XP Deus 2 Vs XP Orx Small Gold Nuggets

[Jeff McClendon]

I have been very critical of the XP Deus 2's FMF Gold Field mode and its level of sensitivity on gold nuggets starting at roughly 0.5 grams and especially in the 0.25 to .01 gram range. Nothing has changed in that regard.

However after using an ORX for a few days that I came by while trying to help out a friend of mine who decided to move on from the ORX, I am definitely changing my opinion about Deus 2's Mono mode for small gold nugget prospecting with the FMF 9" coil.

In the past, I have found plenty of sub gram gold with the ORX. I trusted it very much. I did not have much faith in Deus 2 setup similar to the ORX.

I was able to do some test garden and actual field comparisons in some really bad dirt. I used a 0.15 gram flat nugget and a chunkier 0.25 gram nugget along with doing some wild target hunting on non-ferrous targets that turned out to be roughly #6 bird shot pellets that also weighed in at a little over 0.1 grams.  Deus 2 Mono using Pitch tones with discrimination on -6.4, frequency 45 kHz, sensitivity 95, reactivity 2 or 2.5, audio response 3 or 4, threshold 8 to 10 simply out performed the ORX with 9" HF coil in Gold 1 or Gold 2 using 50 to 58.8 kHz with otherwise similar settings. I had to the lower the ORX reactivity setting to 1 in order to come close to the sensitivity of Deus 2 Mono with reactivity on 2. Using reactivity 1 on the ORX made it very unstable however in high iron mineralization. Only having reactivity settings of 1, 2, 2.5 and 3 on the ORX and no adjustable audio response settings really handcuffed it compared to all of the reactivity settings that Deus 2 Mono has=0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, its 8 adjustable audio response settings and its very incremental negative number discrimination settings. 

So, I am going to be using Deus 2 Mono a lot more for gold prospecting head to head with the Equinox 800 and Legend using their SMF Gold modes in Multi and set on 40 kHz. I don't expect it to compete with those two, but maybe it will do better than I have thought previously.

[Tom Slick]

I wonder how the ORX or Deus would compare to the Deus II in Mono if they were fitted with the 5X9" HF Elliptical running at 74 kHz. I guess I'll have to try it, although I no longer have an ORX but I do have the Deus and the Elip. HF coil. 

[Jeff McClendon]

Sounds like a good comparison to make even though the coil size and operating frequency differences are pretty substantial.

[phrunt]

I guess when it comes to prospecting it doesn't need to be an apples-to-apples comparison, the one with the best coil wins. and in this case, it's likely to be the Deus 1 over the 2 for prospecting. 

It's good you've found a way to make the Deus 2 work for you Jeff, hopefully you find a situation where it's worth using over the Nox and Legend for gold.

[Jeff McClendon]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

I guess when it comes to prospecting it doesn't need to be an apples-to-apples comparison, the one with the best coil wins. and in this case, it's likely to be the Deus 1 over the 2 for prospecting. 

It's good you've found a way to make the Deus 2 work for you Jeff, hopefully you find a situation where it's worth using over the Nox and Legend for gold.

I will definitely use it at high altitude sometimes when I want a detector that weighs next to nothing since I don't use the full remote and just hunt by tones for most of my XP gold prospecting. The likelihood of Deus 2 beating out the Equinox 800 or Legend is less than 0% at this point however as far as overall performance.

[Tom Slick]

"The likelihood of Deus 2 beating out the Equinox 800 or Legend is less than 0% at this point however as far as overall performance"

Nugget hunting the really small stuff. But my Deus II beat my Nox 800 everywhere else. For the type of sites I generally hunt. 🙂

[Doc Bach]

5 hours ago, Tom Slick said:

I wonder how the ORX or Deus would compare to the Deus II in Mono if they were fitted with the 5X9" HF Elliptical running at 74 kHz. I guess I'll have to try it, although I no longer have an ORX but I do have the Deus and the Elip. HF coil. 

Not a prospector BUT... The HF elliptical at 74 kHz ROCKS!!! On tiny targets at depth and in hot ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeff McClendon]

This topic is definitely about small to really small gold nugget prospecting using Deus, Deus 2 and the ORX with the Nox 800 and Legend used as a yardstick. Not trying to get anyone riled up at me or Minelab or Nokta. 

 

If people that have detected in other situations on other types of targets extensively, head to head with the detectors mentioned here want to go at it about which detector is the GOAT, go for it but start your own topic please.

 

My reason for starting this topic was mostly to talk about Deus 2 Mono for gold prospecting and how good it actually is.

[midalake]

11 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I have been very critical of the XP Deus 2's FMF Gold Field mode and its level of sensitivity on gold nuggets starting at roughly 0.5 grams and especially in the 0.25 to .01 gram range. Nothing has changed in that regard.

Funny how so many keyboard types thought the D2 was going to be the bomb at a salt beach for finding micro gold. Oh how thoughts fade.  
Since I have both the Equinox and D2 for some time now, I can say with 100% confidence. the Equinox will out hunt the D2 on small targets and small gold. Add Black Sand into the mix and the D2 only loses by a larger margin. I could not believe the loss of performance I had with the D2 today in tough black sand conditions. 

[Jeff McClendon]

9 hours ago, midalake said:

Funny how so many keyboard types thought the D2 was going to be the bomb at a salt beach for finding micro gold. Oh how thoughts fade.  
Since I have both the Equinox and D2 for some time now, I can say with 100% confidence. the Equinox will out hunt the D2 on small targets and small gold. Add Black Sand into the mix and the D2 only loses by a larger margin. I could not believe the loss of performance I had with the D2 today in tough black sand conditions. 

Dave,

you have an uncanny ability to post something that is often accurate but at the same time controversial while being just what the previous post was trying to suggest not to do.

That's just fine since what you wrote needs to be said. 

For me, it's all about knowing one's detector in the long run.

A person that used to be on here a lot recently posted a short video directly aimed at me which was about the level of sensitivity to really small targets of the Manticore and Deus 2. He said very accurately that if a person is after really small targets, the Manticore was a much better choice for that. Then he said in reference to Deus 2 "some people just don't want to dig small targets". So, in some ways I can see his point.

Both detectors have simultaneous multi frequency gold nugget prospecting modes and other SMF sensitive modes which top out at around 40 kHz. Deus 2 however, seems to have a limit on how small a target it will detect easily using those SMF sensitive modes that is not the same or even close to the same as other current SMF detectors. There are advantages and disadvantages to that. Knowing a detector is not going to readily sound off on roughly 0.1 gram and smaller bits of magnetite, hot rock, manmade iron, foil, can slaw shards, lead shards, brass shards like some other SMF detectors do, takes a whole bunch of targets out of the equation. And yes Dave, that general insensitivity to those sized targets seems to be system wide when using the sensitive 40 kHz weighted FMF Deus 2 modes.

I know this is the Deus 2 forum. It is one of my favorite detectors. However, it's not perfect and there is no shame in that.

Some have very shrewdly said that the FMF gold prospecting mode on Deus 2 was not as sensitive to small gold nuggets as the ORX in order to not damage ORX/HF coil sales. That could be true.

So, I used to believe and say on this forum that Deus 1 or the ORX in their VCO gold prospecting modes would out perform Deus 2 in its Mono mode for small gold prospecting. I just assumed that Mono mode on Deus 2 was the same as Deus 1 Fast like it was a direct transfer from Deus 1.

I was testing the ORX with the 9" HF coil in Gold 2 at 58.8 kHz versus Deus 2 with the 9" FMF coil in wide open Mono at 45 kHz. The winner should have been obvious. WRONG. 

 Now, after revisiting at least the ORX, I don't believe that anymore. I was wrong......Deus 2's Mono mode has more potential for sensitivity to really small targets than I thought. For me, that is good news and could be good news for other Deus 2 users that are land/freshwater based that want to dig really small shallower targets, whatever they are.

For you saltwater hunters....???

Anyone with a Deus 1 or ORX with the HF elliptical coil that also has a Deus 2 with 9" coil, I would really like to hear what you find out when you compare Deus 2 Mono 45 kHz with disc on -6.4, Pitch tones, versus Deus 1 or ORX HF elliptical in their Gold prospecting modes with the frequency set as high as it can go on .25 gram and smaller targets like #8 and #9 lead or steel bird shot.