Deus 2 Vs Manticore. Relic Hunting In Hot Dirt.

[Steve Herschbach]

7 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Your Deus 2 must have the hottest Goldfield FMF mode on the planet. 

I have had 2 different Deus 2 9" coils to test. They both had the same results.

Let me put it this way. Instead of a hair's breadth at least on the same seven small gold nugget targets I've tested from .03 grams to .89 grams, its more like a 2" hair's length between Deus 2 and the Legend, Equinox 800, Equinox 900, Gold Kruzer and Garrett 24K. Even my 8 year old 19 kHz Teknetics G2+ on 90 sensitivity and Deus 2's 40 kHz Mono program beats my Deus 2 9" coil in FMF Goldfield by an inch on every target whether its in an air test or an in the ground test.

I hope nobody is currently taking a Deus 2 to the Western USA gold fields looking for smaller gold without another, better VLF backup.

That’s not what Condor and I am seeing here as it surprised me with actual gold nuggets found in the field. But what we are talking is matter of degree. I’ve already acknowledged the Deus 2 is not the number one pick for a nugget VLF, and if you think it’s far worse than I do in that regard I’ll not argue it. Maybe it sucks worse than I think on small gold, and maybe I’ll get around to double checking things some day based on what you’ve said. Or not. Kind of moot for me since I use a 24K with 6” concentric for tiny gold. For now what you say is good enough for me. I withdraw my comment.

[Daniel Tn]

Woo hoo!  I may have tracked down a 11x13 coil for the Deus 2.  Hopefully can get it by this coming weekend and go really give it a workout.  I'm off tomorrow and would like to go dig but...I've also not caught a fish since January so I can decide between fishing and digging.  Or try to squeeze both in.

[Chase Goldman]

10 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Your Deus 2 must have the hottest Goldfield FMF mode on the planet. 

I have had 2 different Deus 2 9" coils to test. They both had the same results.

Let me put it this way. Instead of a hair's breadth at least on the same seven small gold nugget targets I've tested from .03 grams to .89 grams, its more like a 2" hair's length between Deus 2 and the Legend, Equinox 800, Equinox 900, Gold Kruzer and Garrett 24K. Even my 8 year old 19 kHz Teknetics G2+ on 90 sensitivity and Deus 2's 40 kHz Mono program beats my Deus 2 9" coil in FMF Goldfield by an inch on every target whether its in an air test or an in the ground test.

I hope nobody is currently taking a Deus 2 to the Western USA gold fields looking for smaller gold without another, better VLF backup.

Agree.  But just want to point out that the question Steve was answering was not whether Deus 2 was a good nugget detector (it's definitely not the best choice - no one can argue that) but was making a general statement as to the degree to which it's gold sensitivity lags other SMF detectors.  This was in response to Simon pondering whether D2's "decreased sensitivity" explains its ability to better "penetrate" mineralized ground than Manticore.   

While Steve's "hair's breadth" comment taken literally may be understating how much D2 lags Nox and Legend in terms of gold sensitivity (both in Goldfield and Mono), if I look at your data (reposted below) as plotted by one of the other forum members, from a big picture perspective, the intent of Steve's original comment (and the actual point) still rings true.  Namely: No one detector does it all and we are debating relative shades of gray.  In other words, by zeroing in on specific performance attributes and repeating them, people come up with generalized perceptions like Deus 2's "decreased sensitivity" or Manticore not performing in hot dirt when it's really as Steve says, "a matter of degree" and, if I might add, of small degrees in the grand scheme of things.

Specifically, yes D2 lags Nox and, on some of the targets, Legend but is basically in the same league from a mid-conductor sensitvity standpoint, especially with the higher mass targets.  So the magnitude of the reduced gold sensitivity is not likely a contributing factor to D2 performance in hot dirt because it's of a relatively small magnitude vs. the other detectors.

Also, as stated by others, your small gold sensitivity testing did not cover other small mid conductors like brass and lead, so there may be certain mid-conductive target/D2 SMF mode combinations that result in an optimal phase shift (resonance) that manifests in data showing generally increased sensitivity vs. the other detectors on targets like brass or lead while gold sensitivity lags in Gold Field.  I know you were not explicitly saying that it lacked overall mid-conductive sensitivity, but somehow it started being perceived or stated that way based on some of the comments I have seen posted, like Simon's.

So, my takeaways:

1) No arguments from me that D2 lags in small gold sensitivity vs. Nox and to a certain degree, Legend (i.e., "hair's breadth" taken literally is a likely understatement of the lag) but I think the data shows D2 is in the same league, if you step back and take broad view.

2) There is no evidence D2's "reduced small gold sensitivity" has anything to do with how it performs in hot dirt hood or bad though it was an interesting thought.

3) Drawing a conclusion that D2 generally lacks sensitivity to mid-conductors could be a false extrapolation of limited data in one SMF mode and one element type.

4) Steve Herschbach's Maxim that I think was contained in the now deleted post (could be wrong, he has stated elsewhere) still rings true.  All of these SMF detectors (Nox, D2, Legend, M-core) have individual strengths and weaknesses vs. each of the others. No one of these detectors does it all, nor does any one stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Anyway, the original topic was D2 vs. Manticore on detecting relics in hot dirt.  Dan showed us that some specific adjustments need to be made to M-core to make these targets stand out better vs. the default settings.  D2 worked better "out of the box" but it was unclear if one coud be considered better than the other at the end of the day.  Or what generally drives D2 performance in hot soil (which can best be described as a mixed bag, but isn't a bad choice if you don't have a PI). 

Which kind of backs up Steve's Maxim.

Steve - If I am unfairly putting words in your mouth, let me know...

Jeff's Gold Nugget Detector Test Data Plotted:

 

[Chase Goldman]

2 hours ago, Daniel Tn said:

Woo hoo!  I may have tracked down a 11x13 coil for the Deus 2.  Hopefully can get it by this coming weekend and go really give it a workout.  I'm off tomorrow and would like to go dig but...I've also not caught a fish since January so I can decide between fishing and digging.  Or try to squeeze both in.

Congrats. Got one too but only plan on using it at the beach or in mild dirt because of the hot ground feedback on the larger coil.  I'm generally just using the 9" coil in the super hot stuff.

[Jeff McClendon]

I really like my Deus 2.

No, it's not perfect.

I hope XP can fix the small gold nugget AND small lead targets of similar size weakess without screwing up the otherwise excellent performance of Deus 2 with the next software update.

I will shut up now.

[Chase Goldman]

33 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I really like my Deus 2. No, it's not perfect. I hope XP can fix the small gold nugget AND small lead targets of similar size weakess without screwing up the otherwise excellent performance of Deus 2.

I will shut up now.

I think limiting top end frequencies to 40 kHz had something to do with it.  There is no other technical reason why it lacks performance there, but we know of some potential business reasons.  We'll see if XP addresses it. (Though ML and Nokta appear to have no issue with a 40 khz top end).

Would like to see XP responsivity like Nokta and Legend in terms of user performance feedback translating into new features, performance, and bug fixes.

Interesting that Quest is putting the V80 out there with 60khz selectable single frequency and advertising 80 kHz top end in Simultaneous Hyper Q.  Maybe that will put a bee in someone's bonnet.

The Holy Grail of the singular "does it all best" vlf detector may turn out to be unobtainium but for business and not necessarily technical reasons.  

I'll shut up now.

[Jeff McClendon]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:54 AM, Jeff McClendon said:

Reading your account of this accidental head to head hunt made me wonder a few things.

So, when I am hunting for small sub gram nuggets in 4 to 5 bar F75 dirt with Deus 1/ORX Goldfield or with an Equinox using Gold 1 or Gold 2, I am setup wide open, all targets accepted, 1 tone VCO audio and reactivity somewhere in the middle like 2.5 on Deus and 5 on the Equinox so I can get less of a look at the ground and more of a look at tiny ferrous and non ferrous targets in the surface to 4" or so depth range. Most of these gold targets will read like they are mostly iron unless they are on or near the surface.

You instead, are hunting for 3/4 to to 1 ounce targets at 4" or deeper in 4 to 5 bar F75 dirt. 

I don't know much about the Manticore at all. I just look at the features and the default settings in the manual. I know plenty about Deus 2, especially its Relic and Goldfield modes.

Manticore All Terrain General default disc pattern is +5 to 99 with the entire iron target range and the borderline ferrous/non ferrous IDs 0 to 4 rejected, 5 tone Normal audio and recovery speed 5.  If I used those settings at my 4 to 5 bar F75 gold prospecting sites I would not hear a peep on sub gram gold or anything else unless it was big and near the surface.

Deus 2 Relic mode even with disc set at 4 (still have 4 to 25 which are all iron IDs and the borderline ferrous non ferrous IDs 25 to 30 accepted) is already a big improvement over Manticore's All Terrain General defaults, and reactivity is 1, audio response 5 and audio is one tone VCO. With those settings, I would hear larger targets easily at my 4 to 5 bar F75 gold prospecting sites and might even hear one gram to multi gram nuggets. Bullets for sure would be easy to detect unless they were way deeper than 4 to 6".

I did a little testing using some target free dirt that shows 10 of 12 bars on Deus 2 so really bad dirt iron wise. 

Deus 2, 9" coil in default Relic mode and Equinox 900, 10X5" Coiltek coil in Field 2, all targets accepted, depth tone audio (2 tone VCO) and recovery speed 2 had almost identical results on a 3/4 ounce Maxi Ball at 7" depth. There were plenty of 4 way iron audio and target ID responses with intermittent non ferrous audio responses with jumpy target IDs between 50 and 99. When I bumped up Equinox Field 2's recovery speed to 5, the audio was much weaker, really choppy and sporadic. Equinox 900 in Gold 1 with all targets accepted, 1 tone VCO audio and recovery speed 2 or 3 had similar results to Deus 2 default Relic mode.

I also tried Deus 2 in default General and got next to nothing over the Maxi Ball until I opened up the discrimination pattern to add all of the iron target IDs and lowered reactivity to 1.

I hope you will try the Manticore again at that site with settings that are more similar to Deus 2 Relic mode just to see if there is any hope of improvement.

I never had many good results with a CTX 3030 at highly iron mineralized sites. Maybe I was just not adept at using it correctly. Anyway, I have had very little interest in the Manticore based on my CTX experiences, so I am definitely not being an apologist for Minelab's Manticore by writing all this. I am very happy with my Deus 2 and my Equinox 800 and 900. 

Most of this post I quoted above, written by me regarding the Manticore shows that I really do know nothing about it and should not have commented. 

Thanks to those who did comment that own a Manticore and who gave great answers that are actually factual and taught me something. Please disregard the malarkey I wrote.

Special thank you to Daniel for the great reports.