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I'll have to find it, not sure where I've put it. Hopefully not in the big tubs of coins I've found or I'll be searching for hours. Yes, the Aussie One Penny, I find plenty of them here. In the early days anything goes. you could use just about any currency although British and Australian were the common ones. This is an interesting read about the history of our currency. https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/money-and-cash/coins/the-history-of-new-zealand-coins

It would be about 120 miles from bottom to top. The drive along the lake from the small town at the bottom to the bigger town at the top is where I was testing out my Manticore on lake front beaches, it ran 35 sensitivity no problems, along this drive my cell phone coverage is very intermittent, for a good portion of it I have none. There is no TV reception anywhere, we use satellites for TV. There is intermittent radio reception, the middle of the lake drive there is usually none. Nothing in the way of major powerlines around that lake drive, there is some normal power lines in spots like half way along there is a little hyrdo generator on a creek going into the lake. It's a very low EMI area. I have a few USA coins, not sure which ones, they're just ones I've found detecting, one of your zilcoins, a silver with a buffalo on it and a couple of others. I don't know what an Aussie large cent is, but I have all of the Aussie currency, including the old stuff, easy to find Aussie currency here, I do have an Australian 1 cent coin if that's what you mean, the one with the possum on it.

I just think it's EMI, some places are bad for EMI, I'd imagine a bulk of the USA has quite bad EMI. Huge population all spread out, lots of reasons for high EMI. In city or town areas around here I can't run past 25 on the Manticore, drive outside of them and I can run 35 with only the occasional burp and pop, no ID falsing. Here is a bit of a map around here, the little red circle down the bottom is a town of about 300 people, mostly holiday homes and probably half don't live there full time. The red circle up higher is a town of about 15,000 people, again many holiday homes sitting empty a lot of the year, the yellow bits are part of the 15,000 population but where it starts to get more spread out with dense housing estates mixed in. In the red and yellow areas I'm under 25 sensitivity on the Manticore, down to 16 to get it running nice. Outside of those areas I'm sitting on 35 just fine. There is almost no population outside of my circles as there is very little flat land and I think that's the key, very low population, no government induced EMI from military or anything, and just a lot of area with nothing but mountains. Zoom the map out further and to the left are just a lot more mountains, to the right and below it starts to go to hills and then farm land, to the north all mountains, all low population. Minelab seem pretty good and consistent at making VLF coils, I don't even recall reading about someone having an under performing or faulty coil other than ears snapping. It's PI coils they seem to struggle. I think differences in sensitivity levels people are running their Manticores is more likely related to EMI than to variable electronic components. Have you tried beach mode yet in areas where you can't get past 23 Abenson? I'd be interested to hear if it helps.

Absolutely the Nokta Simplex+, great features and build quality but the worst performance detector I own in my soils for my needs, I realize many will disagree as it may suit their needs but its rubbish in mild soils on deep targets, everything is iron, absolutely everything. My Garrett Ace 300i runs circles around it. It may suit many people but it absolutely does not suit me. My worst purchase so far. Next up regrettably is the Teknetics T2, it's fine, good quality product, great to swing, but at the time I bought it there were far better options available, reading dated reviews as a new comer isn't a good idea, glowing reviews but reading old reviews doesn't work out well, my fault. Paid so much for it I could have had a far better modern detector for it's price. Stupidly bought a second one, at least it was second hand and a better price and the newer model..... Mainly because I bought coils for the first one and I didn't want to throw away the money on them too, great coils, especially the Mars Tiger. Still, a deep enough detector but suffers from what I call Simplex syndrome, deep targets are often falling down towards iron, just not as bad as the Simplex. Next up is my first detector, the Go-Find 40, far too basic and far to easy to grow out of, works well enough but life without target ID's isn't a life I want to live looking for coins, quickly replaced. All other detectors I'm happy enough with the purchase, each have their flaws and benefits, most are not needed or used though as there are generally better options.

Yep, I think there is some good accuracy in what you're saying. I've been trying to work out the difference in sensitivity levels between the Nox and Manticore and where for example 20 on the Nox would be on the Manticore and the best way I've been able to do that is using an tiny edge of detection target like a #9 lead pellet and seeing at which sensitivity level the target becomes undetectable, and the Manticore appears to need its sensitivity set higher than the Nox in this instance but then is that sensitivity levels or is it the Manticore just isn't as sensitive to tiny targets. The odd thing is the difference between 30 and 31 is looking like more than a single digit of sensitivity as a stable detector at 30 can become quite unstable at 31, much more unstable than say going from 29 to 30, if that makes sense. That one digit has a greater effect. I think in areas where the 31 to 35 sensitivity levels can be used they will be a good tool to have, and I already have places I can run on 35, sadly they're places with almost no targets as people don't go to those areas. What I've noticed now is the Manticore is picking up deep targets in my mild soils at much lower sensitivity levels than the Nox can, but are those sensitivity levels lower, that's the question we can't answer. With the Nox if I lowered my sensitivity too much below 20 my deep coins would start to ID too low and then turn to iron with the sensitivity too low, I'm finding even at 14 I am getting the good coin identification, next time I'm try go even lower. At the moment I'm as beginner as you can get on the Manticore, I figured going from a Nox to it would be an easy transition but there is much more to it than I expected. A Nox 900 would be the easier transition. 🙂 I really like it, the 2D target trace, it's been good, I was a big fan of the CTX target trace though, it gives more information by the looks of it than the Manticore which is simpler version but still good. One thing different with the CTX is I could lift the coil quite high off the ground and still pick up the deep coins with accurate ID's, the Manticore much like the Nox if you lift off the ground you can lose the target entirely. The Manticore, Vanquish and Nox don't like the air gap,which is bad if you have to hunt in longer grass which I often do. The CTX is certainly still the best detector at accurately identifying deep coins in my soils. Even with its huge range of Target ID's with FE and CO it gives the most accurate results. Anyway, I'm enjoying learning the Manticore, it's looking like a great detector.

Yes, I think on bigger sizes of gold like your test bits the Manticore will do well and may even exceed the Equinox as they get bigger, it's still very early days so time will tell, I was more concerned about the absolutely tiny gold sensitivity where I think so far the Nox is going to be the winner. The Nox is right up there with the higher frequency dedicated gold machines on the tiniest flakes of gold, it looks like the Manticore may not quite be that good, but still will be good as a general gold prospecting detector, just leaving behind the tiniest bits most people don't care about. If a smaller coil comes out for it from Coiltek to compete with the 6" the Equinox has it may all change. Hopefully they're going to make a 5 or 6" round coil for it to make up for Minelab not doing so.

OK, it started raining this morning, great news as we have been in a bit of a drought, not by Australia or California definitions of a drought but NZ definition which means no decent rain in a month or so. The North Island has been copping it bad with massive flooding so I guess a bit of it has trickled down our way at the bottom of the South Island. Before it rained I went out and did some Manticore experiments in my yard which should be the same soil as the sports fields I was in the other day, very close by. I did a factory reset and started fresh and I found the lower the sensitivity goes the more stable my ID's get. Less is more it seems when it comes to the Manticore, even though it wasn't troubled by EMI in the higher sensitivity settings it was giving less stable ID's, 20 to 30 sensitivity was quite unstable, below 20 it improved. Perhaps it's something in my soil as when I was detecting at the beaches a couple of weeks ago I was extremely happy with it's performance even on very high sensitivity settings but in saying that I was in beach mode then. The other day when I was comparing it with the Vanquish I didn't bother lowering my sensitivity below 20 when in All Terrain General or other modes I tried as it was working fine when it comes to EMI with no apparent EMI issues. I didn't notice that in these modes it gives more stable ID's with lower sensitivity below 20. I did change sensitivity levels to low ones in the beach mode as I was shocked how good the ID's were compared to All Terrain General so I lowered right down to 14 to see how low it could go and it was still picking up these deep coins. So, now where it stands for some reason beach mode can run in 30 sensitivity and remain stable on the ID's, perhaps the frequency weighting in beach mode is avoiding some sort of silent EMI in the area that I can't notice which it doesn't respond to even holding the coil in the air or there is something in the ground that beach mode is ignoring that doesn't bother other detectors like the Vanquish but causes some instability in higher sensitivity settings on the Manticore. My yard and the sports field I've been experimenting in are in a valley on what is an old river bed, the river has moved a couple of hundred meters away but if you dig in my yard it doesn't take long and you're digging up all the rounded river rocks, many of which are hot rocks and there are lots of small fragments of them all broken up too, the same at the sports field, it's the same distance to the new river location as I am, a 2 minute walk. I really don't know what's going on but I'm OK with running in lower sensitivity settings as the Manticore still seems very deep in under 20 sensitivity. I'll have to do more experimenting to see if beach mode on 30 sensitivity performs better than All Terrain modes with lower sensitivity. Hopefully this problem is restricted to my local area with something around here causing it, as I say I didn't notice this problem when I was away using the Manticore elsewhere. In lower sensitivity settings the Target ID's while not near as stable as the Nox/Vanquish are more what you would expect with the broader range of ID's. For other park hunters just flick over to beach mode every once in a while on Targets and see if it also gives you a more stable ID. It would be interesting to know if this is the case in general.

Interesting point and I can see how analog detectors have wild variations, digital detectors should have far more repeatable results HOWEVER a part change which sometimes happens due to shortages, and the quality of components can all make a difference. Not all parts are equal, the GPX 6000 is a prime example of this with its dodgy inductors, some detectors appeared to perform better than others, while some were just wild. This was all because of a couple of dollar tiny components. People who are/were into overclocking CPU's on computers know all about variations in electronics. Some CPU's overclock really well, others of the same batch do not, because I had access to many CPU's from the production line I would grab 20 or so identical CPU's, setup the motherboard the way I wanted with the overclocking, put each CPU on and test how far I can overclock it and keep it stable and see which one of them runs the best, and keep the best one for myself, the others go back into the production line 🙂 They weren't faulty of course, but didn't overclock as well. Some memory chips can handle the overclock better than others, upping the FSB of the CPU made the memory module run faster too, some brands were better than others but more importantly some individual modules ran better than others of the same brand. This is all running the hardware outside of specification but shows there are inconsistencies in components. Basically for those that don't know overclocking is running a CPU at higher clock speeds than it was designed to run, thereby making your computer faster sometimes giving you the performance or near enough to of a much more expensive CPU. Back in the early days you could buy a Celeron 300A which run at 300MHz for $149 USD or so, it was on a Front Side Bus speed of 66MHz, the P2-450MHz was the high end CPU at the time and it was $669 USD but it's FSB was 100MHz. You could overclock that little Celeron on certain motherboards where the manufacturer was a bit lazy not checking your CPU's designed bus speed just by changing the FSB setting in the bios from 66MHz to 100MHz, the Taiwan motherboard manufacturers quickly picked up on this and made boards for overclocking that made it simple for people to do this and marketed them for the purpose. Once you changed your FSB to 100MHz your cheap little Celeron ran at 450MHz, the same clock speed as the much more expensive P2 450 which was Intel's flagship at the time. A $500 or so saving back in 1998 was a decent chunk of cash for very near P2 450 performance. There were earlier and later CPU's you could do similar with, the 300A stands out as it was legendary for just how well it overclocked to be so close to the much more expensive CPU. So while digital detectors are far more likely to be very similar to each other, it's not guaranteed they will be and because they expect them to be so close in performance they see no need to test them for inconsistency. Those old videos of Whites testing coils on detectors to ensure they were up to spec and sorting the good from the bad, that is VERY unlikely to happen at places like Plexus.

I didn't get to film a video of what I'm seeing with beach mode yesterday, it was too hot to go detecting. I'll do one this morning. This is why I was expecting better Target Id's not far worse.

I think you're right there Jeff, X-coils told me they can make coils so crazy sensitive for the GPZ but with that comes worse ground handling, it's a balance between ground handling and sensitivity. They did however make me a one off black 12x8" coil when all their retail coils are white, this black coil was made for NZ conditions (milder soils) and is hotter than one they could retail but won't work as well in hotter soils, it works very well for me and handles any ground I've thrown at it here though. The Manticore uses different coils to the Nox so I guess something is going on inside its coils.

The 50% more power to the coil is the new obsolete single frequency metal detectors statement. It's done as a headline grabber, pure marketing and it worked, everyone's talking about it. They're different in the way the Equinox did cause a bit of a stir and in fact other manufacturers must agree as anyone capable of making a multi frequency machine now has, they knew they had to if they wanted to stay in the game. I wonder if Nokta and possibly others follow with their next detectors claiming 60% more power to the coil. While not a bogus claim, it really doesn't mean much by the looks of it in overall performance, it certainly isn't increasing small target sensitivity such as gold nuggets, 2-3 cm extra depth on a 30cm target? Almost immeasurable in the real world. Minelab responded as his videos with a lot of followers were possibly damaging to sales of a new detector that they desperately need to sell a lot of, sales have been a bit slow for them lately, according to their shareholder announcements.

He said small gold jewellery and chains and things like that get quite a bit more depth, I linked right to it in that video posted above, it starts a few seconds before he talks about it. I don't see why that wouldn't translate into nuggets of a similar size to an ear ring for example. It's just disappointing their top of the line model in that sort of Multi-IQ range is less effective on gold than an Equinox 600, especially when it's touted as more sensitive and deeper than the Equinox. The Manticore has a gold prospecting mode, the Equinox 600 does not but I'd take my chances with a 600 on tiny gold over a Manticore I think, at least with what I've seen out of it so far and the 800 and that likely means the 700 and 900 excel over it too, I haven't used one so I don't know, but being they're just improved build quality Noxes there is no reason they'd not equal the older model.

The good thing is it's another option and by all accounts a good one too. I've decided I'll give it a miss and wait for the smaller coil to come along, at least its different enough to the coils I've already got, that 16x10" really intrigues me too, obviously won't be as sensitive as these smaller coils and that was evident with the stock Minelab 17x13" coil, that thing is gutless on small gold compared to the smaller coils but that was obviously not its intended purpose. As long as they can keep the weight down on the 16x10", the 14" DD makes the 6000 feel much heavier than the GPZ 7000 with a smaller coil on it which I've usually got on.

This is what I don't get, Mark Laurie (Minelab engineer) states specifically the 50% more power is giving more depth on small gold targets. I started the video where you need to watch from.

This is the most mild soil around, it's as far inland as you can get in the country, salt content would not be a problem and it's not a problem for any other detector, even single frequency detectors are giving far more stable Id's than the Manticore in anything other than beach mode, it's very odd, I hope I don't have a faulty Manticore.

Yup, I think the 900 if it is just a better quality built 800 with a extended sensitivity range would be the better or at least simpler to use prospecting machine, as a way around the increased EMI I was getting with the Manticore in the higher sensitivity settings I just switched to 40kHz and compared the Manticore to the Nox in that, minimal EMI in 40kHz on both detectors and the Nox was still winning the fine gold race if you did it sensitivity of 20 vs 20 for example, the Manticore again needs higher sensitivity to keep up with the 800 on lower sensitivity. This is why I keep saying I think the scale is different between their sensitivity levels. Also, sensitivity level 30 can be quite stable after a long noise cancel in areas with EMI, bump it up to 31 and it goes wild, so I think the difference between 30 and 31 isn't the same as the difference between 29 and 30 for example. I think those increased sensitivity red line areas are quite a bit more than 1 standard notch. It's all very early days for me and these are just initial impressions but out of the box switch on adjust sensitivity and go the Nox is the winner on small gold over the Manticore from what I can see. Fiddling with settings may catch the Manticore up, I'm yet to find a way to do so but I'm no settings expert.

The 10x5" certainly has no Y Axis troubles, nor does the 14x9". put a video on this forum with the 14x9" being swung around like l lasso with no troubles at all. It's disappointing to hear the 12x7" has it, being someone that hunts in rocky hillsides that's not an ideal attribute. The smaller Sadie size will be bundle wound so hopefully it exceeds the small gold performance of the 10x5" with the stability it has, so I'm learning towards the Sadie and 16x10" for me. The 10x5" is good enough to not need the 12x7 by the sounds of it", if I wanted more depth I'd go the 11" not the small jump from 10x5 to 12x7".

I will find a coin and film what I'm seeing today. It's very weird, I am likely hindering myself but it sure clears up the unstable Target ID's and makes them more in line with the Nox with stability.

Right, this is a weird one, I've heard many people point out the Manticore seems to excel as a beach detector more than anything, and I was quite disappointed with my Manticore on my typical deepish coins with it's unstable target ID's, it found everything fine but my ability to cherry pick just wasn't there like it is with my other Multi-IQ detectors, I used my Vanquish to find a few $1 and $2 NZ coins today and once I found them with the Vanquish before digging I ran the Manticore over them and the ID's were pretty poor, I tried many things to improve them, recovery speed of 4 seemed to help the most out of everything in All Terrain General but they were still pretty jumpy, going from 45 to 75, often putting numbers up in the 60's where they should be but I'm so used to the Equinox 800 and Vanquish that give me a constant repeatable 21/22 on these targets. I can with high confidence find these gold coins with the Vanquish/Nox as they're such obvious easy targets with near rock solid ID's, the Manticore it's a crap shot if I've got one or not with how unstable the ID's are. So anyway, the Vanquish easily found a few gold coins (not real gold) for me with very accurate Target ID's but if I was trying to cherry pick the same coins with the Manticore it would be a real gable as to if I had a coin $1 or $2 or not. The CTX of course slams on them and identifies them with near perfection. So out of desperation I started trying gold modes and beach modes and everything just trying to clear up the ID's a bit and to my surprise the beach modes fixed them right up, to the point I was excited, they were giving me really stable ID's, almost as good as the Nox 800 with a 3-4 number range rather than a 1-2 number range the Nox typically gives me. The Nox bounces 21/22 and the Mantcore was just bouncing in the low 60's from 61 to 64 mostly with the odd blip outside of that. So it looks like I'm going to have to use beach modes in parks if this continues. I have no idea why this would be the case, it was awesome in beach mode, I could drop the sensitivity right down to 14 to eliminate all EMI and still accurately identify a coin at about 20cm deep (the deepest coin find today), I could have even gone lower on the sensitivity I'm sure I stopped at 14 as all EMI was long gone, it started to be completely gone at 20 but I was just seeing how low I could go, excitement got the better of me and I didn't keep lowering the sensitivity down as I just wanted to dig the coin at that point to verify it was a $2 coin, and it was. The other thing, in beach mode I didn't even try ground balance, I left it at 0, in the All Terrain general mode I tried with and without ground balancing, using factory resets to start all over again as I was desperately experimenting to try clear up the ID's. So, why would this be the case? Why is beach mode so much better with Target ID's? Has anyone else experimented with beach mode in a grassy field type setting and seen similar? I will try find more coins soon and do some filming showing what I'm talking about, I left my phone at home today.

It is interesting you point that out as that's what I was starting to think, the scale is just different and a Nox 0 to 25 is in fact the same as the Manticore 0 - 30 and the boosted zone is the 31 to 35 which takes it higher than the original Nox but likely equal to the Nox 900. It's really hard to prove that however using edge of detection tiny targets is the best way I know of to establish that, and it is correlating to the scales being different with the overall similar sensitivity level when Nox is on 25 and Manticore is on 30, with the extra potential being in the redline zone if it can be used. The Manticore does seem to handle EMI better if you do for example 25 sensitivity on the Nox and 25 sensitivity on the Manticore however if you run the Manticore at 30 sensitivity where it appears to match the Nox on small gold performance then they are similar with their EMI issues. If you crank the Manticore up to 35 it's going crazy unless you're in a very secluded place, I've done some lakefront hunting away from houses and powerlines by about a 20 minute drive and 35 ran great with only a few farts and pops and no false ID's. If they have indeed adjusted the scale of the sensitivity levels it would make the Manticore artificially appear to handle EMI better than the Nox. I like the long press EMI cancel, I believe it does work better than the standard noise cancel of the Nox 800, it settles on a number. The short press seems a lot like the Nox, just a random number it lands on, very much like the GPX 6000 too, where as when you do a long press on the Manticore and it settles on a number after bouncing between numbers trying to sort itself out, then after a while it locks onto a number and stays there even if you continue to hold it, you can do another long press and it often settles on the same number. It really seems like it is doing something, and it does appear to calm down EMI in some situations better than the original Nox, not all where lowering sensitivity is required. The detectors I've noticed a noise cancel working the best is the GPX 4500/5000 and GPX 7000. Yes they're slow but they really do work. I do like the Manticore, it's build quality so far seems exceptional, can't fault it and it's very nice on the arm, the performance might be a bit hyped up by Marketing and this time also engineering, don't know why they brought the big guns of engineering in to market it as if it turns out not as good as they're saying people might start to distrust engineering as much as they do sales and marketing people. Perhaps with competitors engaging so much with customers they thought using engineers to do some marketing will be a more personal engaged approach that customers will like and they do lap it up.

I saw it too, it kept distracting me when watching the video, it comes and goes at various points throughout the video, perhaps it's the ghost of a drop bear. There is certainly something going on in the background.

Thanks I'll look it up, I don't follow any Youtubers but I'll check out what's going on there, amazed Minelab have responded to him, perhaps the tide is changing and they've seen the importance of customer engagement learning from their peers.

You have to decide if you need either, you possibly don't unless your 800 has a deficiency that you need resolved like you hunt a lot in water and don't trust your Nox or you haven't put a aftermarket shaft on it and want it to be telescopic or something but its a big price to pay for a telescopic shaft. I don't think someone sticking with a Nox 800 is missing out on much at all., fantastic detector, it was the game changer.

I'm very disappointed with the Target ID stability on the Manticore too, even in air tests its far less stable than the Nox 800 and not just because of the expanded ID numbers, its more unstable than that. The CTX is still king as the deep silver cherry picker in a mild park setting that's for sure. The Nox appears to be the better prospecting machine, so it looks like the Manticore is the better for the beach, I'm not yet sure where and if I will use it for my needs. It's not the WOW machine their marketing made it out to be.

I contacted my dealer yesterday about this coil, he now has the 12x7" in stock and I could have one tomorrow if I want one, so very tempting as I waited for many months for it but gave up when I got the 10x5". Based on these videos though the need to have it doesn't really seem to be there, mostly seeing the 0.07 of a gram being better on the 11". I expected it would be based on the 11 vs 10x5" but I was hoping it wouldn't be. I'll keep an eye on it, you certainly can't make a decision on one or two videos, I hope it turns out an awesome coil, more options the better. Nenad said this "12x7 Xceed is using a sort of flattened bundle wind. So basically a rectangular cross section. Performance wise, I think that gives the best of both worlds" I wonder if that means that is it has a performance increase over the bundle wound options from Coiltek, not quite as sensitive as the stock semi spiral but runs more stable, or if it is the same windings as the 11" that NF has been able to improve stability. I guess we won't know until we see an X-ray. I've heard nothing but good about the 16x10" and for someone using it as a patch hunter like you Jason it might be the business. I haven't heard much good about the 14x9", I don't personally like it much, and all I see is people selling them so I was a bit surprised to hear people saying the 16x10" is good but perhaps its different, it sounds like NF did do a type of partial flat winding, maybe in the 16x10 its even wider. I really can't wait for the 8.5 x 6", for me that one is going to be fantastic, just the size of it will make all the difference. It should get into places my 8" on the GPZ can't even go and have good edge sensitivity. I'm not fussed by the GPX not being as deep as the GPZ, It's extremely unlikely Minelab would release a cheaper detector that performed overall better than their most expensive model, that's not how they roll so expecting it to be better is a bit unrealistic. Steve certainly did tell me this, many times, I'm now glad I own the GPX though, quite happy with it. My coils are working as they should, my shaft no longer twists and I can use my speaker, happy days. It certainly has its strong points and even though in my case the GPZ has the performance advantage I still like using the GPX now it's had its audio problem sorted out, its an effortless light detector to just go have some fun with knowing I won't miss too much by using it, if I was in a gold patch I'd certainly be going back with the GPZ to do the heavy lifting though, but I always do that anyway, go back with another detector or two including a VLF to ensure I don't leave too much behind. In some places the hot rocks just scare the 6000 away so it's good to have options. Hopefully more people do their reviews on the 12x7" and more videos pop up so I can decide if I want it before the dealer sells out, it's sitting there now in stock with no back orders on them, I could grab it.