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Ok, the Sphinx people have done a good job on this pin pointer, I figured this was a hyped-up pin pointer and would not meet my expectations as a real pin pointer addict, I even doubted the earlier promotional review Cipher did of it as it seemed a bit too good to be true, but he's redeemed himself. I really thought I was going to be a bit argumentative with his review and it turns out I am, he said its depth is similar to the Pro Pointer AT, I think he's wrong, it's deeper and by a reasonable amount, at least in my soils., I've buried a few coins at different depths and it does exceed the Pro Pointer AT for depth and keeps up with the Pulse pinpointers for depth while having more sensitivity. I've long been on the search for my perfect pinpointer as I love the things, so when Cipher was showing his glowing review although it seemed like he was provided the pin pointer for the purpose of the review I had to see for myself if it was good, I was fortunate to have a friend living in that part of the world I was able to ask to ship me one so that made it all easy for me to get one, had I not had that friend I doubt I could even buy one. So really the Sphinx is nothing more than a tease for people outside of the Russia and surrounding countries, and I hope they do try expand their market someday, and make their app in English also to help with that. It really is a good pin pointer, it surprised me, I didn't expect it but I'm very glad now I bought it. Let's just say if it ever died, I'd be buying another one, and if a new model comes out in the future, I'd be buying that too. The only other pin pointer I own I'd replace if it died is the Garrett AT, I could live without the rest. I'm still yet to test it with my GPX 6000, 5000 and GPZ, geez I haven't even had time to try out my Nugget Finder 12x7" for my 6000 yet, still sitting there untouched, not even plugged it in, the Sphinx guy that's posted in this thread has indicated it will work fine but I've got to see it to believe it 🙂 lifes just so busy at the moment with it being ski season and my building project to become the home for my detecting gear I rarely have any spare time other than when I'm having a coffee break or to sleep and eat.

The Impulse project was severely messed up by releasing a waterproof beach detector prior to the gold detector, it was done the wrong way around, such a small market by comparison. I have no idea how long it takes to make a detector from scratch so I've still got my hopes up Nokta are working away on it in the background and will surprise us. I would say there isn't really room in the market for another PI gold machine, but that's completely wrong. There is plenty of room, it just has to be at the right price, a reasonable price that makes it an affordable detector for many to use. If they make it dual purpose with some features that coin and jewellery, relic and even beach hunters would like and also keep the price low they'll hit a home run. I shouldn't really be advocating for a cheap PI as that means there would likely be more people looking for gold in areas I look, price is what keeps the hobby limited in numbers, not many hobbyists are willing to pay the price and rightly so, unless you're in a very good gold location no matter how many hours you put in it's unlikely you will recover costs so you're doing it for the love, the challenge and that takes the numbers of people willing to do that right down. If Nokta can do it, and do it at the right price they can expect to open up a whole new market of weekend or even holiday/vacation warriors with detectors, I thought Garrett was going to do that but they went for well-trodden high-priced route and have also quite severely limited their sales doing so. I would argue ideally it needs to be a lot better than a TDI, The QED is better than a TDI I hear and it's not quite where this Nokta needs to be to be very enticing, closer to a 4500 or 5000 would be better, anything better than that is pure gravy. If a QED level is all they can do which you would think they can with it being a one-man job from a garage in rural Australia armed with his 3D printer and some electronics skills then it needs to be priced right more towards VLF pricing for what it is then it would still be a good success I think, but to really cause a stir the GPX 4500 should be the goal post. There is little reason a PI should cost a lot more than a VLF, the only real thing costing more is the extra battery power it would require although QED's run off two 18650's

me too 🙂

Yes, I'd never used silicone grease on it, in saying that I'd never got a chance to use it at all. In my recent testing it's the deepest of the pinpointers I own on a coin, and that's without even putting a coil on it, just as a pinpointer is topped the bunch on an Aussie $1 coin. Once the replacement arrives, I'll be sure to buy some silicone grease and keep it well lubed 🙂 Have you tried the larger 8" coil on your Erik? I'm tempted to buy it for a bit more punch.

Yes, makes me want to buy a Legend

I have now joined the long line of people that have experienced exceptional customer service from Nokta, they're replacing it for me even though I can't locate my receipt.

It's called Gold vermeil, sterling silver jewellery that's got a thick gold plate. This site talks about it What Is Gold Vermeil? Your Complete Guide | Linjer Jewelry

I'm guessing we won't see a 6" at all unless Coiltek make it, Minelab have a habit of releasing 3 coils at introduction or shortly 🤣 after release, then nothing else in the life of the detector. Even Coiltek are likely to just release their same old sizes with the 10x5" 14x9" and 15" round, cheaper for them to do that, a mistake of course, but often it comes down to $$$$, although by doing that they're missing out on a lot of dollars they could get by making more in demand coil sizes, and less weigh than their current 14x9" and 15". They should learn off Detech with the 13" Ultimate coil, so light. People would be all over it if it came out for the Manticore or Nox.

They're too busy releasing new products like the Pro-Find 40 to flood the market with new things to buy to worry about coils that they appear to have some sort of distain towards, it must be their strategy at the moment, release as many new products as they can to overwhelm the market. I think they would sell a lot more Manty coils than they would Pro-Finds. I'm hanging about waiting for the brave soul that buys a Pro-Find to do a review on it from someone that isn't associated with Minelab as I'm hoping it's good, I just don't think it will be. They've become very complacent with their success, but you can only ride that wave for so long unless you continue to meet expectations and right now, they're not really achieving that. It could of course be the coils just are not ready, the ones out in the field at the moment in the M8 size don't appear to be where they need to be, up averaging quite badly on targets. It's better they take a bit longer and release a good product as lately they've rushed stuff to market and released a few lemons.

The GPX 4500/5000 from my experience have quite large detection holes, or targets they're weak on even though the size of the nuggets should be well within their reach, I have a number of nuggets sizes that the GPX 4500 and 5000 should love yet they struggle to hit on them, and in some cases miss them entirely. I'm not sure about the Axiom but this is the biggest problem I find with the GPX 4500/5000, switching timings can help in some cases but not all and you're not exactly going to run over areas in all different timings to ensure you got it all, well you could but it's easier just to use another detector without this issue. Later detectors like the GPZ and GPX 6000 hit these same "difficult" nuggets fine, so technology has evolved.

yea, I tend to be unlucky sometimes with stuff breaking for no reason 🙂 Nokta have asked the NZ dealer to try track down my receipt to see when it was purchased so hopefully the new owners can track it down. I think I'll have to end up buying another coil, or I may just give up on it, I haven't used it yet anyway, hopes and dreams had me thinking I would, but just never get around to it.

Now I've tweaked my Sphinx to what appears to be close to the point where it might lose stability, still works fine in my soil in this setting so I recorded some tests vs the other pinpointers with it now tweaked. It's fun toying around with the Sphinx as there is so much you can adjust and play around with. I really like this sensitivity tweak setting, I wish detectors had it also.

Yes, I've been saying since a few weeks after getting my Manticore less is more when it comes to sensitivity, I've found 16 the sweet spot for my soils, maximum depth while maintaining the best ID's, 18 is OK, over 20 and things go south quickly. I guess it's good to have that extra power if a situation arises that can use and take advantage of it though but you just have to be aware if you're up over 20 red lining it you're losing traction and may skid out of control 🙂

Thanks for that infromation, that connector he sells is for when the other side breaks, mine broke on the yellow plastic which is the coil housing so sadly that won't resolve my problem. It seems the probably is possibly more common than I thought. 😞

Ok, so this is just a quick little video showing the result of my first attempt at raising the sensitivity while keeping it stable and working on the ground. I'm going to push it higher than this yet as it still works perfectly stable and fine in my ground but I thought I'd just do a little demonstration of the difference, it's quite easy to raise the sensitivity beyond factory maximum, however you want to do it in small increments to ensure it remains stable so I guess you'd want to test it out for a couple of hours each time you increase it as nothing is worse than an unstable pinpointer I think 🙂 It's why I don't use the TRX as its too unstable in high sensitivity and when you lower it so it is stable other pinpointers that run more stable perform better. Once I've worked out my safe maximum sensitivity, I'll re-do the first video showing its performance vs the others. If I find my maximum sensitivity doesn't work well at a location when I'm out detecting I can always quickly drop back to factory maximum sensitivity, it has 1 (low), 2 (medium), 3 (high), and 4 (user configured) When I first read the translated manual, I thought the user configured sensitivity was just a setting you could do within the range offered already in the sensitivity settings to suit your ground, so a setting somewhere between medium and high for those that found high didn't work in their ground, I never realized you could actually go far higher than the factory maximum sensitivity, awesome feature.

I think it was just so stiff to undo the plastic couldn't cope with it, I haven't seen @Nokta Detectors on the forum for a while, I sent them an email yesterday, haven't had a reply as yet. I tried to buy the bigger size coil yesterday to replace it but the NZ dealer has no stock so I emailed them, no reply either yet. I might just order one from Australia at least they have stock, I intended to use the pinpointer in summer but never got around to it, it's a nice idea in my head that just never becomes reality 🙂 The weak point seems to be that rectangle hole in the yellow plastic where the crack looks like it started.

Sounds like work to me 🙂 If I was a dealer, I'd be contacting them quick smart trying to get a dealership and if they're confident with quality warranty could just be dealer replacements within the warranty period for faulty units. I think this pinpointer would be popular if it had an English app and dealers in other markets. As it stands now the way you have to get one it's just not going to happen, no english app, no dealers, a pointless warranty as it would cost more to send back than it's worth.

For any English speakers that end up with one of these I've included the manual I translated to English, the screenshots of the app translated to English and the Android APK that's only available on the RU store so it can be installed on an Android phone using an APK installer which are readily available on the Google Play store. Apple users can just get it at the Apple store no problems. It certainly is an interesting setting, user configured maximum sensitivity. A bit like how the Manticore has a lot higher sensitivity settings over the Equinox, except configurable. You can increase and decrease this maximum sensitivity to be where you want it, well beyond the maximum factory sensitivity. I would have patented this if it's possible as I could see it being used on detectors too, imagine a VLF gold detector where people in milder ground could increase the sensitivity over factory settings because their milder ground allows so and you could just keep increasing it until your ground starts to give trouble. My GPZ I can run on maximum sensitivity in normal just about everywhere I go, if I had this function where I could increase its sensitivity above factory settings to a point just below where it starts to become reactive to the ground, I'd get even better performance and that's exactly what this pinpointer can do, a very interesting feature and one I could see incorporated into high end detectors and one people would love. Sphinx 03 Pinpointer Software and Manual.zip

I would never feel comfortable digging the front strips, here at least they're council owned but they have always been maintained by the home owners, and rightly so, they're an extension of your property really. If it's an ugly overgrown mess it makes your house look bad, so of course you keep it tidy. I put a plum tree on mine as I have quite a large one, it's worked out well, the locals and tourists walking past get some free plums, I don't care as I get too much fruit in summer anyway with my 20 or so fruit trees and it looks nice in spring with its blossums. If someone was out with a detector dgging holes in it I'd be very annoyed! Plenty of places to detect without small bits of grass in front of everyone's houses, a good way to annoy a lot of people quickly. And if you must, at least ask first.

Ok, This is how I think the Sphinx App should look in English If this was done it would be excellent.

Holy crap! you're right. I just adjusted it a little, went outside and tested it on the ground OK, then tested and now the coin I was getting 6cm on I now get 8cm on. The number 9 shotgun pellet now responds on the tip of the pin pointer and doesn't even need to touch the tip, so its now beating the TRX quite easily in both depth and sensitivity. I will keep adjusting and work out how far I can take the sensitivity while keeping it stable on the ground. Thanks for the help, very impressed. I will record an updated video comparing it once I've worked out the best setting for me. Are you also able to provide me with the APK file for the Android app, I'm currently using the Iphone app which I was able to get from the Apple Store, however I want the Android app and it's only available on the RU store.

I have reset my audio to defaults now, I was playing around with adjusting the tones and pitch, a nice feature 🙂 I can not work out how to adjust the sensitivity level 4, I have now switched the pinpointer to 4 but as I can't read the app I can't find where to set up the sensitivity manually to make it higher.

yes level 3 on the Sphinx = maximum and works well for me. In high trash I can see the discrimination and auto turn on and off would be very handy time saving features.

Mine was very hard to remove, it's very stiff, same with the pin pointer end piece, very hard to get it off, I assumed it was so it remained waterproof they made them a very tight fit. Maybe it was a dud from the start. As you can see, it's never been used.

Yes, unless they had a US dealer and service agent then it's not really worth importing one with the costs involved considering the difference is marginal to other easier to get pin pointers although the Sphinx does have great features, the phone apps cool, and the discrimination is better than Minelabs attempt. The good thing for coin hunting is having discrimination enabled doesn't appear to hinder depth, with the Pro-Find it does, as soon as its switched on your depth drops. That's why I left it on during these tests on the Sphinx and turned discrimination off on the Pro-Find, as it just makes no difference to performance with the Sphinx so may as well have it on. The TRX would be great if it could run stable, it just can't, the chances of me having 3 bad ones is slim you'd think unless Whites had major quality control problems, it's weird each of my TRX behave slightly differently, with one even being slightly more sensitive than another, no consistency in builds. I guess they're irrelevant now they no longer exist anyway. For me I just can't run a TRX in maximum sensitivity, not only the instability but also it reacts too badly to my soils in the prospecting areas to run at maximum. Lower it off maximum sensitivity and it improves, on 3 out of 4 it's pretty stable, on 2 of 4 its very stable, on 4 it's a mess. So out of the tested Pinpointers I believe the Sphinx is number 1 for tiny targets seeing its stable at maximum sensitivity and handles the ground fine, I've turned it on in my yard with the GPZ and I can't see any problems but I have too much EMI around to know for sure so I'll have to go remote to test that. The Garrett is really up there though, not far behind the Sphinx in tiny targets when you know where on the Carrot to use, and similar if not slightly better than the XP. The Pulses do pretty good on the size gold I was demonstrating but once you get them on the pellets you see how insensitive they are to very small targets. If Garrett did a mash up between the TRX and the Pro Pointer AT they'd have a killer pinpointer, even if they could make the TRX more stable and more consistent quality it would be great. I wonder if the TRX winding was hand made. @Geotechmaybe able to answer that.