My First Week With The XP Deus 2 + 9in. Coil ~20 Hours

[Calmark]

My new XP Deus 2 arrived a week ago today and I have about 20 hours total on the machine.  I've managed to get out 5 days for at least a short hunt.  California is in a drought and my soil is prematurely super dry and digging is difficult when it should be moist and soft this time of year for another month or two.  With the window to easy digging closing soon, I had need to get out immediately and test the Deus 2 before its too hot and dry to detect grassy areas for coins/jewelry.  Excitement from having a new machine to test out certainly helped my motivation to get out and detect too.  

 All locations were in VERY challenging soil ranging from highly-mineralized to severely-mineralized.  12-13 hours spent total in some local parks looking for coins and jewelry, and 7-8 hours out nugget hunting on an old patch hunted for several years by my dad, brother and I using our Minelab GPX 5000 machines.  One great feature is the soil level graph on the Deus 2.  I've always known my soil was bad, but now I can say for sure with hard data that it is TERRIBLE.  All locations are 3/4 of a bar to a full bar on the soil level indicator.  An accurate ID on a coin around here past 5-6 inches is a dream.  Despite the bad soil, the Deus 2 ran very quietly and smoothly and even EMI wasn't really an issue, even next to power lines while in a city park.  Definitely nice to see the Deus behave so well.  However, the Deus 2 was no giant leap in detection depth in my soil.  It's about on par with my Equinox 800 and past vlf detectors. 

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the Deus 2, even though I didn't "need" another vlf detector.  This is the 5th vlf I've had since my White's 6000di Pro in 1995 when I started coin-shooting and I tend to go 5-10 years before I upgrade.  Its been 3.5 years since I got my Equinox 800, but I jumped in "early" and got the XP since I've never had the brand before and have been intrigued by its unique features and audio.  Luckily for me I am in a financial situation where I can now afford to own multiple detectors, though that wasn't always the case.  

Like many have reported, the Deus 2 is great in terms of its light weight and ease of swinging, especially with the 9in. coil.  This is the first detector with an "S" style shaft and I find its easy on the wrist and a breeze to swing.  Having to charge 3 separate devices, coil, headphones and control box is a little extra effort, but not insurmountable. The collapsible shaft is handy for making the whole thing compact in seconds and probably why nobody likely realized I had a detector in hand while walking a few blocks to a park along a busy street.  

 

On my first outing to a park with around 100 years of past use, using P5, Park program, I did a quick pass of the swings in the wood chip area and scored a few pennies.  Next I hit a spot where during a few annual festivals, vendors sell items and food, and from past experience I knew was loaded with pulltabs and some bottle caps.  I go to this area from time to time and go nuts digging mid-conductors in the hopes of finding gold, but no luck so far all these years.  I did pull out a few coins missed by detectorists in the past, though mostly just zinc cents.   I did notice right away how easy it was to swing over a target, do a cross sweep and know exactly where it was.  I found I could locate and dig targets very quickly, definitely a plus when coin/jewelry searching is often a game of numbers.  The more you dig, the better chance to come across a good find.   I also briefly swung around an old bleacher area where I've found some 100 year-old coins over the years among the thick layers of bottle caps, pull tabs, foil, nails, etc.  Determining where targets were was a breeze due to impressive separation and I definitely plan to work this area further later on.  I feel optimistic the Deus 2 can sniff out a few more old coins among all that trash from this quick test.  

 

I searched another older park 2 different days and tried out some other programs like P3, sensitive full tones and P4, Fast.  I then mostly defaulted back to using P1, General since it had good, loud audio and targets really stood out.   I hunted for around 4 hours each day where I've had success with the Equinox bagging some older coins and a few silver jewelry pieces.  I managed 2 silver war nickels (1945S and 1942S) and 9 wheat cents, the oldest being a 1910S that filled a spot in my penny album.  I also dug plenty of aluminum trash hoping for gold, while getting familiar with the sounds of the new detector.  I definitely dug more trash than usual while getting accustomed to the responses of the Deus 2.   I did dig a few pieces of deeper iron, but I was skeptical on most, especially when pinpoint mode placed the target to the side of where I thought it would be.  A good test I've found to ID iron most of the time. 

The VDI was solid and numbers did not vary more than a few digits on targets up to 4 inches or so.   None of the old coins I found were past 4 inches deep, but that's similar to how its been for every machine I've run here in the past.  I'd estimate half I found were hitting areas I'd passed by with the Equinox and the others due to me digging signals with a VDI in zinc penny range or slightly lower.  Most of the wheat cents read 84-86 and would be missed by anybody also discriminating out zinc cents.  In time, I hope to get to learn the machine better and start to unearth some deeper coins I know must be lurking.  Its going to require tuning my ear to the audio and testing different programs on the Deus 2 to see what works best in my hot soil.   I'm convinced if I can learn to hit coins at 6 inches or more, I'll start to pull out some even older examples.  I may have to wait until fall and more rain since moist soil adds depth (and noise) at these locations.  

 

Overall, I'm happy with my first trips out hunting for urban coins and jewelry.  I think performance-wise, the Deus 2 is about on par with my Equinox, but with its own distinct personality.  I really enjoyed how quiet and smoothly the Deus ran and how it handled EMI.  Its a breeze to swing, especially with the 9in. coil and I found with my background swinging the Nox, reading the instruction manual, and watching some Deus 2 videos, running the controls was fairly easy for me.   Signals were extremely easy for me to locate, zero in on, and dig out.  I think in terms of target retrieval speed and audio, the Deus 2 suits me more.  Full tones (P3) seemed sort of muted and muffled in my bad soil, but other programs had great audio volume that said "dig me".  I did dig more trash than usual, but that's part of learning a new machine.  Hopefully with more time, I'll gel even more with the Deus, and I expect that to happen more quickly than with the Equinox.  Both are great machines and are similar in performance.  If you have one or the other, you are set for most circumstances.  I'm fortunate to have both and can use experience gained from both to compliment my detecting skills.  

I'll write up more about my prospecting experience with the Deus 2 soon.  This review has already gotten too long as it is!  

[strick]

Nice write up. There are a lot of adjustments that will take some getting used to on the Deus 2 (at least for me) having had a Deus 1 for 5-6 years the menus still don't jive with my brain as compared to the Equinox which seemed easier for me to pick up...it's interesting to hear how some struggle with the Nox adjustments but find the Deus easy and vice a versa...I guess our brains are all made different...I don't have but maybe 10 hours on my Deus 2 as of now. I did go to the foot hills this weekend and found I was digging more nails then I did down here in the bay area, I could hear the iron grunt on most and but some were too tempting not to dig so it was a couple deep ones with large heads on them that fooled me.  for me it's nice to have an automated machine that you can just turn on and go and once I get the hang of the Deus 2 and get some programs saved it will be a lot easier to just grab it and go. 

strick 

[Calmark]

The Deus 2 definitely has a lot of adjustability.  Both a good and bad thing for sure.  The basic programs work well and suit a beginner on the machine like me.  But, its good to know as a user gets more advanced, there are settings and the ability to highly customize programs to gain improved performance.  I've mostly stuck with the preset programs in hopes of getting to know them and their basic characteristics. 

I plan on using Deep High Conductor (and maybe even Relic program) more in the future and see how it does for deeper coins.  But, soon I will also make up some of my own custom programs now that I can navigate the settings decently well and understand what the controls do for the most part.  I too think having some custom programs saved will make the Deus 2 much more grab and go.

While I've had fun swinging the Equinox and enjoyed its performance, the Deus 2 so far has been the same, but also a pleasure to use due to its ergonomics and sweet sounding audio.  No doubt others will find the reverse, since everybody is different in what works best for them.  

 

[F350Platinum]

I'm glad posts like this are rolling out now from folks that didn't get a Deus for free. 😀 

I'm fascinated by the XY screen, haven't tried it yet. Chase recommended Deep HC for my soil conditions, he's been testing the heck out of the D2, some on my permissions. It did well but it does eat battery.

What is really making me happy is that my observations so far are pretty similar to you more experienced detectorists. Thanks!

[Commonwealthdetector]

On 4/5/2022 at 10:40 AM, Calmark said:

The Deus 2 definitely has a lot of adjustability.  Both a good and bad thing for sure.  The basic programs work well and suit a beginner on the machine like me.  But, its good to know as a user gets more advanced, there are settings and the ability to highly customize programs to gain improved performance.  I've mostly stuck with the preset programs in hopes of getting to know them and their basic characteristics. 

I plan on using Deep High Conductor (and maybe even Relic program) more in the future and see how it does for deeper coins.  But, soon I will also make up some of my own custom programs now that I can navigate the settings decently well and understand what the controls do for the most part.  I too think having some custom programs saved will make the Deus 2 much more grab and go.

While I've had fun swinging the Equinox and enjoyed its performance, the Deus 2 so far has been the same, but also a pleasure to use due to its ergonomics and sweet sounding audio.  No doubt others will find the reverse, since everybody is different in what works best for them.  

 

Biggest things for me were audio response up 1 basically across the board which I only run pwm same! Day one testing vs nox the faint sounds which are still there up to 5 just a tad louder vs nox audio loud proud was not confidence building on factory settings! Imo may just be me.

       Reactivity down to 2,1.5 seem to be as fast as needed and deep or atleast I've put good bits of time in honest iron laiden sites and had zero problems sniffing plenty out of no signalville for the nox! 

      Pitch tones is alertive,plenty loud and if a target can be hit it will hit it. Many times seemingly under bits of nails! 

     I didnt like pitch at first but I'll learn to be like anything that seemingly sees through things other units just cannot! Fulltones are my love just my last site seemed daunting to use,I may have given up to quick time will tell though!