Nokta Legend And Equinox 600/800 After Tons Of Hours Used

[Jeff McClendon]

I, like many others have a huge amount of appreciation and trust in the detecting abilities of the Equinox 600/800. My only issues with the original Noxes are its shaft system, well documented water ingress and its too compressed target ID range especially around target IDs 10 to 20. Other than that, the Equinox 600/800 really revived my VLF detecting life. I personally know other detectorists that have had the same experience. I will own at least one of those detectors for as long as they last.

Nokta released the Legend back in early 2022. Lots of opinions have been expressed by people that either haven't used one or have used one very sparingly. There have been opinions about the roll-out, marketing hype, Nox cloning, the number of software upgrades (why wasn't it a finished product at release???) and the well known speaker and software update issues many people had including me.

The fact is from my dig hole and my soil conditions: The Nokta Legend has at least equaled and in some aspects excelled beyond the Equinox 600/800 from my experience. That is saying a lot if you have reaped the benefits of all that the Equinox 600/800 have to offer.

I am not going to talk about the Equinox 700/900 since I don't own one anymore and have moved on.

As a USA coin hunter, I can't tell you how many US nickels I have recovered (stopped counting at 100 several months ago) and six gold rings that had the same target IDs as US nickels, from parks that I had pounded with the Equinox 600 and 800. The Noxes didn't miss those targets. They just reported them as having target IDs and sounding too much like a modern oval pull tab which I was tired of digging. With the Legend's expanded mid range target IDs, US nickels (and any gold rings with the same IDs) do not share target ID space with nearly as much regularly occurring aluminum trash. The Legend also does just fine on deep clad, deep silver coins and jewelry, iron trashed sites, and in the same hot ground that I often hunt on that the Nox 600/800 handle well. It has also done very well at the fresh and saltwater beaches where I have used it.

If you are in the market for a waterproof SMF detector that detects at least as well with very similar audio characteristics and target ID stabilty as the Equinox 800 but doesn't leak and has a slightly more expanded target ID system in all the right places, has a good shaft system, good coil selection, good wireless capabilities that are compatible with the Equinox 800 Bluetooth gear, and also does just fine in the gold fields, from my experience after almost 1000 hours of use, the Legend is a viable and very inexpensive alternative for an out of warranty Equinox 800 that you don't want to completely wear out or dunk anymore. 

Just my experiences.

 

 

[Digalicious]

Jeff,

Thanks for the write up.

Did you happen to notice any difference in the separation and unmasking performance?




 

 

[Jeff McClendon]

From my experiences, the Legend is slightly better than the Equinox 800 in both aspects. I believe that Iffy Signals did some static separation/unmasking videos that showed the Legend and the Nox 900 being very close in performance. My former Nox 900 had better separation and unmasking than the 800. 

[glacialgold]

@Jeff McClendon

Excellent write-up and comparison/summary, many thanks!

I purchased an 800 and a Legend around this the same time last year, and now have maybe 150 hours combined now between the two machines. Nowhere near your experience, but here's what I can note as a relative novice:

Since I got the Nox first, it got the most use up front, but I found myself swinging the Legend more and more, especially after the v1.11 update came out. I now have a pretty full suite of coils for both machines, and I've branched out my hunting sites from a couple local schoolyards to a variety of park types (both local and distant), beaches, and permissions (still need to work on getting more older properties on my list).

In any given hunting scenario, I'm probably 75% Legend. While I consider the Nox with aftermarket full CF shaft and cuff overall a generally "sweeter swing", it stays on the backburner. Legend with the stock LG28 has been my go-to on most occassions, but I'm also playing around with the LG24, and and the LG30 just landed yesterday (along w/the upgraded CF midshaft and cuff).

Granted, what I'm hitting yields mainly modern clad and cheap bling jewelry -- no silver (although I hope!) or nugget shooting here. Some days are big quarter days, other heavy on the nickels, and the jewelry tend to show up in isolated clumps. The Legend seems like it bangs on all those targets, and I also feel like I'm digging less trash than on the Nox. On the other hand, I'm almost guaranteed a good hunt if I pull out the Nox with the 10x5 Coiltek coil and go over ground previousl proved good using the Legend.

If I had to go back all over again and settle on a single detector, I'd definitely choose the Legend, primarily per the price point and the wider range of features.

[Johnnysalami1957]

So, Jeff. The Legends ID having less resolution than the Nox makes it easier to see the difference in pull tabs vs nickles? 

I'm trying to understand why a 0 to 60 scale is better than a 0 to 99 scale. Thank you. 

[Jeff McClendon]

I agree with you glacialgold on the use comparison. I will pick the Legend over my CF shaft Equinox 800 if I am coin and jewelry hunting in modern trash just because of the slightly expanded target ID range, slightly quieter EMI handling and slightly better target separation and unmasking. I am using Deus 2 and the Legend for that kind of detecting about 90% of the time with the 800 getting the 10% of the time that I am going for absolute maximum depth. If I am water hunting or near a body of water that could have a detector land in it, I am using the Legend 100% of the time. It is just so hassle free to use in water and it has the handle vibration feature to use if I want along with the waterproof wired headphone option

Anyone that has not used a Legend with updated 1.09 or 1.11 software and is only basing their experience on earlier versions or from reports by people using earlier software versions really doesn't have the full picture. 

Using the Legend over the Equinox 800 has not had a negative effect on my finds rate or quality either. 

It is great to have the inexpensive flexibility and detecting quality that the Legend offers. Having it as a Nox 800 backup or using a high mileage Nox 800 more sparingly and letting the Legend handle the load is a great situation to play around with.

[Johnnysalami1957]

I think you replied to glacialgold instead of me. lol. Lots of things to press🙃 

Or the other way around.

 

[Jeff McClendon]

18 minutes ago, Johnnysalami1957 said:

So, Jeff. The Legends ID having less resolution than the Nox makes it easier to see the difference in pull tabs vs nickles? 

I'm trying to understand why a 0 to 60 scale is better than a 0 to 99 scale. Thank you. 

The Equinox 700/900 have a 119 digit target ID scale.

The Equinox 600/800 have a 50 digit target ID scale with US coins and most jewelry packed into the 10 to 40 range or 30 IDs.

Nokta added 10 digits to that scale which for me made all the difference since the expanded part is mostly in the small gold jewelry to US zinc penny range and the entire small jewelry through US coin range is roughly 44 target IDs so about 14 more than the Nox 600/800.

Even XP did something similar. Deus 2 has a -6.4 to 99 target ID scale BUT the target IDs from 50 to 99 (49 IDs) cover all of the US coins, most jewelry and relics. -6.4 to around 25 being iron numbers, 25 to 35 covering fertilizer, manure, coke, some spurious non iron ground noise and some very small mixed ferrous/non ferrous targets and 35 to 50 being bits of aluminum foil to bits of very small canslaw.

[Johnnysalami1957]

I'll get it eventually. I'm used to the Whites detector scale. -99 to +99

 

 

[Bill (S. CA)]

Jeff,

Leave it to you to very succinctly summarize what many of us have found with regard to The Legend vs. the Equinox.  Plus you have put the hours in as well.  For me, it has been difficult to use The Legend full time not because of its performance but more because of how easy my 800 is to use.  Some (or a lot) of that may due to millions of hours I have on it.  I will admit that I still get lost in the shortcuts on The Legend.  For some reason they just don't stick. 

One aspect that I would like to touch on is how well balanced The Legend is. With my 800 I have always had to "finger float" the grip and leave my pinkie hanging or the grip angle wears me out.  Might just be me.  But with The Legend I don't have that problem.  I also love how featherweight The Legend is with the new shaft, coil and arm cuff.

I do need to get out with my Legend more.  Just need some more discipline to stop putting my 800 on the charger automatically every night before I go hunting.  it's a hard habit to break.

One question for you about nickels: what numbers are you hitting for them with the expanded target ID range?

Bill