Sphinx 03 Pinpointer

[jasong]

I just spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out if it was even legal to buy here, it's pretty grey, it appears to be so but hard to tell exactly. I'll pass for now myself until geopolitical issues change after reading this stuff, as there is a bit of an ethical issue as well for me personally even though we are just regular people and detectorists. I still think it looks pretty interesting though, nice job to the developers, and I'll pick one up when things change.

I have to laugh a bit at Garrett though. I know pinpointers tend to be a bit ho-hum, but they were at the top of the pinpointer game for ages and sat on it with no real innovation for a very long time - the same story as every US manufacturer with detectors. And they even have the TRX patents now (presumably?). But it seems small companies in other countries who have a bit of ambition can slowly overtake the behemoths. It's like the "Rabbit and the Hare" fable over and over watching US companies in action. Even Minelab fell asleep at the wheel and got beat in the coil race by X Coils, same fable down under. 

[phrunt]

Ok, so this is just a quick little video showing the result of my first attempt at raising the sensitivity while keeping it stable and working on the ground.  

I'm going to push it higher than this yet as it still works perfectly stable and fine in my ground but I thought I'd just do a little demonstration of the difference, it's quite easy to raise the sensitivity beyond factory maximum, however you want to do it in small increments to ensure it remains stable so I guess you'd want to test it out for a couple of hours each time you increase it as nothing is worse than an unstable pinpointer I think 🙂 It's why I don't use the TRX as its too unstable in high sensitivity and when you lower it so it is stable other pinpointers that run more stable perform better.

Once I've worked out my safe maximum sensitivity, I'll re-do the first video showing its performance vs the others.

If I find my maximum sensitivity doesn't work well at a location when I'm out detecting I can always quickly drop back to factory maximum sensitivity, it has 1 (low), 2 (medium), 3 (high), and 4 (user configured) 

When I first read the translated manual, I thought the user configured sensitivity was just a setting you could do within the range offered already in the sensitivity settings to suit your ground, so a setting somewhere between medium and high for those that found high didn't work in their ground, I never realized you could actually go far higher than the factory maximum sensitivity, awesome feature.

[Chase Goldman]

On 7/27/2023 at 2:57 PM, phrunt said:

I really like the phone configuration app, so much easier than trying to get these stupid button sequences some pin pointers have to do settings. 

Amen to that.  Add Quest to that list of impossible to remember button pushes.

[Digalicious]

That Sphinx is looking more compelling with every post. Thanks for all this Phrunt.

[phrunt]

Now I've tweaked my Sphinx to what appears to be close to the point where it might lose stability, still works fine in my soil in this setting so I recorded some tests vs the other pinpointers with it now tweaked.

It's fun toying around with the Sphinx as there is so much you can adjust and play around with.  I really like this sensitivity tweak setting, I wish detectors had it also.

[CPT_GhostLight]

Thank you for all your work testing the Shinx, phrunt! It looks really good and can discriminate ferrous and non-ferrous, which is exactly what I'm looking for to use on relic sites. My Minelab Pro Find 35 finally died after 4 years and I don't know if it's worth getting into the new Pro Find 40 or not. I haven't seen any real reviews on it yet.

I got the first gen Quest Xpointer Max, but it's just been too unstable to use in my mineralized soil even at lower sensitivity and then there's the whole button issue.

I really like the potential that the Sphinx shows in your videos and hope things get worked out so we can eventually get some in the US to try out.

All politics aside, us working class detectorists just want to be able to get good tools to detect with. 😎

[phrunt]

Ok, the Sphinx people have done a good job on this pin pointer, I figured this was a hyped-up pin pointer and would not meet my expectations as a real pin pointer addict, I even doubted the earlier promotional review Cipher did of it as it seemed a bit too good to be true, but he's redeemed himself.   I really thought I was going to be a bit argumentative with his review and it turns out I am, he said its depth is similar to the Pro Pointer AT, I think he's wrong, it's deeper and by a reasonable amount, at least in my soils., I've buried a few coins at different depths and it does exceed the Pro Pointer AT for depth and keeps up with the Pulse pinpointers for depth while having more sensitivity.

I've long been on the search for my perfect pinpointer as I love the things, so when Cipher was showing his glowing review although it seemed like he was provided the pin pointer for the purpose of the review I had to see for myself if it was good, I was fortunate to have a friend living in that part of the world I was able to ask to ship me one so that made it all easy for me to get one, had I not had that friend I doubt I could even buy one.    So really the Sphinx is nothing more than a tease for people outside of the Russia and surrounding countries, and I hope they do try expand their market someday, and make their app in English also to help with that.  

It really is a good pin pointer, it surprised me, I didn't expect it but I'm very glad now I bought it.   Let's just say if it ever died, I'd be buying another one, and if a new model comes out in the future, I'd be buying that too.  The only other pin pointer I own I'd replace if it died is the Garrett AT, I could live without the rest.

I'm still yet to test it with my GPX 6000, 5000 and GPZ, geez I haven't even had time to try out my Nugget Finder 12x7" for my 6000 yet, still sitting there untouched, not even plugged it in, the Sphinx guy that's posted in this thread has indicated it will work fine but I've got to see it to believe it 🙂  lifes just so busy at the moment with it being ski season and my building project to become the home for my detecting gear I rarely have any spare time other than when I'm having a coffee break or to sleep and eat.

[☠ Cipher]

I was prepared to be argumentative about the TRX. In fact I became so obsessed with the whole thing that I angered my family who wanted to get out and do some summer things. I had to promise to take a week away from anything metal detecting related. I’m glad things worked out the way they did though. One thing this has shown me is that there’s not only a glaring difference from one TRX to another (I also have two), but one Pinpointer to another of the same make and model overall. For example, I don’t get the same results you do on the PulseDive. Not even close. Yet there it is. I do get slightly better results with one of my Bullseye TRX than you do on coin sized objects. Same with the Carrot, same with the F-Pulse (Tek-Point in my case). It makes me wonder if they lose sensitivity with age, or if they are just that inconsistent as a matter of production. 
 

One thing I want to say is that Pavel never told me what to do or not to do with the product. I never promised a review other than between us. If they wanted more spotlight on it there were certainly better, more well known figures they could’ve reached out to. I think they just wanted an honest opinion. I was so impressed with it that I felt compelled to do a review, even though most people reading it would never own one. I felt it deserved to be known for all the hard work that must’ve went into it. 

[phrunt]

The funny thing is even if Minelab’s Amateur-Find 40 is their claimed 10% deeper than the 35 all that would do is catch it up to the worst performers in the bunch 😂

[CPT_GhostLight]

I may have to snag a PF40 just to have a pinpointer with ferrous ID to use for my relic hunts until the Sphinx becomes available, which could be a long time. 🤔