Manticore Dreamers Like Me Will Enjoy This Vid

[Chase Goldman]

21 hours ago, strick said:

There seems to be a few here that want a machine that just beeps and give a number...fine have at it...some of us like a little more info.  

I personally don't want "just beeps".  I favor expressive audio over visual.  That's why I seem to favor the D2 platform lately over Nox despite the coil limitations.   Both Manticore and 900 will have new audio options that I favor that gives your brain additional subtle cues about the target under the coil than just a beep and a number.  900 fixes a lot of 800 flaws.  I DO like having the target trace feature top of it all as additional input, I just gotta decide if I am going to want to pay $600+ more for the Manticore over the 900 to just to get target trace (and ferrous disc programming) as the other "performance" enhancements over 900 appear to be marginal.  And, for now, 900 has a better selection of accessory coils. I will likely get a Manticore down the road or skip to it's successor should ML decide to retire the 3030 with a next gen Multi-IQ-based platform.

[palzynski]

On 12/16/2022 at 2:28 PM, Chase Goldman said:

....  I just gotta decide if I am going to want to pay $600+ more for the Manticore over the 900 to just to get target trace (and ferrous disc programming) as the other "performance" enhancements over 900 appear to be marginal.  And, for now, 900 has a better selection of accessory coils. I will likely get a Manticore down the road or skip to it's successor should ML decide to retire the 3030 with a next gen Multi-IQ-based platform.

Yea the 900 seems to be a performing detector for a ( relatively ) reasonable price at 1200E over here . Reactive and deep . Looks like it will be a very good upgrade for Equinox 800 owners .

Not sure that it will do better than a D2 from what I have seen in these videos , but this is an other story ... 🙂

[phrunt]

The Equinox 900 has a 15x12" coil, a 15" round coil, a 6" coil, a 10x5" coil, these coils alone make it better than the Deus 2 at a lot of things, depth yes, small targets yes. ground coverage  yes, the list goes on and on.  Coils are very valuable assets to a detector.

Gold prospecting is quite a popular thing, and at the moment the 900 is likely the best detector available for that, and certainly significantly unquestionably better than the Deus 2.

[palzynski]

16 hours ago, phrunt said:

The Equinox 900 has a 15x12" coil, a 15" round coil, a 6" coil, a 10x5" coil, these coils alone make it better than the Deus 2 at a lot of things, depth yes, small targets yes. ground coverage  yes, the list goes on and on.  Coils are very valuable assets to a detector.

Gold prospecting is quite a popular thing, and at the moment the 900 is likely the best detector available for that, and certainly significantly unquestionably better than the Deus 2.

My post was related to the videos showed in this thread which show coin depth tests , and are not related to gold prospecting. 

Gold prospecting is a topic I would not discuss because I dont do gold prospecting as we ( unfortunately 🙂) dont have gold areas in France and  it is probably the same in most of the European countries ..

Then , and this is logical I think , I am much more interested by perfos on coins-relics than on gold , simply because I never use the gold modes of my detectors ..

But I understand that it is different in other countries like NZ , Australia or the US . We just have different requirements-specs for our detectors , which is absolutely normal and logical ...

 

[Chase Goldman]

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

The Equinox 900 has a 15x12" coil, a 15" round coil, a 6" coil, a 10x5" coil, these coils alone make it better than the Deus 2 at a lot of things, depth yes, small targets yes. ground coverage  yes, the list goes on and on.  Coils are very valuable assets to a detector.

Gold prospecting is quite a popular thing, and at the moment the 900 is likely the best detector available for that, and certainly significantly unquestionably better than the Deus 2.

Simon, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your assessment that the 900 will be better than the Deus 2 "at a lot of things" because of its range of accessory coils based on my nearly year long comparison of rather D2 vs. the Nox 800.

First of all, only one of the two of us has at least 9 months of real world swing experience with both the Nox 800 and the D2.  I've used both on the beach, in salt water, in highly mineralized soil, coin shooting on turf, relic hunting in both extremely mineralized and mild soil, thick iron, and the finds basically speak for themselves.  I know which one gets pulled out of the the vehicle most frequently despite all the coil options you mentioned, and it is NOT the Nox.  The Nox does come out when I need the 10x5 coil and under certain super high mineralized situations where I need additional fractional depth.  It is a tougher call for sheer raw depth with the edge going to the Nox, perhaps (though my Tarsacci destroys both the Nox and D2 on raw depth under all conditions - it is just not fun to use in thick non-ferrous or ferrous trash).  If I was a prospector, I'm certain Nox would come out more frequently.  Marathon detecting sessions? D2 wins that literally all day long.  Bottlecaps are also literally a non factor with D2.

Diving into the coils themselves, there is a lot of overlap on those 4 Nox coils you cite.  Deus 2 basically has all the same coil bases covered except for the 10x5 small form factor coil, as previously mentioned.  I personally have no use for the 6" round nor the 15" round.  The 10x5 covers the small end for me even in the thickest of nail carpets - I regret XP has not seen fit to provide a D2 compatible 10x5 coil to match its D1 counterpart.  That small coil plus some gold field program tweaking would likely make the D2 more competitive with Nox on small gold.  I can see where the 6" benefits the gold prospector.  Both D2 and 800 (and presumably the 900 too) have plenty of depth with their 11" stock coils and the new D2 13x11 coil and 15x12 coil for the Nox, respectively, have demonstrated a remarkable balance of depth performance, swing coverage, and weight.  The 15" round will eek out marginal additional depth and coverage on wide open sites like beaches, but is still over 115 grams heavier than the 15x12, limiting endurance.

So why should I consider the Nox 900 then?  The 900 fixes all the flaws of my out of warranty Nox 800.  The expanded ID range and audio will rival and perhaps, in some respects, surpass the D2's rock steady, but high-conductor-compressed target IDs.  I am interested to see what the 900 can do.  And of course, compatibility with my existing Nox 10x5 and 15x12 coils is a plus.  I like the redesigned 900 light weight but sturdy collapsible shaft system.  So I will give the 900 some dedicated love over the coming weeks and see if it can rival the D2's track record of the literally hundreds of great relic, coin, and beach finds I have snagged in 2022. No regrets on D2, so far, so this is mostly just a splurge purchase.

We'll see if the 900 will actually do "a lot of things" better than the D2, but since it has very much of the same DNA as the Nox 800, somehow, I doubt it.  

Will the 900 compliment the D2 even better than the Nox 800 does today?  Unless there is unknown fatal flaw with 900, there is no doubt the 900 is the better compliment to the D2, value wise, than M-core.  The Legend is up there too in value, but Nokta has not released the promised 10x5 Legend coil yet and the 900 is more familiar to me.

 

[midalake]

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

The Legend is up there too in value, but Nokta has not released the promised 10x5 Legend coil yet and the 900 is more familiar to me.

Legend 9.5X6 and 12X9 announced today>>>ALSO another software update. 

So where is that D2 software update? 🙄....looks like I am still a tester for them😏

[phrunt]

Thanks for demonstrating the differences in opinions of those that look for different targets to you Chase 🙂 My biggest concerns are ground coverage and depth when looking for coins in my wide open relatively junk free fields with deep old coins which is why the 15x12" Nox coil on something like a Nox 900 would be fantastic, it sure was on the 800 and other than the 6" coil is the only coil I use.  I rarely ever use the 11" I wouldn't even notice if I didn't own it.  The same will go with my Manticore, it'll be the 8x5.5" (gold nuggets) and 15x12" Coil (silver coins at depth).  The CTX I only use the 17x12" coil even though I have the full suite so it's disappointing the Manticore isn't getting that size, I even bought a second one so I have a spare I like that coil so much. 

As for larger coils and endurance I guess again that's the difference between someone that mostly uses VLF's and those that use detectors like the GPZ and GPX, the Nox with the 15x12" is a feather weight and hunting a full day with the 15x12" is a piece of cake, in fact it feels super light as I'm so used to swinging much heavier detectors, so weight for me is not a decision making factor.  Yes it's a nice thing to have a light detector but performance always comes before weight for me. 

While I haven't used a Deus 2 I don't intend to either, I just don't gel with XP machines it seems, the Deus 1 is a bit of a joke when it comes to depth in my soils by comparison to other detectors that obviously have bigger coils, it all comes down to coils perhaps but it's just not competitive at that task, I believe the Deus 2 is a significant improvement in depth though.  I haven't clocked up that many hours on it, and I doubt I ever will.  I will give it a shot prospecting, with the small HF coil it seems reasonably competitive with other detectors in the class.

Then of course there comes gold where the coil you never want to use the 6" is basically the best coil there is for the Nox range and it would be the primary coil of use for anyone looking for gold. Such a coil doesn't exist for the Deus 2 and it ends up not the detector of choice for prospecting for this, and other obvious reasons.  Size of coil can mean everything when hunting for gold in rocky bushy ground.

The lot of things I'm talking when I say the Nox 900 would be better for a lot of things because of its range of coils are "a lot of things" I do with a detector, perhaps not what you do with a detector although I'm sure if the Deus 2 was capable of having a nice range of coils owners would be celebrating that.

As someone that's primary interest is looking for nuggets then yes, the Nox 900 does a lot of things better than the Deus 2 and perhaps some of that is because of its accessory coils.

[Chase Goldman]

53 minutes ago, phrunt said:

As someone that's primary interest is looking for nuggets then yes, the Nox 900 does a lot of things better than the Deus 2 and perhaps some of that is because of its accessory coils.

Agreed.  No doubt the Nox series is hotter on gold than D2, at least with the current coil selection and, as Midalake pointed out, the rather long in the tooth sub final release software.  In its current state, D2 is not even in the hunt.

Will be interested to see how M-core does in this regard.

Now I gotta go look at that new Legend Coil.  

[phrunt]

We certainly are spoilt for detectors at the moment, a good new one to suit everyone's detecting tastes.  There has been a decent flow of new releases the past few years.  When I entered the game most people were swinging quite old detectors and there hasn't been much released in a long time, I decide I'll take up detecting then manufacturers start going nuts pumping out new models, it's been great being involved in detecting while competition is heating up but its a costly exercise. 🙂

I'm now settling on my favourites and sticking to them and I'm sure the Manticore is going to be one of them, I'm not going to get the 900 as the Manticore should be better than it for coins, and the 900 won't improve much if anything on gold nuggets over the 800 and I still hope the Manticore can at least equal the 800 on nuggets, big ask with a bigger coil though.

[palzynski]

8 hours ago, phrunt said:

.... and the 900 won't improve much if anything on gold nuggets over the 800 ....

From what I saw on the Polish vids, the 900 seems to be more reactive than the 800 on targets and it seems to go deeper . Perhaps that will help for gold prospecting I dont know .

And they ve improved a lot of things on the 900 ; the fragile 800 CB side buttons now protected  ,  a carbon shaft , an adjustable armrest ...   

And it is still an affordable machine compared to the Mcore ( 1200 vs 2000E over here... )