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

[Jeff McClendon]

Simon, I have owned and subsequently sold a lot of Nokta Makro detectors including the Racer, Racer 2, Gold Racer, Multi Kruzer, Gold Kruzer and the Simplex. Those detectors always came up just a bit short of their competition even though they had plenty of good qualities. Most of all for me anyway, I did not like their unstable target IDs in the soil I hunt in most and the really sparky audio tones of these detectors which during a long hunt would give me audio fatigue. However, that dislike for their audio is just me and should not be taken in anyway except purely subjective on my part.

So, I have been totally surprised by the Legend. So far, nothing about it has come up short for me or is unpleasant aside from the jam packed user interface which I navigate very ungracefully. Instead I have had just the opposite experience compared to the other Nokta Makro detectors I have owned. The Legend has far exceeded my expectations. If it hadn't, I would not be wasting my time with it or wasting yours reading about it and I would have simply sold it long ago. On the contrary, I like the Legend so much that I recently bought a lightly used second one for use as a loaner at group hunts and for my family members.

It really is so similar to the Equinox 800 in the way that it detects, that I took to it immediately and have learned to really trust it.

[StarVatrex]

I had a Legend for a couple of years and it's one of the few times I don't agree with Jeff...

For the beach, it is not so good. And Nox, in saline environments, is clearly lagging behind.

MD in dry sand is not bad but MW only serves to get Silver. I think they are too high frequency weighted and max filtered to match the stability of Nox.

You simply can't find Gold. Or at most any rings on the surface. Try to put a Gold wedding band a couple of inches into the Wet Sand and tell me... you'll just walk over it with that typical Nokta chatter and you can hear It !!

I dedicated a couple of summers to it, about 600 hours, and I gave up. I no longer have it and my Nox 800 is still there at home, since 2019.

The shaft is short and flexes. Carbon quality is relative. Mine turned whitish with the salt and I wash the equipment at every outing. The quality of the protective plastic of the coil is from China and access to different menus at night is impossible...

The charging system is a pleasure and the quality of the speaker impressive!...?

Try to sell a second hand, the market will put you in your place.

No, it's not a Nox and it doesn't even look like it.

That is just my opinion...

 

[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.