phrunt

That's the bonus of small coils, my nuggets look bigger sitting on them, that one gram is a good size nugget for me but looks tiny on that coil 🙂 You'd have to have very specific needs to use a DD coil that big.

yep, that's why we circle targets, The 800 shook the market to its core for a reason, fantastic detector.

They care, as long is it lines their pockets, I can't say it lines their shareholders pockets as most of them are running at a big loss! Simple solution, give the customers what they want, it's surprising how doing that increases sales.

I'm not one to pussy foot around, I say it how I see it, it gets me in trouble a bit 🙂 The Manticore has improved quite a bit with the firmware update, even in air tests now it's ID's have improved, previously they were quite bouncy even in an air test, now that has settled down. I hope this isn't the last update they do for it, I think there will be another one yet as updates = excitement = sales. I'm seriously considering a Deus 2, I'm not a fan of it's mid sized coils as for coins I want depth and large coils and gold I want small coils and it has neither. The Deus 1 has been a bit of a disappointment for me, for the Deus fans it was the greatest thing since sliced bread until the Deus 2 came out, for my needs it isn't ideal. I'll give the Deus 2 a go at some point, right now my focus is on gold prospecting more than anything and the Deus 2 lacks for that quite severely. I do really like the Nox 800, performance wise it's great, I'd personally rather buy a Nox 800 in the Nox 900 body rather than buy a Nox 900 🙂 800 owners shouldn't feel like they're missing out much on these new models. My 800 is pretty solid, aftermarket shaft, aftermarket arm cuff, aftermarket coils, the control pod is all I care about and it's been good to me.

Everyone likes to think the detector they own is the best, regardless of the reality and it very well maybe for them and their situation. I like the rule of keeping brand specific areas of the forum exclusive to the brand.

My opinion is the 800 is still right up there as the pinnacle of VLF's, the only thing letting it down was build quality, performance wise it's not been left behind by the Manticore. For anyone that doesn't have a 900 or Manticore you're not missing all that much, better build quality is the major change, but I would not think I'll find much more using my Manticore that I'd miss with my Nox 800. Extreme circumstances like perhaps heavy iron or something maybe, but under most conditions very little difference.

Mitchel, with your 15" CC if you are recovering very tiny gold 0.02 type stuff it's also beneficial to turn your detector upside down to use the center of the coil. I think the Axiom hot spot on some coils in the very center too. The guy sure has an interesting way to recover tiny gold, not how I'd be doing it that's for sure 🙂 From what I can see the Axiom, SDC, GPX 6000 and GPZ 7000 are all brilliant detectors, so people can just use whichever one they like the best and be happy knowing they're using a very high performance machine. Each have their strong points and each will beat the others at something.

The Legend would be another excellent option without breaking the bank, and has even more frequency options to choose from along with Multi Frequency's at once although in a high EMI area you'd probably be better off in single frequencies. Detectors pick up EMI from quite a distance, using them indoors inside a house can be a challenge and even more so in an apartment building with multiple residences. The closer you are to the source the worse it is obviously however to a detector 100 meters (300+ feet) is considered close to a power line. Some detectors run better than others usually based upon the frequency they're in being away from the EMI's frequency which is why these switching single frequency detectors can often handle EMI the best as you can use a frequency away from the EMI sources frequency. The more sources of EMI the more difficult that becomes. Here I find 19kHz detectors work best inside my house with the local sources of EMI, so the Legend having 20kHz would work perfectly well indoors here. So it's worth looking into and researching the Legend also, it has an array of coil options including a small coil, the smaller the coil the less affected by EMI it is, but the smaller coils have less depth than the bigger coils. In saying that as contradictory as it may sound a big coil being troubled by EMI will end up with less depth than a smaller coil that is less affected by the EMI. It's complicated 🙂

The EMI comes from the power, not so much from the wires themselves, but the power going through them and anything people have plugged into that power like wireless routers, fridges, fluro or LED lights etc, everything emits EMI that becomes a challenge for a detector. High density living areas are bad for EMI sources. The reinforcing bar will likely overload the detector with a signal so if the target was right near the bar its unlikely you will find the target so in this case a smaller coil might be better than the standard coil, for better target separation along with better EMI handling with a small coil. The side effect of the small coil is less depth although it doesn't sound like the coins would be at a depth anyway, You could try the larger coil first, and if no luck invest in the 6" coil.

Unless you cut power to the place EMI is going to be an issue with many detectors. I would think this wouldn't be that much of a challenge for any detector though to meet your needs aside from EMI, I wonder if the concrete has reinforcing bar in it, if so you're in trouble. Something like the new X-Terra Pro would do it fine for minimal cost and has different frequencies you can switch into to help mitigate EMI. 15kHz should do the job nicely for gold coins and EMI handling, if not 10kHz. It's handy because you can switch frequencies on it.

The first batch of 10 Manticores all sold out in NZ I was one of them, the second batch struggled to sell from what I have seen as they just sat in stock and demand here certainly is nothing like it was for the initial Nox release. Since the first batch there has been no lists and dealers have had stock sitting there. I can't see the Manticore being their best selling detector like the Nox was, If they are trying to say demand for the Manticore is the highest in Minelab's history I would assume that's another lie like their statement about the Manticore having better more stable Target ID's than the Nox which is still on their website even though it's widely acknowledged it does not. Saying things like that though is intended to help sales, if people believe its the best selling detector and selling like hot cakes it makes other people want one too. They have never cared about cols, they're always last on the to-do list. It's all about money and to get the most money they want to sell the most detectors so lets pump out so many new models of VLF that our contracted factories don't have time to make Manticore coils as they're too busy making X-Terra and Nox coils to go in with detectors. It's a management decision like all bad decisions out of Minelab, the buck always stops at the top. It's fine for them, they can sell their detectors with limited accessories and gain more and more disgruntled customers and one day it will come back to bite them when customers just get so sick of it they move on to other brands even if they like their detectors and other brands are coming in with great products now that either are competitive with or in some cases exceed Minelab's products so it's only a matter of time. I would think if Minelab personally can't provide us coils for our flagship detectors, let someone else do it too, Detech would make fantastic Manticore coils, I would be so happy with my Manticore purchase if I could run Detech coils on it, let Coiltek pump out their coils too, they seem to be able to get coils to market quickly as demonstrated with the GPX 6000, once they were "allowed" to make coils they had them to market rapidly in all 3 sizes at once. I think Minelab's a bit too big for their boots.

Now that would have been a fun day! And recovering from surgery too, good work on all the digging.

I like the 2D target trace a lot and to me that's all that matters, just like the CTX version I find it very useful.

I've seen plenty of older Mac users having problems with the update, I don't think another cable is going to help unfortunately, you may need to find someone with a modern computer to do it for you. Windows 10 and 11 machines seem to work perfectly, a few Maccers have had problems, especially older models.

Yes, it's absolutely simple to change the wires over, don't let that scare you off.

Murder weapons? Thrown off the bridge?

Maybe a Deus 2 is in my future as I do really like accurate ID's.

Very preliminary results, but I wanted to wait until I had a couple of days to mess around before saying much. Beach mode is still giving me the best most accurate Target ID's on coins in mild park type soils, unsure why but it's almost as stable as the Nox even with the expanded range of ID's so technically I guess you could say more stable. I'm thinking I might just set beach mode as a favourite search mode and assign it to a front softkey and check targets using it to get the better ID's for checking targets and hunt in All Terrain High Conductors seeing I'm primarily after silver. All Terrain modes have improved for me when it comes to ID stability, I seem to need to use Recovery 4 or lower for best results on my deepish coins when it comes to ID accuracy. All in all I'm quite happy, I guess I was spoilt by the Vanquish which for such a cheap detector gives me incredibly good ID's, the smaller ID range helps with that but it's not just that, it's just really accurate in my mild soil on my coins. The Manticore in a way makes up for its less accurate ID's by giving more information, a bit like the CTX in that way although it's my most accurate detector to date along with the extra information. As for gold prospecting sensitivity, I think they possibly have improved small gold performance, it seems in some testing between the Nox 800 and 11" coil and the Manticore and 11" coil performance has evened out, prior to the update the Nox I thought was significantly better, now I can't overly tell the difference. It will be nice to get a smaller coil to give it a better comparison, a shame it's not getting the 6" coil though. It's a great little coil.

Have you adjusted settings or just running your typical settings?

Here is an Xchange2 file for gold prospecting for the CTX 3030. You'd need to use Xchange2 to put it onto your CTX. GoldHound made it I believe. Wouldn't be my choice of detector for gold nuggets, especially when you own a GM1000, the CTX is pretty insensitive to small gold, it's not it's strong point by any means where as the GM1000 is designed solely for the purpose. xchange2share.mlf

Wonder how much of it was the computers fault and nothing to do with the update or detector, A breeze for me, both headphones and detector updated in about 5 mins, it took me longer to find my headphones than do the updates, I'd never used them, probably never will. You're lucky it wasn't a Legend, a failed update bricks the detector, Minelab's firmware is different, unusual really, flashing failing is normally very bad news, Minelab have done a great thing with their firmware, it's more software being copied on than firmware being flashed which is so much safer.

Quite a lengthy thread on it there. Also a new manual out to reflect the update. https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/505058/4901-0428-2 Inst Manual, Manticore EN.pdf The firmware update does indeed seem to improve the small gold sensitivity, I haven't had a chance to test properly yet but it's feeling more on par with the Nox now, rather than worse than it.

I will say the Equinox 800 and presumably the Equinox 900 is fantastic on tiny gold, I've found bits down to 0.009 of a gram, that's 0.13 of a grain.

We all want that, the holy grail is a PI machine like the GPX combined with the Equinox with it's target ID's and discrimination properties. Sadly no such detector exists.... hopefully one day.

I've not done enough testing yet and because there is no little coil it's been 11" vs 11" and prior to the update the Nox 800 was better than the Manticore on small gold, since the update the Manticore has improved, I'm not confident to say its equal to or better than the Nox yet as I haven't had enough time to figure it all out but it's certainly improved. I am sure all of the Nox series and Manticore share a very large amount of code with modifications to the code between each model so many of the Manticore updates will or could end up on other models, I think because the Nox 600/800 has been out a while they will neglect to give it any updates the 700/900 get even though it would be easily possible for them to give them. So I would expect to see a Nox 700/900 update soon now the Manticore update is out, the primary reason on Minelab's behalf would be sales, releasing updates and the buzz around them is great marketing. So many excited people with the Manticore update it now puts a lot of focus back on the detector. It also shows they're working on and improving it.