Manticore For Prospecting

[abenson]

2 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

"[A]pprox 23% deeper"- Would love to know how he arrived at that number.  By putting an "approximate" but specific number down that tends to sway people that he is espousing fact, yet no objective evidence or background is provided to verify that number.    Interested in how Tom came up with "23% deeper"?  Controlled testing data?  Field "nominal-median-average" target recovery depth data (i.e, anecdotal observations in the real world.  Ratios of max sensitivity settings?  Something else? And yes...even if verfied, these claims only apply to the mild sandy soils that he detects in - not mineralized hot dirt sites.

Well my whole point was if you don't hunt the beach or sites with much EMI then get the Equinox 900. My initial feeling about how the Manticore does on small gold and Simons findings also, suggests that the 900 would also be the way to go. Personally I think once you get into mineralized ground with the Manticore and it's ferrous limits, it's going to be kind of a nightmare trying to figure out where to set them. Set them too high and you're bound to lose small/deeper gold to the mineralization. Set them too  low and you're going to be digging more iron. Ferrous limits are nothing like iron bias on the 900, it's going to take some trial and error to get the right setting. Bottom line is if you're serious about gold nugget hunting get a PI.

[phrunt]

Yup, I think the 900 if it is just a better quality built 800 with a extended sensitivity range would be the better or at least simpler to use prospecting machine, as a way around the increased EMI I was getting with the Manticore in the higher sensitivity settings I just switched to 40kHz and compared the Manticore to the Nox in that, minimal EMI in 40kHz on both detectors and the Nox was still winning the fine gold race if you did it sensitivity of 20 vs 20 for example, the Manticore again needs higher sensitivity to keep up with the 800 on lower sensitivity.  This is why I keep saying I think the scale is different between their sensitivity levels. 

Also, sensitivity level 30 can be quite stable after a long noise cancel in areas with EMI, bump it up to 31 and it goes wild, so I think the difference between 30 and 31 isn't the same as the difference between 29 and 30 for example.  I think those increased sensitivity red line areas are quite a bit more than 1 standard notch.

It's all very early days for me and these are just initial impressions but out of the box switch on adjust sensitivity and go the Nox is the winner on small gold over the Manticore from what I can see.  Fiddling with settings may catch the Manticore up, I'm yet to find a way to do so but I'm no settings expert.

[Chase Goldman]

36 minutes ago, abenson said:

Well my whole point was if you don't hunt the beach or sites with much EMI then get the Equinox 900. My initial feeling about how the Manticore does on small gold and Simons findings also, suggests that the 900 would also be the way to go. Personally I think once you get into mineralized ground with the Manticore and it's ferrous limits, it's going to be kind of a nightmare trying to figure out where to set them. Set them too high and you're bound to lose small/deeper gold to the mineralization. Set them too high and you're going to be digging more iron. Ferrous limits are nothing like iron bias on the 900, it's going to take some trial and error to get the right setting. Bottom line is if you're serious about gold nugget hunting get a PI.

Yeah.  Wasn't trying to shoot the messenger, Andy.  I know where you were coming from. Just commenting on Tom's info that he presents as "fact" because he throws around these numbers like they're verified data.  Sounds like there is growing consensus regarding M-core's above average beach performance capabilities especially compared to the Nox.  If that was Minelab's focus and they were leaning heavily on feedback from that demographic, like Tom, then mission accomplished.  We'll see if it came at the expense of (or wihout benefit to) other capabilities and modes, such as prospecting.

[rled2005]

On 1/31/2023 at 6:38 PM, phrunt said:

I will clarify in case my post was confusing, now I read it back it even confuses me ?

The Manticore needs run on higher sensitivity settings to achieve the same results the Equinox 800 can get on lower sensitivity settings, but the problem is it's hard to run the Manticore on these higher sensitivity settings due to EMI when you get to the 30 - 35 sensitivity range where as for me at least I normally always run my Nox on 25 when prospecting. 

The Manticore may very well end up similar in performance overall IF you can run it on it's highest few sensitivity settings. 

I think the Manticore on 30 on tiny gold is similar to the Nox on 20 with the sensitivity settings, the Nox on 25 (max) is slightly outperforming the Manticore on 35, I think mainly due to the Manticore being troubled by EMI at 35 more than the Nox is at 25.

Where the Nox is going to have the advantage is by having the smaller 6" coil, which is crazy the tiny gold it can find.

I just can't see the Manticore with it's 8x5.5 M8 coil matching the small gold performance based upon what I've seen so far comparing the Nox 11" vs the Manticore 11".  I was hoping the extra power to the Manticore coil may increase small gold sensitivity, after all that's what they did with the White's/Garrett 24k and it's very much worth reading that link if you haven't already.

It's a shame they're not doing the 6" coil for the Manticore, hopefully Coiltek come out with a 5 or 6" round for it, the EMI will be less and possibly the higher 30-35 settings maybe more usable and it then match or better the Nox, but with the Nox 900 now having more sensitivity over the 800 that maybe a difficult challenge for it.

It makes me wonder if as a coin machine the Manticores 0-30 sensitivity is the same as the Nox's 0-25 but on a different scale, with the same top end sensitivity and the boosted sensitivity over the Nox is when you go from 31 to 35 in the red line zone.

I'm not overly bothered it doesn't appear to match the Nox, not enough to go out and buy a Nox 900 as I rarely use a VLF for gold and the 800 and 24k do the job for me anyway.  It is a bit disappointing though, hopefully my early testing is wrong and I change my mind with more time behind the wheel.

I noticed too that the Manticore isn't as sensitive to gold as the 800. But maybe software updates will correct this. I plan to use the Axiom on gold, and I got the Manticore so I could cover everything outside of the Axiom. The 2 should be all that I need for whatever detecting comes about. The plan was to clear everything else out and have just the two, (and maybe one other for family loan-out).

[phrunt]

This is what I don't get, Mark Laurie (Minelab engineer) states specifically the 50% more power is giving more depth on small gold targets.

I started the video where you need to watch from.

 

[UT Dave]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

This is what I don't get, Mark Laurie (Minelab engineer) states specifically the 50% more power is giving more depth on small gold targets.

 

May simply be differing definitions of "small".  I think Mr. Lawrie mentions some small jewelry type targets?  Those aren't "small" compared to a tiny gold nugget?

I don't know.  Rightly or wrongly, I give some credence to what bona fide engineers that worked on a project say.  So I'm inclined to give the benefit of doubt and think that tiny gold nuggets were not what he was referring to.  But, it's all in interpretation and contexts and agendas and so on and so on.

- Dave

[dsb]

3 hours ago, UT Dave said:

I think Mr. Lawrie mentions some small jewelry type targets?  Those aren't "small" compared to a tiny gold nugget?

I believe you got it right.  Don't remember his exact words but small bronze bits and small chains is what i think he said.  This was in Germany and good conditions.

[phrunt]

He said small gold jewellery and chains and things like that get quite a bit more depth, I linked right to it in that video posted above, it starts a few seconds before he talks about it. I don't see why that wouldn't translate into nuggets of a similar size to an ear ring for example.   It's just disappointing their top of the line model in that sort of Multi-IQ range is less effective on gold than an Equinox 600, especially when it's touted as more sensitive and deeper than the Equinox.

The Manticore has a gold prospecting mode, the Equinox 600 does not but I'd take my chances with a 600 on tiny gold over a Manticore I think, at least with what I've seen out of it so far and the 800 and that likely means the 700 and 900 excel over it too, I haven't used one so I don't know, but being they're just improved build quality Noxes there is no reason they'd not equal the older model.

[Hunterjunk]

Tried the Manticore on a couple of nuggies on the front lawn today .   I fired up the Nox 800 first using gold 1 and the Coiltec 10x5 .  Town EMI would not let me run the Nox at any higher gain than 17 , and that was noisy .  Used goldfield general on the Manticore sens 17 , and of course the M 11 coil . I could have run the Manticore a couple notches higher but wanted to keep things as equal as possible . The bigger nugget was detectable by both machines at near 4 inches .  The Nox had a clear advantage of about one inch on the tiny nuggie while the Manticore could barely see it at one inch .  Tried all the other modes and interestingly found that Beach deep was almost as good as the goldfield mode . A smaller coil on the Manti' and we might just be able to use some of that claimed extra power in the field as it was much better at handling the EMI .

Targets used .