore.  All I said was that IMO, the two compliment one another but if I had to choose only one, it would be the D2.  The amount of hate that comment brought on was astonishing.