Andy Sabisch
Active member
I am not one to post finds and tend to post primarily in response to questions on specific settings or detector selection. As those of you that know me know, I am not brand loyal to the point of closing my eyes to anything else since as they say, things change as technology evolves and in recent years, that has certainly been the case with metal detectors. I wanted to pass along what I have found in using the Anfibio since getting one last year.
I have had the opportunity to have been using the Nokta Anfibio since November of 2018 under a wide range of conditions. These include field and urban areas here in Michigan, the infamous red clay around Culpepper, VA, sites in the PA coal region and a number of water sites such as fresh beaches and rivers and East coast beaches.
My experience with Nokta and Makro products predates the Racer which made the companies a household name. In fact, my wife who runs Treasure Hunting Outfitters took on the line when the Racer came out and had a number of happy, successful customers pick them up. I still use my Impact and it has proven itself in the field under some challenging conditions.
So, fast-forward to the conference my wife and I attended last November where we got a chance to test out the Anfibio. We were impressed and ordered some with optional coils and other accessories. There are a number of videos out there but since the site conditions are rarely when we encounter, I opted to rely on testing done locally under the conditions we face to dial it in.
What did we find . . . .
1) The Anfibio is a “high gain” unit as people have called it and as such, it tends to be quite sensitive to EMI at higher sensitivity settings. Changing modes (such as using 3-Tones) or using the Frequency Shift helps but the take away is that running with the gain at 90+ is not needed to get impressive depth. I pulled a silver quarter at close to 10” with the gain set at 80 which was necessary due to EMI in the area. Also, all EMI is not the same. Surprisingly I found out from engineers with another company that the new LED lighting can raise havoc with detectors which makes testing indoors even more of a challenge. Hunting my front yard required a much lower gain setting than hunting the neighbor’s yard across the street . .. the reason for which I am still trying to figure out. The lesson is that one size does not fit all and in the case of the Anfibio, lowering the gain to address interference does not kill depth as it does on other detectors.
2) Lower frequencies hit higher conductive targets better but if conditions are forcing you to hunt at a higher frequency, you are not missing high conductive targets. Some people have made this black-&-white statement but in the case of the Anfibio, some great finds in urban sites here in Michigan have come while running at 20kHz. Use the frequency that provides the most stable operation for the ground you are searching and realize that sometimes what works in one site will not work at one a few miles away. I did find that the Anfibio hits small gold at the 20 kHz setting extremely well.
3) Build quality . . . not much to say here. It is built like a tank but does not weigh like a tank. The adjustable armrest is unique to the Anfibio and returning the coil wire to an “outside the shaft” design as compared to the Impact speeds up changing coils and reduces the likelihood of damaging the coil cable. It also allows the Anfibio to be collapsed easier for transport. Another popular detector that many of us have switched to carbon fiber rods can’t be collapsed much at all. One thing I have done is to add a few clear cabinet door stops to some of the touchpads to make it easier to press them while wearing gloves. Primarily they are the GB, PINPOINT, SELECT and OPTIONS touchpads. You can find them in stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot or Menards. Battery life is a plus and being able to bring the optional battery pack for land use or use a power bank avoids having the battery go dead in the field.
4) Optional coils . . . Nokta probably has more optional coils in both concentric and Double-D design for their detectors than any other company . . . and that is from Nokta itself and not 3rd party companies. In fact having 7 sizes / designs to choose from and at a cost that does not require a mortgage is something to note in itself. The coils I use other than the stock one is the 9” Concentric (AF23C) and the 9.5”x5” Double-D (KR24). The concentric coil eliminates the rusted bottle cap issue and the elliptical Double-D is great in trash while still getting respectable depth on coins and the like. Surprisingly I found that at one of the sites we visited as part of DIV in Virginia that the concentric coil provided more stable operation than the stock Double-D when we got in the woods. Not what I had expected to see but that is why testing and comparisons in the areas you hunt are so important . . . you need to know what works and then see how that can be applied to other sites. A suggestion . . . if you get an optional coil get an extra lower shaft as it makes changing coils a breeze especially in the field where you will more often than not drop a nut or bolt (not that it ever happened to me)
5) Beach / water performance . . . with the addition of the waterproof headphones (which have very good sound and volume even when diving which is not the case with many other U/W headphones), the Anfibio makes for a solid water detector. In fact, it is one of the three units I take in the waters here in Michigan due to is sensitivity to the mid-conductive targets and optional coils available. People have asked how it handles salt water and my experience – albeit limited to a 100 mile stretch along the South Carolina coast – is that on the dry sand it worked well but once I got into the wet sand / surf line it was challenged as most single-frequency VLF detectors are. The coast from northern Florida through New England has heavy concentrations of black sand which combined with the salt, is tough for anything other than multi-frequency units such as those from Minelab, Fisher and Whites or Pulse-Induction units to get maximum performance in. Talking to some Anfibio users in southern Florida, the Gulf Coast and Caribbean where black sands is not an issue, they are getting solid performance under those conditions. I was not able to try a concentric coil on the beach but the Double-D coils tend to handle these conditions better anyway. The Beach mode was marginally effective in addressing the salt / black sand even when balancing in the wet sand region. Understanding the limitation of a single frequency detector in these conditions (and while the Anfibio has three frequencies, only one is active at a time) is something that until the Nokta multi-frequency unit is released, is simple a fact that one needs to factor into plans as to what detector to pack. But remember, a lot of good stuff has come from the dry sand areas and the Anfibio handled that with flying colors.
Overall, I like the overall feel and performance of the Anfibio better than my Impact but both are solid detectors. The options that are available without being on back-order for months at a time is a welcome change and they expand the versatility of the Anfibio. No detector is perfect and the Anfibio has its quirks but it shows the direction Nokta is heading with products that are coming off the drawing board now that they have joined forces with Makro.
Andy
I have had the opportunity to have been using the Nokta Anfibio since November of 2018 under a wide range of conditions. These include field and urban areas here in Michigan, the infamous red clay around Culpepper, VA, sites in the PA coal region and a number of water sites such as fresh beaches and rivers and East coast beaches.
My experience with Nokta and Makro products predates the Racer which made the companies a household name. In fact, my wife who runs Treasure Hunting Outfitters took on the line when the Racer came out and had a number of happy, successful customers pick them up. I still use my Impact and it has proven itself in the field under some challenging conditions.
So, fast-forward to the conference my wife and I attended last November where we got a chance to test out the Anfibio. We were impressed and ordered some with optional coils and other accessories. There are a number of videos out there but since the site conditions are rarely when we encounter, I opted to rely on testing done locally under the conditions we face to dial it in.
What did we find . . . .
1) The Anfibio is a “high gain” unit as people have called it and as such, it tends to be quite sensitive to EMI at higher sensitivity settings. Changing modes (such as using 3-Tones) or using the Frequency Shift helps but the take away is that running with the gain at 90+ is not needed to get impressive depth. I pulled a silver quarter at close to 10” with the gain set at 80 which was necessary due to EMI in the area. Also, all EMI is not the same. Surprisingly I found out from engineers with another company that the new LED lighting can raise havoc with detectors which makes testing indoors even more of a challenge. Hunting my front yard required a much lower gain setting than hunting the neighbor’s yard across the street . .. the reason for which I am still trying to figure out. The lesson is that one size does not fit all and in the case of the Anfibio, lowering the gain to address interference does not kill depth as it does on other detectors.
2) Lower frequencies hit higher conductive targets better but if conditions are forcing you to hunt at a higher frequency, you are not missing high conductive targets. Some people have made this black-&-white statement but in the case of the Anfibio, some great finds in urban sites here in Michigan have come while running at 20kHz. Use the frequency that provides the most stable operation for the ground you are searching and realize that sometimes what works in one site will not work at one a few miles away. I did find that the Anfibio hits small gold at the 20 kHz setting extremely well.
3) Build quality . . . not much to say here. It is built like a tank but does not weigh like a tank. The adjustable armrest is unique to the Anfibio and returning the coil wire to an “outside the shaft” design as compared to the Impact speeds up changing coils and reduces the likelihood of damaging the coil cable. It also allows the Anfibio to be collapsed easier for transport. Another popular detector that many of us have switched to carbon fiber rods can’t be collapsed much at all. One thing I have done is to add a few clear cabinet door stops to some of the touchpads to make it easier to press them while wearing gloves. Primarily they are the GB, PINPOINT, SELECT and OPTIONS touchpads. You can find them in stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot or Menards. Battery life is a plus and being able to bring the optional battery pack for land use or use a power bank avoids having the battery go dead in the field.
4) Optional coils . . . Nokta probably has more optional coils in both concentric and Double-D design for their detectors than any other company . . . and that is from Nokta itself and not 3rd party companies. In fact having 7 sizes / designs to choose from and at a cost that does not require a mortgage is something to note in itself. The coils I use other than the stock one is the 9” Concentric (AF23C) and the 9.5”x5” Double-D (KR24). The concentric coil eliminates the rusted bottle cap issue and the elliptical Double-D is great in trash while still getting respectable depth on coins and the like. Surprisingly I found that at one of the sites we visited as part of DIV in Virginia that the concentric coil provided more stable operation than the stock Double-D when we got in the woods. Not what I had expected to see but that is why testing and comparisons in the areas you hunt are so important . . . you need to know what works and then see how that can be applied to other sites. A suggestion . . . if you get an optional coil get an extra lower shaft as it makes changing coils a breeze especially in the field where you will more often than not drop a nut or bolt (not that it ever happened to me)
5) Beach / water performance . . . with the addition of the waterproof headphones (which have very good sound and volume even when diving which is not the case with many other U/W headphones), the Anfibio makes for a solid water detector. In fact, it is one of the three units I take in the waters here in Michigan due to is sensitivity to the mid-conductive targets and optional coils available. People have asked how it handles salt water and my experience – albeit limited to a 100 mile stretch along the South Carolina coast – is that on the dry sand it worked well but once I got into the wet sand / surf line it was challenged as most single-frequency VLF detectors are. The coast from northern Florida through New England has heavy concentrations of black sand which combined with the salt, is tough for anything other than multi-frequency units such as those from Minelab, Fisher and Whites or Pulse-Induction units to get maximum performance in. Talking to some Anfibio users in southern Florida, the Gulf Coast and Caribbean where black sands is not an issue, they are getting solid performance under those conditions. I was not able to try a concentric coil on the beach but the Double-D coils tend to handle these conditions better anyway. The Beach mode was marginally effective in addressing the salt / black sand even when balancing in the wet sand region. Understanding the limitation of a single frequency detector in these conditions (and while the Anfibio has three frequencies, only one is active at a time) is something that until the Nokta multi-frequency unit is released, is simple a fact that one needs to factor into plans as to what detector to pack. But remember, a lot of good stuff has come from the dry sand areas and the Anfibio handled that with flying colors.
Overall, I like the overall feel and performance of the Anfibio better than my Impact but both are solid detectors. The options that are available without being on back-order for months at a time is a welcome change and they expand the versatility of the Anfibio. No detector is perfect and the Anfibio has its quirks but it shows the direction Nokta is heading with products that are coming off the drawing board now that they have joined forces with Makro.
Andy
