How Many Of You Would Jump On A CTX If Minelab Dropped The Price To 1200 ?

[strick]

Congrats on your CTX Simon...I usually use auto ground balance 3 plus and keep it there...the ctx will false on big iron a lot if you go into manual GB and turn the sens up too much. I just trust the machine to adjust itself as the engineers designed it to.  My preference for trashy areas in the ctx and not the Nox so your comment about the nox being better is a little surprising. Findmall used to have some settings that you could down load and I have them on my machine and use them exclusively....I have not been able to find them but they still may be there. 

strick 

[Chase Goldman]

2 hours ago, strick said:

My preference for trashy areas in the ctx and not the Nox so your comment about the nox being better is a little surprising.

Not so surprising.  The reason Simon mentioned the Equinox might be preferred is because of its superior and adjustable recovery speed of the Equinox vs. the CTX, especially in iron.  The CTX has OK recovery but lets face it, it is not in the same league as the Equinox in that regard.  The CTX is indeed a deep silver slayer, as Simon again demonstrated.

[Jeff McClendon]

Lower the price to Equinox 800 levels...........maybe. 

[phrunt]

Yes I thought because the CTX just feels slow with it's recovery, again I have no idea if it's good or bad in trash I haven't taken it to a bad place yet other than my front yard that has a lot of roofing nails and it seems to do well there.  Maybe I do need to get the little coil for it too then.  It was just an assumption it won't be as good in trash.

I'm enjoying learning it, and it feels right at home on my arm being almost just a slightly lighter GPZ.  I really like that design I'm glad the GPX 6000 has taken it onboard too.  Something about It just seems more professional and oozes quality and looks expensive compared to the standard designs like the Equinox.  It feels like it justifies the price a bit more than a little pod on a stick. That's obviously just my personal opinion and the little pod on a stick design is without a doubt the clear winner for those that are concerned about weight.  My favourite detector to swing for comfort is my T2, and it's heavier than a number of detectors but you wouldn't know it they nailed the design on that one until they released the 15" coil for it and made one of the most memorable mistakes in detecting history 🙂

I am certainly not bothered at all by the weight of it, in fact because of the GPZ the CTX feels so light.  I think after a while you build muscle memory because the first few weeks swinging the GPZ it felt a bit heavy, but I grew into it and now it's fine, I keep getting told to use the bungee with it too and I never do, naughty, I'll probably pay for it when I'm older but I mostly do use significantly lighter coils than the standard one. 🙂

I haven't even clocked up 12 hours on the CTX yet.  We are just introducing ourselves to each other and it appears it was love at first sight but I can also see how some would find plenty of things about it they don't like.

I think they need to lower the price a bit just because there is a new kid in town that has a better value to performance ratio so I doubt CTX's are flying off the shelf but they won't, as when they bring out a newer model they'll want to maintain that price point without causing a stir.

[phrunt]

I found this little write up on the Equinox 800 vs CTX 3030 to be outstanding.  This person really knows how to explain the differences and why one isn't really better than the other, just different and I think that's what I'm experiencing using my CTX.  Sure, I surprised myself that I'd missed quite a few silver coins and I'm sure there is plenty more missed ones yet, however someone with a better understanding of the Nox knowing the soil conditions and target variety in the area could likely have tweaked the Nox to find most of the missed ones and perhaps it did hit them for me but didn't give me an obvious enough reason for me to dig them.   

https://nwdetectors.com/blogs/news/minelab-equinox-800-vs-ctx-3030

I'm just happy to have both as they certainly complement each other.

[strick]

14 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Not so surprising.  The reason Simon mentioned the Equinox might be preferred is because of its superior and adjustable recovery speed of the Equinox vs. the CTX, especially in iron.  The CTX has OK recovery but lets face it, it is not in the same league as the Equinox in that regard.  The CTX is indeed a deep silver slayer, as Simon again demonstrated.

I guess I get what your saying....I never considered iron as trash...to me it’s just iron and if I’m hunting in heavy iron I’m usually at an old home site looking for relics and digging everything but the iron so yes I want the speed and will bring the nox.  I hunt other things besides relics however and when I’m in a trashy parks or beaches looking for jewelry I find the superior disc on the ctx quite refreshing at times unless you like digging 10 thousand beer caps in all different stages of decay...yes there are ways to identify those with the nox but the ctx will notch them out better... it’s not just a deep silver machine. 

Strick

[Chase Goldman]

5 hours ago, strick said:

... it’s not just a deep silver machine. 

You're right, it's an expensive deep silver machine.    JK

But seriously, the 9-year-old CTX design still has unparalleled deep target ID accuracy (in mild soil, though Tarsacci kills it in hot soil, at least as far as differentiating deep non-ferrous from ferrous).  And that ability to assess both ferrous AND conductivity target signal components enables the most sophisticated graphical discrimination and target display setups available in any detector today.  Yes, it basically makes bottlecaps irrelevant (though Equinox has closed the gap a little with its latest improvement to iron bias with the F2 filter).  It has a myriad of great target signal audio adjustments (not just tones and pitches, but signal delay and lock-on adjustments too which can be useful). Beside recovery speed, it is only held up by having basically one multifrequency signal processing profile (vs. basically five distinct Multi IQ profiles for the Nox Park/Field 1, Park/Field 2, Beach 1, Beach 2, and Gold).  This gives the Nox the advantage on mid-conductive target sensitivity.

However, for me CTX is still a flawed machine for hot dirt relic hunting especially in thick iron.  The reason is thee-fold and I already mentioned a them, relatively slow (and basically minimally adjustable) recovery speed (resulting in desired target masking) vs more recently released machines, less mid-conductive target sensitivity which translates to fewer small brass and lead recoveries (not to mention gold and silver), and finally, poor hot dirt ground handling.  There is a definitive reason that at all my large relic digs in hot soil, people are either swinging a GPX or an Equinox with some Deus folks and die hard Garrett fans (also a Tarsacci or three ;)).  And many of those Equinox relic folks have already dropped serious coin on GPX's, so this is not a cost thing, just right tool for the job in thick iron patches.  I used to see a smattering of CTX's but no more.  I personally know several hot dirt relic hunters who used CTX's for years  who made the switch when Equinox was released.  They knew the CTX flaws under those conditions and were more than willing to make the trade to Equinox despite losing the CTX advantages regarding target ID accuracy and disc (which kind of go out the window in hot dirt) and some of the target signal audio adjustments that are available on CTX.

I am really looking forward to ML's higher end Multi IQ offering that combines the best of these two great detectors - at that point someone can ask me what I would pay.  Even though it has not been announced or even hinted at, I am 99% sure ML is working on the next gen of their classic FBS2 machines using Multi IQ or whatever ML is going to call their next iteration of multifrequency-based induction balance detecting tech.

[Edit:  I see many of these points are covered in that excellent CTX - Equinox comparison article Simon linked to above]

[strick]

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

I am really looking forward to ML's higher end Multi IQ offering that combines the best of these two great detectors - at that point someone can ask me what I would pay.  Even though it has not been announced or even hinted at, I am 99% sure ML is working on the next gen of their classic FBS2 machines using Multi IQ or whatever ML is going to call their next iteration of multifrequency-based induction balance detecting tech.

[Edit:  I see many of these points are covered in that excellent CTX - Equinox comparison article Simon linked to above]

 

Yep CTX struggles in hot ground as well...I read your other thred on the comparisons section where you seen the light while using the GPX on the bullet dig...It's interesting sometimes people have to actually see something to finally get it..reading about it in a book sometimes dosent even help....for us on the western US that hunt gold with detectors we are taught about VLF vs PI in hot ground before we even pick up a detector...there is no comparison for depth. 

for my applications in treasure hunting I still find the CTX very useful (trashy parks and beaches where there are zillions of bottle caps) These are the places close to where I live...the quick after work hunt...couple hours on the weekend...Large fields use the Nox for its speed... but anything close to picnic tables etc...I'll use the CTX....I'm talking jewelry hunting not coins....the Nox is deadly with the small coil on coines in trash.  

If were to take a beginner that has never been detecting before with me  I'd give them the CTX because they would have more fun with it..I still remember when my wife used it for the first time on a beach...she lost interest forever  in her AT-gold and I sold it after that. 

If you hear anything else about the CTX 4040 or what ever they are going to call it let us know I dont get to other sites all that often.

strick 

[Chase Goldman]

3 hours ago, strick said:

If were to take a beginner that has never been detecting before with me  I'd give them the CTX because they would have more fun with it..I still remember when my wife used it for the first time on a beach...she lost interest forever  in her AT-gold and I sold it after that. 

Now that surprises me given the complexity of the CTX menu system and the myriad of settings, but if you set it up for her and she is basically using it as a turn on and go machine, I get it.  I certainly would not advise a beginner to BUY a CTX as a first machine to learn how to setup and use, even if it was priced like a Simplex because of its complexity.  But if strick or Andy Sabisch were setting up the machines and handing them out to beginners to learn how to DETECT, I could see that, especially with target trace and the ability to make bottlecaps effectively invisible without compromising depth.  Though personally tonal nuances (esp Deus tones) tell me more about the nature of a target than even a four digit Fe-Co visual target ID number in some instances.

[Jeff McClendon]

The CTX 3030 is a fantastic detector, no doubt about it in certain conditions, like beaches and other non-iron infested places with mild mineralization. I would not use one in areas with high mineralization caused by natural iron or volcanics.  I owned one for awhile out here in the Rockies and I loved some things about it but in the end...........just like the Whites V3i, DFX, Minelab Explorer, E-trac and the one this topic is about, overall depth and target ID accuracy went bye bye very quickly on anything that wasn't a perfectly buried coin sized object or bigger. These detectors just could not deal with the masking caused by high mineralization or moderate to bad areas of EMI or the worse scenario.....both at the same time.

Now, there are some parks and other areas here that I would still love to run a CTX 3030 over, just in case my other detectors had missed some really deep (11" or more) perfectly deposited silver targets, just for kicks. Unfortunately, everyone I know that had one I could borrow recently sold them........

Personally, If someone was hunting with me that really was a total beginner (not a person switching detectors with some experience like strick's example) I would not hand them a CTX 3030, Equinox, Deus or even an ORX. I would definitely hand them a Vanquish or Ace Apex after spending no more than 5 minutes showing them how to use them and giving them a few tips for their quirks .