Second detector to compliment an Equinox 600?

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Hi all, looking to give a second detector a whirl to liven up a few of my regular coin and relic sites. The Equinox slams on new ground still but I'm starting to run out of different tactics to keep my old regular sites fresh. My ground is generally tough as nails so choosing to dig can be tough on iffy IDs, can mean flogging away at concreted dirt with a screwdriver to break it up. Of course the CTX 3030 would provide better dig information but at a fair cost, I could probably swing for a second hand one though. But it's not quite an across the board upgrade on the Nox either... That got me thinking if there's a cheaper option for a detector that does one or more things better than the 600? The other situation in my regular sites are huge amounts of iron in mineralised dirt, eg demolished house sites in the Vic goldfields. If there's a detector out there that handles iron better, and can take a tiny coil to winkle some more separation than the 6", then thats an option too I guess. Even a detector that can handle a bit more EMI would be useful. Bit of an ask since the Equinox is so damn competent, but if you can think of a detector that has some upsides over it then I'd love to hear it!
 
Yep, the Xp Deus has a good reputation amongst iron infested sites.
Also keep an eye out for the soon to be released Nokta Makro simultaneous multi frequency machine based on the Simplex platform.
This company is renowned for producing detectors that perform.. :Y:
 
Yeah XP Deus or CTX would be your choices with the deus being lighter and maybe cheaper . I use a knox to compliment the ctx , just because of the superior discrimination of the ctx 3030.
 
Cheers, I haven't really kept up to date with current detector developments since covid started, and have definitely forgot plenty about what's out there. Seems unanimous on the Deus or 3030. I'd pretty much forgotten that there was a bit more to the Deus than 'it's the really light wireless one'. It looks like it'll fit the bill nicely. I can bet if I went the 3030, it's so late in it's product cycle that it's replacement would drop within a month of me buying - I'd be much happier picking up one second hand if the market was rife with people offloading them to get the latest I think.

Tell you what - if Minelab released a 3" nox coil to winkle around individual nails and fragments of sheet tin I'd have it preordered. I'm sure there must be some kind of physics reason involved that these don't exist. Maybe tape a pinpointer on the end of a stick?

I'm also hanging to see what that new Nokta Makro machine is going to bring to the table - knowing them it'll probably be an insta-buy to replace the 600. I'm actually pretty tempted to pick up an Anfibio for giggles (probably not since the new machine will likely obsolete it), or even the Simplex just to try a different ecosystem - no doubt just being different to the Equinox they would turn up a few new targets.

I've gotta hock a bunch of stuff to fund this impulse I've been told, I'll probably put out a wanted ad for a 3030 when I get to the right number and get a Deus if I don't get any bites. Kind of want to sell my GMT but I feel guilty for it, barely seen use at my last house, then literally moved to a gold mining town months ago and haven't used it in anger yet due to life getting in the way. I owe it to the machine to master it before letting it go!
 
I have both the nox600 plus Deus, and always seem to graduate back to the Deus on junky/older sites due to the more informative audio on offer, especially when using full tones (99 tones). The 9" round HF coil has found me plenty of good finds on old sites that have seen many other detectors in the past. If you want even better target separation, you could always option the smaller elliptical HF coil.

I'm not sure whether you will anything to gain by purchasing a CTX, as the Equinox was designed to be more suited to those older junky sites. I have also been invited onto some sites by a friend with a CTX, and have pulled coins and relics that he had either missed or mis-interpreted as junk targets. We have run both detectors over some targets that he called as junk and I called as a coin, and he has been incorrect (he has plenty of experience on that machine too).

I think there are two ways you can go about using a detector on such sites, one is to rely more on target Id's to decide whether to dig or not, or rely more heavily on the audio/tones which I personally find more productive on the Deus.

Also being such a lightweight detector with no cables, you can run for extended periods with no fatigue and get into difficult areas that others tend to ignore - it's often those spots that hold many missed finds.

Depth ability is not always the main focus on such contaminated sites, moreso unmasking - something that the Deus excels at. A couple of my friends that have purchased the Deus to compliment their current detectors have also reported that their favourite sites are now producing again after previously being written off as cleaned out. There is good reason why the Deus is the preferred detector in Europe for working through fields of iron contaminated ground, considering that is what it was initially designed for.

As with most detectors, the Deus will take some time to become proficient on being mainly an audio based detector, though when it does "click" you will find it a rewarding detector to own and a good partner to the Equinox.

Don't feel too guilty about letting the GMT go as Deus HF coils both run high frequencies to suit prospecting (round coil up to 55kHz, elliptical coil up to 81kHz).
 
Thanks for weighing in - I'll have to try and rustle one up if I can get my funds up to it, hopefully I can get a package with just the HF coil, i see everything available at the moment is bundled with the x35 coils, adding a HF on top of that is approaching CTX money. I'm starting to think that if I wanted a bit of a taste of the CTX I might be better off trying to find an ETRAC - I've got some not so trashy tough lawns with hard subsoil where extra deep digging information would be useful.

Agree with depth not being the be all / end all with these sites - most of the good stuff is coming out of the ground at about 4 inches or less. my main strategy for keeping my trashy sites alive for now is gradually reducing the sensitivity - I'm currently walking them with the 11" equinox coil running at 2 out of 25 and some surprising targets are still flying out of the ground. Just this morning a roo penny yelled at me clear as a bell in an open, flat area I've methodically walked several times before, it was only an inch down with no obvious masking cause. I can only guess there's some big roofing corrugated iron or something at depth that's masked it at even moderate sensitivities. I'll do them all again with the 6 inch then I'm going to have to come up with a new strategy or a new detector for them...
 
I just couldn't help myself - a bit of 3am shopping and I've jumped on a second hand Etrac for a good price. I figure that it will whet my appetite for a bit of the CTX 3030s magic. With the teaser video that just came out from XP, makes me wonder if I should hold out on the Deus for a couple of months for a price drop or some nice second hand units and have both...
 

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