The Hunter Gt Tests Ctx, Deus 2, Nox And Legend

[longbow62]

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

Yes, I'm by no means saying the Ace is better than the Nox, I'm saying given the right conditions with the 13" coil it can pass the Nox and 11" coil with depth on a silver coin, I don't know if it's because the Ace has quite a low frequency which helps on the deep silvers, or if its slower recovery speed helps, it certainly seems like it has a slow recovery speed.  I could probably tweak up the Nox to match it by fiddling with settings, this is just in Park 1 with the sensitivity cranked up, and the Ace in default coin mode with sensitivity cranked up.  

My whole point is it's likely the coil being bigger making the Ace do so well, If I put the bigger 15x12" Coil on the Nox then it pulls ahead and beats the Ace with 13" coil.   For me in this situation the coil size means more than the detector used for the depth.

It's other features like the Target ID stability and big coils that keep me picking up the Nox/CTX.  If I was a dig it all kinda guy and on a budget I could just use an Ace with Tornado coil and do very well in my milder soils in a park/field type situation.  I say dig it all as the Ace 350 I like the most for silver coins only has 12 target ID segments, a lot of targets fall into the same segments so you can't overly cherry pick like you can on the other detectors.  The Ace 300 I have has target ID's and they're pretty stable, not quite at Nox/CTX level though.  For me it really comes down to bigger coils, I'd like to try a 15" Nel or something on an Ace, I think it'd do so well here.  It's hard to justify buying a coil that costs more than the detector did ?

I think too much focus is put on the latest and the greatest detectors when someone can do very well in the right conditions with a much cheaper detector.  Entry level detectors these days are pretty awesome machines.

It's not all about the magic wand, the Wizard swinging it has a lot to do with being successful.

When I said apples to apples I actually meant Nox/CTX both with 11" coils. Not the ACE. You said these were clean spots and mild soil. Have you tried lowering the recovery down to 2 or 3 on the Nox? Have I not read anything faster than 3 is just done with the audio on the Nox? 

[phrunt]

3 minutes ago, longbow62 said:

When I said apples to apples I actually meant Nox/CTX both with 11" coils. Not the ACE. You said these were clean spots and mild soil. Have you tried lowering the recovery down to 2 or 3 on the Nox? Have I not read anything faster than 3 is just done with the audio on the Nox? 

I honestly don't remember, it's been a long time now since I compared the Nox to the CTX on a deep silver coin in the wild before digging, I know I spent quite a bit of time fiddling around with the Nox to see if I could improve it's performance on the deep little silvers when I was comparing them.  I see no point me doing it with 11" coils as I have no intentions of using 11" coils to look for these deep silvers, so the closest apples to apples I'll be comparing for my needs is the 17x13" vs the 15x12", if Minelab won't provide a bigger coil for the Nox well then that's it's deepest apple.  I would buy the Coiltek 15" if anyone would confirm it's deeper but that doesn't seem to be the case unfortunately, even a semi local guy with one said he wasted his money as it was no deeper than the 15x12" just a lot heavier with no real extra ground coverage.  It seems on detectors there is a certain coil size that maxes out their depth, anything bigger than that size adds no depth at all.

I'll test 11" vs 11" on a buried coin and some point soon and see if lowering my recovery down helps at all but I'm sure I would have done that at the time.  My soil is very mild, on my T2 the mineralisation bar is nothing, and detectors like it just run, I don't need to ground balance them although I do to try squeeze a bit more performance out of them.

One thing I've noticed that seems to be quite different between the Nox and the CTX is the Nox will hit for example a 7" coin easily, it will hit an 9" coin OK, if you go back to the 7" coin and lift the coil 2 inches off the ground you lose the signal even though it detects it at 9" fine in the ground. It likes the coil to be very close to the soil,  The CTX doesn't do this on that same 7" coin you can lift the coil 3 or 4" off the ground and the target signal is fine with a good ID.   I'm not sure why this is, but it makes the Nox less effective for hunting in longer grass as swinging over grass creates this same air gap that hinders performance.  I believe that's why the T2 and F75 have a boost mode, I've not got a boost model T2, mines the Green without Boost, I'd like to try boost though and see if it works.  Perhaps its something that will be improved on the Equinox 1000.

[Steve Herschbach]

I think it’s perfectly valid to compare detectors with different coils. I think a major problem with the Deus 2 versus Equinox is the lack of very large and very small coils. It’s Equinox with 15x12 versus Deus 2 with what exactly?  If the Nox can outperform the Deus 2 using the larger coil, does that not matter?  Can the Deus 2 with any coil hit a gold nugget as small as an Equinox with a 6” coil? Is even asking the question unfair?

Apples to apples comparisons are important, and can be revealing of certain inherent differences. But coils are the single most important way a person can enhance the performance of their detector, and a lack of coil options has a real world impact on any detectors ability to compete in real world situations. I’m more than happy any day to “cheat” and use a coil my buddy does not have, to make finds they can’t. 

[cjc]

The sense I get is that these ultra light machines try to substitute digital wizardry for pure processing power.  That power is heavy just as was the Sovereign.  However where you have a number of adverse things that would overwhelm said circuit--fast salt, incline, iron, black / grey sand summating to overwhelm detection--this is  where these software dandies  show weakness.  The NOX for example can just barely process it's own big coil in salt and goes into digital "clickey-click" noises.  Also, many of these types of comparison tests ignore the fact that what a detector does is to SEPARATE metal from ground and therefore hyped up almost random settings may not be what's needed to accomplish this separation.  Everyone wants to take this gonzo jam the signal down approach and compare on that basis.  A signal balancing approach is based upon letting the conditions dictate--not being taken in by industry hype and superlative  claims.  As this video shows--with that approach--one of these new ultrallght supercomputor type machines is as good as the next--and the tough conditions show that even more.   At all  of the sites  I hunt there's a "troll under every bridge."  I succeed not by having the latest machine but by knowing when to use which one of the old ones--and how to tune those based upon what the conditions will allow--not wishful thinking.  Even the Excalibur will lose depth without losing threshold and a lot of hunters miss  targets because they don't understand basic multi FQ theory.  I count on it.

cjc

[mh9162013]

4 minutes ago, cjc said:

The sense I get is that these ultra light machines try to substitute digital wizardry for pure processing power. 

Are you saying that's a bad thing?

[cjc]

18 minutes ago, mh9162013 said:

Are you saying that's a bad thing?

well--there's such a thing as a confounded signal.  High gain, digital, multi FQ, modulated, super fast, high bias--thats rich fare...lol

It helps to know what any of them are....

cjc

[phrunt]

I've never been one to like the apples to apples comparison thing, yes it can give you a baseline to see how good your detector would be if the manufacturer gave you more coils for it by forcing another detector to use a similar size coil as yours is locked into to compare how they go against each other, but if the other detector has a range of coils that give it the leading position so be it, it makes more sense to use that detector to me.   I'm one to use the best coil for the job so that's my apple.

If I'm comparing detectors on a nugget I put the most suitable coil on both of them and test them, and the winner is the winner, I'm not handicapping one detector because another doesn't have a coil as good as the other.  Likewise if I'm checking depth, big coils all the way, as big as the manufacturer will provide/allow.

Steve worded it better than I but realistically, if your hindered by coils and another detector isn't, and the other detector is better once you put a different coil more suitable to the task at hand that makes it the superior detector, even if it can't keep up with the other when they're using the same size coil.

The Deus 2 is VERY limited with coils, The Equinox has a reasonable amount of coils as does the CTX, the Legend will likely end up with the most coils if Nel survives this crisis in Ukraine ?, if not it'll likely end up with three or so coil options and be similar to the others with its range, if not a smaller range.

XP can't say they can't fit the electronics into a big coil, there is no reason there isn't a big field hunters 15x12 or 17x13" size coil like the Minelab's have.  Where I hunt they're the only coils I want to use.

The thing that stopped me wanting a Deus 2 was the coil options, I sat down and thought about it, on my Nox I mostly only ever use the 6" or the 15x12", the two size coils the Deus 2 won't have.  I rarely use the 11" and to me 9" may as well be 11", still too big for prospecting for me as I want a tiny gold hunting VLF and way too small for coin hunting in my area.