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

[Jeff McClendon]

The Legend was released in December of 2021 so it has been for sale for 1.5 years. This is the second summer for northern hemisphere users. Maybe you are in the southern hemisphere?

The Legend I own did not perform very well on the saltwater beaches I sometimes hunt on until software version 1.09. 

I have not had any issues finding gold jewelry, small gold nuggets or any low conductors like small lead or small brass targets no matter what mode I’m using except for Park and Field M3 which I rarely use.  In fact, the first target I found with the Legend was a 10k opened hoop earring that was surrounded by safety pins. Plenty of gold targets have followed. 

 

[markinswpa]

Jeff, good write up and thank you for your well regarded opinion. Have been kicking around the prospect of getting a Legend and a good report like yours increases my interest. You answered a question I had as far as third party headphones. The ability to use after market ones for me is huge. I was reminded of that on my last outing at a city park when my earbud/transmitter set up for the 900 malfunctioned and had to use the Ml85s. Temps in the mid 80s, 4 hrs before I found a decent target and 5hrs in I found my first coin. Needless to say it wasn't the most pleasant experience. Perseverance did pay off with an old nickel spill, 4 Buffs & 2 Vs. I've learned to put up with the 900s issues except for one. Other than one 9in. silver Rosie in mild topsoil like conditions I have yet to dig any deep silver. The majority of coins I find are in the 2 to 4in. range and the deeper ones 5, maybe a few at 6. Last year using the 800 I had no problem hitting 8 in. + silver dimes and such. Looking at last years log, number of hunts pretty close to equal my silver/wheat/ Ihp is far less than half of what it was in 2022.

I've ruled out the D2 and won't consider a Manticore unless Minelab ends that proprietary headphone horsesh!t. Another thing, guys I know using the Manticore in my area are also not hitting deep coins. Have not talked to anyone since the update.

So I've got to wonder if the Legend will see deeper targets in my soil. Again thanks for your report and I will check out Iffy Signals videos.  Good luck. Mark

[Jeff McClendon]

I did a 2 hour hunt today at a Denver area park with moderately iron mineralized dirt that showed 4 of 10 bars filled on the Legend's ground mineralization meter.

I was looking for deep silver coin signals and nickel signals using the Equinox 800 and the Legend version 1.11 software.

Both detectors had their original stock 11" round DD coils. I had both detectors using very similar settings, all targets accepted, Park 1 and Park M1, recovery speed 4, F2/iron filter on 1, sensitivity 23 of 25 on the 800 and 25 of 30 on the Legend. Equinox ground balanced at 3 and the Legend ground balanced at 8.

I was willing to dig any repeatable high conductor response. Most of the high conductor targets dug were in the 7 to 10" depth. Both detectors were fooled on what turned out to be a 13" deep square nail with its head parallel to the coils.

I was also willing to dig any US nickel response. I had the Equinox 800 setup in 5 tones with a tiny 12-13 designated tone and tone break just for nickels. I had the same on the Legend using 6 tones with a tiny 25-26 designated tone and tone break. Any possible nickel target that gave a response that was outside that small nickel tone and target ID window on BOTH detectors was passed over. If either detector had a response that was within that nickel tone and target ID window I recovered it.

The small gold ring was within the nickel window on both detectors. It is poor quality and only 1.25 grams but gold is gold.

I flagged potential targets and did not recover them until both detectors had a chance to properly detect them.

The group of aluminum targets and one steel target that is labeled "equinox 800 said nickel" was not detected within the nickel window by the Legend.

The group of 3 aluminum targets that is labeled "Legend said nickel" were also detected as nickels by the Equinox 800. 

The three nickels that the Legend hit and the Equinox 800 missed was due to adjacent target masking. The Equinox hit those nickels but target IDs were not nickel IDs.

There was one mini coin spill consisting of 5 zinc pennies (three were stuck together) and one clad dime. Details are written on the plate.

One big observation was that the Equinox high toned falsed a lot more than the Legend. I am guessing by about a factor of 3 so that I heard a lot more iffy  non ferrous target responses from the 800. Going over the same ground, most of those oneway high tone responses were iron grunts or just not there when using the Legend.

The Legend was very quiet until its coil stopped moving and then the typical Nokta background "chatter" would start up. It doesn't bother me since I am used to it from the Nokta detectors, many FTP, Whites and XP detectors. Sometimes my Equinox will do that too. For me it is just a threshold type noise floor. No big deal. 

[JCR]

A well thought out experiment/hunt.

Thanks,

[oldcoinhunter]

But, but, but. The Legend can't be as good as the Nox800 because it is way cheaper in price. LOL SMH. 

[phrunt]

I've decided I'll get one the next time a second hand one pops up in the price I think is good, the one for sale at the moment isn't ideal as it's not a Pro pack and I'd want the small coil, although a great deal by the time I buy the new small coil the great deal turns into an OK deal so it's best to wait until the next person puts up a Pro Pack, they seem to pop up quite regularly and I'm in no rush as all I really want it for is to try it out, I know it's not going to be as good as my CTX and Manticore for deep silvers, and if it is I'll be shocked as a guy I know who has had all three has already told me otherwise and sold his Legend.  The Gold Mode intrigues me as nobody in NZ I know of has used one for gold nuggets so that's worth experimenting with by the sound of it.

 

[midalake]

5 hours ago, phrunt said:

I've decided I'll get one the next time a second hand one pops up in the price I think is good,

There is a good possibility a friend is bringing the Legend to the beach in August. If so, we will put it through many tests to see how it fairs and I will do a little write-up.  

[Jeff McClendon]

On 7/15/2023 at 4:27 AM, midalake said:

There is a good possibility a friend is bringing the Legend to the beach in August. If so, we will put it through many tests to see how it fairs and I will do a little write-up.  

I have used the Legend the least amount of time at saltwater beaches/surf. Having input from StarVatrex, and from you and Bill using the latest software version would definitely help complete the picture. Hopefully I will get some more beach time soon too. 

[bigtim1973]

The legend is a very good solid unit. I was able to use it in places that the equinox 900 would not work at all due to EMI without even doing a noise cancel scan. 

No longer interested in minelab products for myself. Nothing personal to anyone who enjoys and has good luck with them.

 

 

[Bill (S. CA)]

I've got a few random observations about The Legend after lengthy hour beach hunt today.  Mind you, I know this detector pretty well but have been away from it for about two months.  You know how that goes.

1. The Legend is the noisiest cross talking detector I have ever used.  When I get within maybe 20 feet of another multi my Legend goes nuts as do their detectors.  This happens in particular with the Deus II and the Equinox 900.  No amount of frequency changes can stop it.  I just have to swing real wide when I encounter another hunter.  This has happened to me in the past and today I encountered it with a 900.
2. The bottlecap reject on The Legend has me a bit befuddled.  On shallow caps, even at 0, the caps read wacky and have a different sound.  However, at depth, even at a max of 8, they still read and sound good.  The Equinox and the Apex (with its iron audio) are vastly superior to The Legend at id'ing bottlecaps at depth.  I have to play more with this but as of now I'm digging way too many bottle caps.
3. A pulltab reads a solid 26 for all of you nickel diggers.  And it sounds good.
4. The Legend is rock solid in wet sand at max sensitivity with no GB'ing required.
5. The new shaft, arm cuff and coil make the detector a dream to swing.  Zero fatigue.
6. I downloaded a copy of the manual to my phone to help navigate the embedded menus and that helped a lot.

More to come.  

Bill