Calmark

Thanks everyone! Definitely a big one on my bucket list complete. I have the 1oz+ nugget and the gold coin goals completed now, and just the diamond ring remains! Those of us like me that live in the western USA have the advantage in better odds for finding gold coins, not to mention natural gold nuggets, but I do envy you guys in the East, Europe, etc. who uncover really old coins and relics on a usual basis. I'm lucky if I hit a 100 year-old coin where I live, but am fortunate to have better chances at the gold in the form of coins or nuggets at least. Here are some close-ups after a light rinse. P. S. Keep digging those pull tab signals. Most any modern detector could have found this coin. You just never know!

I finally did it, I found a gold coin a few hours ago today while detecting a grassy area with my XP Deus 2 not too far distant from where people traveled by train in years past. I was using the P4 Fast program at the time but had used P1 General earlier in the day. This place has seen use for at least 100 years and has a mix of old iron like square nails, some more modern iron, and lots of modern aluminum junk to wade through. I've been slowly going through this place digging a lot of pulltab and zinc penny range signals in the hopes of scoring some gold jewelry. The coin rang up at a solid "71" ID# and was about 3 inches deep and sounded loud in the square tones audio. Thank goodness I didn't scratch it as I cut a shallow plug! I feel fortunate to have recovered this $2.50 gold piece, as I know some of you have searched for far more years and put in a lot more effort overall than I have and not scored one yet. It "only" took me 28 years of detecting, but it finally happened. Good luck to you all and happy hunting!

I wonder if changing salt settings on both the Deus 2 and Legend in their beach modes would have any success in that soil? Something to possibly experiment with if anybody is out in Nevada in those conditions again.

Even though some of the new features are ones I've thought XP should add and they did, I think I've chickened out for now getting the v0.7. My current version is working well enough that I'll wait until the issues with v0.7 are solved.

My unit came 3 weeks ago with the January v0.6 on it. I guess I could upgrade to the v0.7 now to try it out and revert back to what I'm used to if there are problems.

I saw this video yesterday and decided, despite the new features added, if ID in certain tones is off, its best to wait until that issue gets straightened out for me to get the v0.7 installed. Two steps forward, 1 step back. Still, XP is making progress overall. Work out these tone issues and things should look generally good overall.

It looks like the v0.7 update released today matures the D2 by quite a lot. Goodbye "00" id hot rocks signaling while out prospecting, a real prospecting/relic threshold and perhaps less iron target falsing like I saw using DeepHC program. Those are areas that needed improvement from what I noticed in my few weeks with the D2 and are welcome changes along with the long list of other tweaks. Exciting times for D2 users.

I don't know who to attribute the following quote to, but I bet most people have heard it or a variation: "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight". I willingly took my Deus 2, the "knife" out to a seriously difficult spot to try out nugget hunting last week, even though I knew conditions called for the use of a pulse-induction machine. I took the situation as a challenge and opportunity to learn about the prospecting side of the Deus 2. My dad with his ML GPX 5000 and me equipped with my ML GPX 6000 and new Deus 2 and the 9 inch coil hiked into a spot we've found good gold before. Its a place that gives PI detectors issues with how hot the soil is, and doubly so when its wet. Even being fairly dry for this time of year, as I suspected, the Deus 2 was pretty much shut down by how hot the dirt is there. Its a red color, so loaded with iron-type minerals. I set up the Deus 2 in Prospecting Program, but I wasn't able to quiet it enough to get it ground balanced and lowering the coil sounded off on the ground. The ground level graph confirmed full bars mineralization level. This is a great Deus 2 feature, by the way. My dad jumped at the chance to use my GPX 6000 to locate some signals for me to cross-check. Other than a blaring loud signal the Deus 2 said was ferrous and likely a larger nail (and was a nail), it kept signaling on rocks coming out of the holes on other targets the 6000 saw, so I gave up. Seeing how it was futile in this spot, I decided to move .5 mile up the creek to a place I knew had milder soil and had given up nuggets in the past. The new area was wider and more open on the creek with a more gray-colored soil. The mineralization graph confirmed what I suspected and it was "only" about 3/4 of a full bar. Now that's more like it! I was able to ground balance and started detecting. This location has been relatively trash-free and re-worked many times by GPX 5000 machines, so signals would be scarce. However, I was surprised to get a good-sounding beep right off next to the bedrock of the creek. It turned out to be a marble-sized, super heavy stone like magnetite. We get some of these hot rocks with the PI machines here too. The place turns out to be loaded with them, I found a few dozen before I started to ignore "00" VDI signals that sounded good. The Deus 2 liked these iron stones, but did a great job of always giving an ID of "00", enough so that I became confident to skip them after about 3 hours. My dad showed up a few hours after I was there and used my GPX 6000 some more. I think he has fallen in love, haha. He got a some faint signals and I checked some with the Deus 2 since there were so few. On a couple of them I couldn't hear anything and he dug up some small, deeper lead. He did find 2 nuggets( 4 total) I was able to test pre-dig and the Deus just barely heard them. One was about .25grams 2 inches deep, and the other .06grams at 1 inch deep. Both gave just a "sniff" of a signal to the Deus, but it also had VDI numbers jump from default "00" to 30-35, indicating non-ferrous. I definitely think overall, the Deus did quite well on indicating non-ferrous with VDI twitching to show positive numbers not only on these 2 nuggets, but on other trash targets I found. I found a 4in. deep .45 cal bullet at 4 inches that signaled quite well and gave a high VDI. Bummer it wasn't gold! Shotgun pellets gave VDI of 30-35 or so and every time I'd see numbers in the positive range I'd get excited. Tiny slivers of iron wire 1-2in. deep gave VDI from 3-8 roughly and were iron just like indicated. I thought the ID capability in this bad ground was quite good, even if all targets were fairly shallow. The highly-mineralized dirt sure kills depth. Another observation was I found a couple of targets I had my dad scan with the GPX 6000 that it couldn't detect. One was a sliver of lead, probably under .05grams and a tiny shard of brass from a bullet casing. Both were near surface finds, but the Deus 2 found them and the GPX couldn't sense them, so while the 6000 detects small items deeper, the Deus 2 can ultimately find smaller targets if that is the goal. I think the Deus 2 would do well on bedrock as long as it wasn't too hot and be able to sense small nuggets and flakes, but overall the GPX 6000 or other PI would have an increasingly large advantage in depth and audio response on nuggets larger than .25grams in my hot soil conditions. My soil is severely-mineralized, so the gap in depth performance would diminish greatly if somebody with a Deus 2 were to use it in much more benign conditions. Sticking to bedrock use with the Deus might be a good strategy, though the 9in. round coil is a bit too large I believe for tight bedrock areas in general. It can be done though. I went back to this general area 2 days ago and found 5 nuggets in shallow bedrock with an 11in. GPX coil, so I think the 9in. Deus 2 coil would have been able to find them too. In summary, if you own a Deus 2 and are primarily a coin and jewelry hunter, use it diving or at the beach, etc., but want the ability to also find natural gold nuggets from time to time, you have a tool that can do the job and certainly find you small gold targets. However, if you plan to hunt in gold-bearing areas often and they have bad soils, get a PI machine. A VLF like the Deus 2 lose too much depth and usability and will be greatly hampered vs. the use of a pulse-induction machine. No surprise there for those who prospect a lot for nuggets under tough conditions. If one has an area really loaded with trash targets, here is the perfect situation to bring in a descriminating detector like the Deus 2, in order to "cherry-pick" non ferrous targets out of the iron. A VLF machine still has a place, perhaps also including in spots with ore dumps and super fine gold specimens. Even though I knew it was going to be difficult, I'm glad I spent a day out swinging for nuggets with the Deus 2. It was a real pleasure to use with how light and ergonomic it is. I got to learn more about how the machine operates and that knowledge will come in handy when using it in the future. I doubt I'll ever seriously again use the Deus 2 for nugget-hunting in my area since I already own several PI machines that just do the job more easily. I tend to hunt 99% of the time with a PI, but figured I'd give the Deus 2 a go. While I wasn't completely impressed by its performance, I certainly don't much regret a great day outdoors doing some learning and easy-swinging in a beautiful area.

My Deus 2 has the same line on the bottom of the remote. Its faint and looks like a seam from molding rather than like a crack. I don't plan to really use mine in water, but it doesn't look like that line is more than cosmetic to me. Now that I've had my Deus 2 with 9in coil for 2 weeks and had no issues, I give people interested a "yes" vote if they are looking at getting this machine. Its a great all-arounder, though my focus is on coins/jewelry and occasionally for relics. I've been out a lot with mine (~25 hours) and hiked twice with it and my GPX 6000 while out searching for gold. Its so small and light, its been no issue carrying it up steep slopes. No performance issues either and now that I've started making programs to suit me, I'm squeezing more performance out of it than just running the stock programs. With how it can easily be updated, I say "dive in" and get one. I've really enjoyed mine in varied terrain so far.

Thanks for sharing your experience with relic mode. I briefly tried DHC a few days ago and it was a bit deeper than General program, though it falsed on deep iron. My few minutes in relic mode didn't really tell me much in a short time, but I decided I need more time using it to see how it does in parks in my bad soil. I do have some hours on the prospecting program, so it probably won't be too foreign when I get my next chance to try it. Even though you say you are new to detecting, your hours on the Equinox are far more than mine, and you've quickly passed me on the Deus 2, so I trust you know what you are doing and I will quickly become the student. And on top of that, the stuff you find is easily twice the age of what I find! Congrats on the new permission and nice to see you bagged a few keepers!

The Deus 2 definitely has a lot of adjustability. Both a good and bad thing for sure. The basic programs work well and suit a beginner on the machine like me. But, its good to know as a user gets more advanced, there are settings and the ability to highly customize programs to gain improved performance. I've mostly stuck with the preset programs in hopes of getting to know them and their basic characteristics. I plan on using Deep High Conductor (and maybe even Relic program) more in the future and see how it does for deeper coins. But, soon I will also make up some of my own custom programs now that I can navigate the settings decently well and understand what the controls do for the most part. I too think having some custom programs saved will make the Deus 2 much more grab and go. While I've had fun swinging the Equinox and enjoyed its performance, the Deus 2 so far has been the same, but also a pleasure to use due to its ergonomics and sweet sounding audio. No doubt others will find the reverse, since everybody is different in what works best for them.

My new XP Deus 2 arrived a week ago today and I have about 20 hours total on the machine. I've managed to get out 5 days for at least a short hunt. California is in a drought and my soil is prematurely super dry and digging is difficult when it should be moist and soft this time of year for another month or two. With the window to easy digging closing soon, I had need to get out immediately and test the Deus 2 before its too hot and dry to detect grassy areas for coins/jewelry. Excitement from having a new machine to test out certainly helped my motivation to get out and detect too. All locations were in VERY challenging soil ranging from highly-mineralized to severely-mineralized. 12-13 hours spent total in some local parks looking for coins and jewelry, and 7-8 hours out nugget hunting on an old patch hunted for several years by my dad, brother and I using our Minelab GPX 5000 machines. One great feature is the soil level graph on the Deus 2. I've always known my soil was bad, but now I can say for sure with hard data that it is TERRIBLE. All locations are 3/4 of a bar to a full bar on the soil level indicator. An accurate ID on a coin around here past 5-6 inches is a dream. Despite the bad soil, the Deus 2 ran very quietly and smoothly and even EMI wasn't really an issue, even next to power lines while in a city park. Definitely nice to see the Deus behave so well. However, the Deus 2 was no giant leap in detection depth in my soil. It's about on par with my Equinox 800 and past vlf detectors. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the Deus 2, even though I didn't "need" another vlf detector. This is the 5th vlf I've had since my White's 6000di Pro in 1995 when I started coin-shooting and I tend to go 5-10 years before I upgrade. Its been 3.5 years since I got my Equinox 800, but I jumped in "early" and got the XP since I've never had the brand before and have been intrigued by its unique features and audio. Luckily for me I am in a financial situation where I can now afford to own multiple detectors, though that wasn't always the case. Like many have reported, the Deus 2 is great in terms of its light weight and ease of swinging, especially with the 9in. coil. This is the first detector with an "S" style shaft and I find its easy on the wrist and a breeze to swing. Having to charge 3 separate devices, coil, headphones and control box is a little extra effort, but not insurmountable. The collapsible shaft is handy for making the whole thing compact in seconds and probably why nobody likely realized I had a detector in hand while walking a few blocks to a park along a busy street. On my first outing to a park with around 100 years of past use, using P5, Park program, I did a quick pass of the swings in the wood chip area and scored a few pennies. Next I hit a spot where during a few annual festivals, vendors sell items and food, and from past experience I knew was loaded with pulltabs and some bottle caps. I go to this area from time to time and go nuts digging mid-conductors in the hopes of finding gold, but no luck so far all these years. I did pull out a few coins missed by detectorists in the past, though mostly just zinc cents. I did notice right away how easy it was to swing over a target, do a cross sweep and know exactly where it was. I found I could locate and dig targets very quickly, definitely a plus when coin/jewelry searching is often a game of numbers. The more you dig, the better chance to come across a good find. I also briefly swung around an old bleacher area where I've found some 100 year-old coins over the years among the thick layers of bottle caps, pull tabs, foil, nails, etc. Determining where targets were was a breeze due to impressive separation and I definitely plan to work this area further later on. I feel optimistic the Deus 2 can sniff out a few more old coins among all that trash from this quick test. I searched another older park 2 different days and tried out some other programs like P3, sensitive full tones and P4, Fast. I then mostly defaulted back to using P1, General since it had good, loud audio and targets really stood out. I hunted for around 4 hours each day where I've had success with the Equinox bagging some older coins and a few silver jewelry pieces. I managed 2 silver war nickels (1945S and 1942S) and 9 wheat cents, the oldest being a 1910S that filled a spot in my penny album. I also dug plenty of aluminum trash hoping for gold, while getting familiar with the sounds of the new detector. I definitely dug more trash than usual while getting accustomed to the responses of the Deus 2. I did dig a few pieces of deeper iron, but I was skeptical on most, especially when pinpoint mode placed the target to the side of where I thought it would be. A good test I've found to ID iron most of the time. The VDI was solid and numbers did not vary more than a few digits on targets up to 4 inches or so. None of the old coins I found were past 4 inches deep, but that's similar to how its been for every machine I've run here in the past. I'd estimate half I found were hitting areas I'd passed by with the Equinox and the others due to me digging signals with a VDI in zinc penny range or slightly lower. Most of the wheat cents read 84-86 and would be missed by anybody also discriminating out zinc cents. In time, I hope to get to learn the machine better and start to unearth some deeper coins I know must be lurking. Its going to require tuning my ear to the audio and testing different programs on the Deus 2 to see what works best in my hot soil. I'm convinced if I can learn to hit coins at 6 inches or more, I'll start to pull out some even older examples. I may have to wait until fall and more rain since moist soil adds depth (and noise) at these locations. Overall, I'm happy with my first trips out hunting for urban coins and jewelry. I think performance-wise, the Deus 2 is about on par with my Equinox, but with its own distinct personality. I really enjoyed how quiet and smoothly the Deus ran and how it handled EMI. Its a breeze to swing, especially with the 9in. coil and I found with my background swinging the Nox, reading the instruction manual, and watching some Deus 2 videos, running the controls was fairly easy for me. Signals were extremely easy for me to locate, zero in on, and dig out. I think in terms of target retrieval speed and audio, the Deus 2 suits me more. Full tones (P3) seemed sort of muted and muffled in my bad soil, but other programs had great audio volume that said "dig me". I did dig more trash than usual, but that's part of learning a new machine. Hopefully with more time, I'll gel even more with the Deus, and I expect that to happen more quickly than with the Equinox. Both are great machines and are similar in performance. If you have one or the other, you are set for most circumstances. I'm fortunate to have both and can use experience gained from both to compliment my detecting skills. I'll write up more about my prospecting experience with the Deus 2 soon. This review has already gotten too long as it is!

This also describes me and my Deus 2 and general detecting thoughts nearly perfectly. My Deus 2 with 9in coil arrived today. I nearly always wait or buy "bang for the buck" type of items, but I decided to spoil myself with another detector and try out XP for the first time. With how many detectors are able to be fixed, tweaked or updated via updates these days, it definitely makes me worry a lot less about getting a "bad" detector. Also, XP has a FIVE year warranty, so I have the peace of mind to not worry about defects, etc. for a long time.

I suggest running over bedrock all at once, then afterwards, hit the gravel spots separately if you can, so you avoid transitioning between the two as much as possible. Also, try to run parallel along sections of bedrock and gravels to limit how often you need to run the coil over transitions, leading to the falsing. Easier said than done, I know. But, working slowly with precise coil control will help with the noise and give you a chance for success with patient coverage. Good luck! You are in a great area.

Dan, Welcome to the forum and to metal detecting with your new Deus 2. Unfortunately, what you are experiencing with changing TID numbers is very common. Metal items have a basic ID# that changes very little when testing in the air. That all becomes different when a target is in the ground and something causes small to large inaccuracies or shifts when the detector IDs the object. Ground mineralization, SALT, like at the beach, and other factors can skew TID when an item is in the ground by a good amount. Other factors can be corrosion, like on the bolt with washers you found, that gets left in the ground after you dig up the target so the bolt is now seen differently by the machine. Also, there can be something near the dug item that's away from it after your target is retrieved that no longer skews the ID of the detector. The TID display of detectors is just a guide. It will be good at giving a general idea of what's under the coil, but isn't perfect. Sometimes a detector will indicate something is better than it actually turns about to be, and also the reverse and you get a pleasant surprise when digging up an iffy signal. The best course is to do a lot of digging and become familiar with you new Deus 2. After time, you'll get a pretty good idea of what's under the coil, though things will never be certain, even for the experts. Sometimes in an area with other detectorists, targets with poor TID can be the "good" targets that are left since they tend to get ignored more often. Put your sand scoop to use and DIG a lot! Best of luck and remember to have fun out there.

I imagine you are very excited to test the Deus 2. I'm glad you'll share with us your report about how the new machine handles situations in your area. I'm sure you will give it a good set of tests and check performance in the field. Bonne aventure!

I think the positives of more user-adjustability with the new iron bias feature will in the long run outweigh any negatives of the one-size-fits-all approach of a factory set iron filter. As long as the new feature does what it is supposed to, overall this is good news for Legend users, even if it makes for a steeper learning curve.

I appreciate the time you put in to give a review of your experiences in the areas and conditions you hunt in out west. Living out west myself in an area with mineralized soil, I would face similar conditions to what you experience. Your info is very helpful to people in similar areas. It sounds like the Deus 2 for you has been a pretty good all-around machine for the variety of sites and conditions you hunt in. Being multi-frequency and based on the successful Deus 1 platform, its no surprise to hear it is very versatile. Despite some drawbacks and slight weaknesses in certain areas like in high EMI or bad soils, overall the D2 seems very solid and even seems to excel in places like for heavy iron hunting and likely in the water. Best of luck on your coming hunts and please keep sharing your experiences.

I too have wondered what tech gives the XP detectors their reputation for being so good in high iron sites. I figure if even able to unmask 1-2% more non-ferrous items among heavy iron than other machines, that would be enough to get XP detectors to stand out. It does seem they have a fast recovery/reactivity as part of the equation. Your guess is as good as mine what the rest of the tech involved might be.

Very odd indeed. Results seemed flipped. The nailboard test video is of a pre-production unit, and the other videos feature a production model. Maybe that has something to do with results varying so much? A head-scratcher for sure.

It looks like the Legend struggles to signal a coin in many instances when next to iron in the last video. Even switching from Park M1 and M2 and playing with the recovery speed and the Legend has a hard time. This is a production model, so I guess that's how it will be until if and when a software update is ever released. Maybe some of the other detection modes and/or another combination of settings interacting with each other would help and remain to be discovered. To me so far, the Legend seems a bit weak in the area of seeing good targets through nearby iron.

Thanks for the video links. The Legend seems to register decently well on the coins in the test bed. I feel as somebody already using a multi-frequency detector, this new N/M machine may not really offer a lot to me, but should be a solid machine for people wanting an upgrade over their more basic or single-frequency units. After watching the guy in the video show the ferro check in use, it seems to be a feature that may have limited usefulness since it won't work at depth and also needs careful coil control to engage as well. It seems a good idea, though it may only really be applicable in certain limited conditions. Maybe over time, people will come up with some creative uses for it though, or it will possibly even get an update at some point.

You are in a really tough situation battling both EMI and highly mineralized ground in your home area. And its a catch-22 where the multi-frequency helps with the difficult soil, but at the same time is susceptible to EMI. The same happens to the Equinox in the video, though it seems to handle things slightly better in this example. The Deus 2 seemed more stable at a sensitivity of 80 in this video, compared to your other one running it much more maxed-out. I think its more of a realistic sens. setting for where you are testing. Very helpful info for me. I run my Equinox 800 generally between 18-20 sens. where I hunt coins in city parks, so I can imagine I'd need to drop sensitivity a lot like you have in the video if I were to run a Deus 2 in my conditions. Thanks for running a second test on lowered settings and sharing your findings again.

Now that's a golden pay-day! That looks huge and is why it pays to dig those large targets on the beach where the digging is easy. Over 3/4oz of gold, not a bad day at all, and beats the vast majority of my gold prospecting days over the span of my career. You might consider trying to sell it as-is, rather than melting it down. That could actually net you extra $$$ over just scrapping it. Good luck on snagging some more gold out there!

Thank you for the effort you've made in testing the new Deus 2 and for filming your testing to share with us. Personally, I'm glad to see both the good and bad about any new detector, especially the Deus 2, since I find it intriguing how it compares to the Equinox 800 I already know. I got some good info out of your video. You really have a lot of EMI at that location and the Dues 2 definitely picked it up and acted noisy the whole time. Your soil mineralization is no joke either and makes hitting those targets in your test garden doubly difficult. It was clear to me, the machine wasn't nearly as well behaved as it is for people, who in their videos, have lower mineralization and EMI to contend with in their area. Yours is a good contrast with those videos to give a larger picture of Deus 2 performance in a wider set of conditions, and I'm glad you've posted it. I observe similar high ID# spreads with my Equinox 800 here in the California Sierra Nevada with its volcanic soils and high mineralization. Past 4-6 inches I lose ID# reliability and its more difficult to tell by audio if a target is good or not also. Your video gives me a much better idea about how a Deus 2 would likely operate here in my tough ground, so thank you again for sharing your experiences.