Digalicious

That's because the size of the object (signal strength), not just conductivity, affects the ID. For example, a tiny gold ring can ID at 11 (like small foil), and a large gold ring can ID in the higher conductor coin range.

On a noisy beach, be it people, waves, or wind, headphones or earbuds are a must. Regarding gold jewelry: The trash to treasure ratio in the water, is far better than on the beach. Also, there is no such thing as listening to sound nuance when it comes to gold jewelry. Gold jewelry can sound just as crappy, or just as good as foil, pulltabs, and aluminum bottle caps. It's pretty much "dig all nonferrous tones" when hunting for gold jewelry. Are you hunting salt or freshwater beaches? Also, is the sand more like fine gravel, or more like hourglass sand?

Gil, When hunting for jewelry, it's inevitable to have to dig a hell of a lot of trash for every gold piece of jewelry. That's as true for a $200 detector, as it is for a $2000 detector. Hunting for coins only is a different story though. You can use discrimination to mainly find coins, without digging much trash.

Above ground unmasking / separation tests just make it easier for the tester, and more transparent for the viewer. In such above ground comparison tests, if a detector can't hit a coin sitting beside a nail, it isn't going to be able to hit in the ground.

Started about 30 years ago in my late teens, with a cheap radio shack detector. I then found and read (about 5 times!) Charles Garret's book titled "Modern Metal Detectors". I tried a few more detectors and settled on a Fisher 1266X and a Tesoro Silver uMax. I found a lot of great stuff with those detectors over the next few years. I dropped the hobby because I let wine, women, and song get in the way😬 Fast forward 30 years, and the bug hit harder than ever. I devoured massive amounts of information about the new detectors. I thought I'd be good to go with a Simplex and a Vanquish 540, but I quickly grew out of both those detectors. I then bought a Legend and have been using that for the last 2 years. I won't be buying another detector unless it can distinguish between aluminum and gold.

I found a post I made from about 1 year ago, showing a depth / sensitivity test on the Legend. The results were also nonlinear. For the sensitivity test, I used the 6” coil, a silver dime, M3, and the default of 5 for the recovery speed. Note the 1" difference from 24 to the maximum of 30, yet there is a 3" difference from 16 to 24. 30-10” 29-9.5” 28-9.5” 27-9.5” 26-9” 25-9” 24-9” 23-8.5” 22-8” 21-7.5” 20-7” 19-7” 18-6.5” 17=6.5” 16-6”

Thanks. I'm heading out for the day, so I'll check that out later. On my Legend, there is a 4" depth difference between 16 and the maximum setting of 30. I could be completely wrong, but I suspect that a similar sensitivity depth reduction would result in a similar depth reduction on the 900.

Are you sure about that Hardpack? How much is "not much depth loss"? 🙂 Have you done comparisons depth tests between maximum or near maximum sensitivity, and 16?

Yes, Nokta has a PI detector in the works, as well as a boost mode for the Legend (which I think will be an extremely low weighted SMF mode), but no official release dates have been given for either of those.

I haven't heard anything official about a news release, but something is coming down the pipe.

On a side note, I think this occurs because with a slow swing speed, the change in the coil's field on a deep target, is much more subtle than the abrupt change to the coil's field with a fast swing fast. Kind of like the difference between someone gently touching your arm, and someone giving a quick tap to your arm. That gentle touch isn't felt, but the quick tap is 🙂

Aside from finding hotspots that Hound mentioned, in clean ground, a fast swing speed will often hit on deeper targets better than a slow swing speed.

The Legend is going up by $50 U.S. in the new year.

That could very well be. I mean, they're already killing it in the low and mid priced market, so the next logical step would be a detector in the higher priced market. Although as I previously mentioned, I can't see how SMF performance can get any better than what we already have, nor can I see how ergonomics can get any better than a D2. If I was grasping at straws, maybe the Nokta engineers discovered a way to get far better target ID accuracy with SMF?

I saw that video yesterday morning, right after he posted it. He also said something like, "It will blow every other detector away". If it's another typical SMF / VLF detector, then I can't see how it's going to blow anything away. SMF hit its peak a long time ago. If the rumor is true, then perhaps Nokta has made a breakthrough in their Invenio project. The Invenio is a patented true imaging detector that shows the shape / outline of the targets.

Hi Byrd. I'll assume by "Garrett", you mean the Carrot. In regards to depth: On the main Legend Facebook page, there are dozens and dozens of hunters who have both the Carrot and Accupoint. I'd say about 20% of those say that the AC has more depth, 20% say less depth, and the rest say "about the same depth". Other than that, the AC can pair with your Legend and has a built in battery. The screen shows the settings and battery level, and makes it easier to change settings.

You're welcome. I don't own a 900, but if you're getting a lot of true iron falsing with that low of an iron bias, I don't see what else you can do other than raise the iron bias, or dig it up to see what's going on. When I'm hunting in iron with my Legend, I use 0 iron bias. When I encounter what I think is true iron falsing, I do the short wiggle over the target and watch Ferrocheck. If Ferrocheck shows little to no strength on the nonferrous side, and a lot of strength on the ferrous side, then I don't don't dig it.

I very recently explained the IF in this thread: Nokta Double Score Or Legend? - Nokta / Makro Metal Detectors - DetectorProspector.com

The iron stability is "fine tuning" for the IF. IMO, the Legend's 10 levels of IF is more than enough. As such, I find the Iron Stability settings to be unnecessary. I leave my Iron Stability at mid level 3, and just use the main IF settings. This may or not be related to that opinion, but Nokta removed the Iron Stability control in the Double Score.

You're welcome. You're correct with, "I would get then that one needs to set the iron filter just high enough to reduce falsing but not too high as to not miss non-ferrous targets". You're also correct with, "What happens when the iron filter is high, there is a non-ferrous target but no iron around it? Is the IF then inconsequential?". In somewhat of a contrast, the reason a low IF can cause iron objects to identify as nonferrous, is because even the very low conductive properties of the ferrous object will be "allowed" to come through.

Gil, In trashy areas, the 11" round coil can be overwhelming for a newbie. That size of coil will allow a lot more signals to come through, compared to the 9.5x6 coil. If you want to forgo the 9.5x6, then just keep the sensitivity fairly low until you get used to things. Both the Double Score and the Legend have an iron filter, which is also known as an iron bias control. It's a critical setting for getting maximum unmasking of nonferrous targets in ferrous trash. Take for example a nail on top of a coin. A high iron filter setting will allow the full ferrous signal to come through, thus overriding the nonferrous signal, and missing the coin. A low iron filter setting will suppress the ferrous signal, thus allowing the nonferrous coin signal to come through. A high iron filter will setting will eliminate most iron falsing, but miss a lot of nonferrous targets that are masked by ferrous objects. Iron falsing is when the detector gives a good nonferrous tone and nonferrous ID, on a ferrous object. A low iron bias will unmask much better in iron. The caveat is that the lower the setting, the more prone the detector is to iron falsing. Ferrocheck really helps in determining if iron falsing is occurring.

I completely agree with Mark as well. You're tech savvy, and ask good questions. As such, I suspect that if you bought the Double Score, you would soon yearn for the extra features of the Legend. One example of that, is Ferrocheck. Ferrocheck is only available on the Legend, and it's an amazing feature to have when hunting in iron. Since you're new to this, then either way you go, I suggest starting out with only 50% sensitivity, and preferably the smaller 9.5x6 coil.

Yes of course. It was just a joke Chase 🙂

That's a pretty decent haul. I love sites with little to no aluminum trash like foil and pulltabs. Although it seems one can go to sites in the middle of nowhere, and still find foil and tabs! So much so, that I've come to the profound conclusion that foil and tabs have the ability to fall from the sky 😁

Is it true that BBS / FBS has a speed / separation problem, when compared to the newer SMF detectors beginning with the Nox? If so, I find it very unlikely that the processor is the cause of that. Even cheap processors would be able to easily handle the miniscule processing required for a metal detector. Aside from the weight / battery issue, perhaps Minelab realized that the speed / separation issue couldn't be overcome? That may not have been an issue back in the day, but now with all the YT'ers doing all these speed / separation / unmasking comparisons, would the FBS/ BBS fail miserably compared to the newer SMF detectors? If so, maybe Minelab foresaw that, and realized sales would be low, and returns would be high, because of that negative YT and social media exposure.