Digalicious

Yes, Paystreak said something about SMF splitting the power. I could be wrong, but I don't think SMF works that way. In fact, it's very common for end users to notice that SMF gets a little better depth, and better TID than SF. Jeff made a good point about M3 not being as sensitive to small targets compared to a mid or high weighted SMF mode. It's especially true when it comes to small or deep gold. However, even with gold, M3 may be able to unmask gold targets masked by nonferrous trash, better than the other SMF modes. It would be interesting to see some tests between the SMF modes with a small gold ring beside a pulltab and/or foil. I'll be updating my Legend on Sunday, and will be doing those type of tests 🙂

The new M3 is weighted even lower than Park M1. It provides for notably better coin identification when masked by nonferrous trash, compared to M1, M2, and the previous M3. I haven't installed the new update yet, but my Legend has had the test version of the new M3 on it for about the last 4 months. The new M3's unmasking and separation ability is astounding...and that's not an exaggeration. Suffice to say that after using the new M3 with it's extremely low weighted SMF, it's now the only SMF mode I use for coin shooting.

Thank you for that information GB 🙂 What I found most enlightening, was this statement: What I was getting at with my post you replied to, is the possibility that the D2 is finding more coins in pounded sites because the previous detectors were not set up the same in regards to iron bias, recovery speed, and frequency weighting. If any one of those three is utilized better on the D2, compared to the detectors that were used on the pounded site, then that could very well explain why the D2 is finding more coins. Also, the previous detectors used on those pounded sites may have been too slow and/or not have a SMF mode weighted heavily toward 3-5 khz. I'd like to elaborate with the details about all that, but I think I'll do so in a separate thread. For now, suffice to say that I'm of the opinion that if I used various SMF detectors with the same coil size, along with the similar recovery speeds, similar iron bias, and similar frequency weighting, then they would perform in a similar manner and find a similar amount of coins.

If the D2 is ID'ing coins in trash better than certain detectors, then does it have to do with the following, and would you be able to do the same with other detectors? 1) Using a low iron bias. 2) Using a fast recovery speed. 3) Using a SMF mode that is heavily weighted toward low frequencies such as 3 khz to 5 khz, which often provides much better ID's on coins when masked by nonferrous trash. It seems as though when going above around 7-10 khz, nonferrous masked coins will ID lower than nickel and could have very well been missed with other detectors. For example, to the best of my knowledge, the Nox's Park1 goes above 10 khz.

Hi Songman. I don't have salt beach experience with the Legend, but I would bury a gold ring fairly deep, then play around with different settings to see what hits it the best. You may already know this, but for salt conditions, Beach Mode's Stability control is important.

Here's a short video from Iffy Signals showing the value of an iron bias control.

My fear with ground tracking on trashy sites, is the detector ground balancing over a target...and in trashy sites, the coil is almost always over a target. I imagine there are algorithms that try to average out situations like that, but still. Then again, I'm thinking ground tracking isn't designed for trashy sites, or most sites for that matter. More for non-trashy sites in which the ground mineralization changes as you wonder around.

This is the best way I can describe iron bias: There are instances when a detector can't determine if it is seeing a ferrous object, or a nonferrous object. For example, if a coin is beside a nail(s), then the ferrous signal is strong and the nonferrous signal is weak. As such, that strong ferrous signals dominates, and the detector will give you a ferrous tone and ID. In other words, the coin is missed. In that example, as you lower the iron bias (iron filter), it starts to allow that nonferrous coin signal to dominate and the detector will give you a nonferrous tone and ID. However, the caveat is that since even ferrous contains some nonferrous properties, then if you go too low on the IF, then some nail(s) on their own, will give a nonferrous tone and ID (known as ferrous / iron falsing). You want to go as low as you can on the IF to get the best unmasking in ferrous trash. How low? Well, the default of 8 is too high. I lower it to the point that I just get the occasional ferrous falsing. I typically run my IF between 1 and 3, and leave my St at mid level 3. I leave the St at 3 because I think the main 8 IF settings are more than enough.

Use that weird detector thing in your hand and clear out a small area just a bit larger than the coil, then ground balance over that 😁

I prefer to use SMF as much as possible, as I seem to get better target ID and a little more depth. Also, I can change the iron bias in SMF. That's really important to me, because a lot of the sites I hunt are ferrous infested.

For sure JCR. In context, MW isn't quite as good as 4 khz. I often can't decide whether or not to use MW or 4khz. It usually comes down to how bad the EMI is. When I tested the new SMF mode, it worked as well as MW, but I felt it could be weighted even more toward 4khz. I did mention that to Nokta, so I guess we'll see what happens.

But we don't know what the new update will contain. Will it even contain a new M3, or a new M4? Will it contain a new SMF at all? I sure hope so, because MW is a significantly better coin shooter in nonferrous trash than M1, M2, or M3 is. I agree with JCR though. The Legend is an outstanding detector, especially considering its cost. And it keeps getting better and better with the updates.

I completely agree that separation is the priority in trashy sites, with depth not really much of a concern. BUT, I always agreed to that because I was under the erroneous impression that the depth differential with the recovery speed was only about a measly 1". Given that it's more like a drastic 4", then in trashy sites, I'm thinking I'll run 3-5 and slow down a little more.

Well I'll be damned. I did indeed remember incorrectly, because I just did an air test, and yes, the difference was about 4". That was an eye opener for me. Thanks Herr. I'm going to take that into account and likely won't run as high as a recovery speed as I normally do in trashy sites. I normally run 8, but I think I'll end up dropping that to 5 once I also compare the separation ability.

Wow. 4 inches? I could have sworn that when I tested that, the difference was only about 1". Then again maybe I'm not remembering correctly. Your post has definitely spurred me to test that again.

Will do 🙂 What exactly are you referring to with "filtering"?

I always ground balance, no matter how mild I think the soil is. What I always shake my head at in a lot of those videos, is when they ground balance without checking that there aren't targets under the coil.

Hi Rick. Why do you think Park separates better than Field? More specifically, separation ability is mainly a factor of the recovery speed, and the default recovery speed is the same in Park as it is in Field.

If I remember correctly, there is no difference in the frequency weighting between Park and Field. I wouldn't expect there to be a difference, but I'm going to try and find out for certain.

Are you fellow Legend owners all aware of the modified M3 that the next update is supposed to contain?

Thanks for that Chase. Anyone know the weight of the LG24 yet?

Thanks for the info Bohemia. When newbies are comparing prices for detectors, they often don't take into account the cost of a particular detector's accessories. Nokta is head and shoulders amongst the rest when it comes to value / performance for the dollar. I've never heard of MAP. Rather, I've only heard of MSRP, to which dealers typically sell for less than MSRP. What's the MAP thing all about?

Well School, it would be an interesting experiment to see how TT changes with a nonferrous / ferrous coin at different depths and orientation 🙂

That would work if those coins were at the same depth and orientation. Given that they're not, I would think that the position of the line from ferrous to nonferrous would vary considerably depending on depth and orientation of those coins. Although, that wouldn't be a problem if one is digging all the nonferrous signals, and digging the mixed nonferrous / ferrous signals.

Fishersari, If I read that right, you're able to run it at max sensitivity when the coil is submerged, but not when it's submerged. If so, then would that be because the water is shielding the coil from EMI?