Why buy a Deus?

[Dan(NM)]

This is a serious question, I have a CTX and have been doing rather well with it. What can the Deus do as far as ID at depth on coins, tokens etc that the CTX can't. I know it's lightweight(that's not an issue with the CTX for me) and responds faster than the CTX. I tried a Deus a couple of years ago and just could not decipher the sounds and get a grip on the settings. I'm not a relic or beach hunter(parks, lots, private yards and some open field hunting) It just didn't seem like it was able to ID as well as a Minelab, please, educate me on what I'm missing by just using the CTX, Thanks for any and all imput.

 

[Architex]

I have both. Deus will not touch the CTX for ID at depth, it is a tone machine. You will probably have the same problem with it now as you did before. Speaking for myself I think which detector(s) I like best is a very personal matter not always having anything to do with logic. I had an Explorer SE and never did like it so I never really got into how to run it well. Attitude has a lot to do with our choices. Just go with your gut.

 

[sprchng]

You're missing nothing Dan , although running a different detector over the same site is often an adventure in itself,,,,I enjoy the change of pace. If you have the 6" coil for intense trash and use the target bins with adjustable tones in heavy iron , it's unlikely the Deus will match the CTX in the sites you are hunting. The weakness of the Deus in our "modern" settings and trash is the lack of a true small coil with the new ones being designed once again for sensitivity to small low conductors at the expense of ID. I believe both the Impact and Racer2 with small coils , 6" or less , handle our dirt better than the Deus even with the 9". My Deus is about 4 years old and now requires a nightly charge to make it through the days hunt so that should be factored in as well. Don't get me wrong , in sites with moderate trash where targets aren't expected below 7 or 8", it is a lot of fun to swing the Deus , as well as at event sites where rapid clad and jewelry is the target. However the etrac and CTX both best the Deus for descriptive tone quality and ID.

 

[squirrel1]

This is a serious question, I have a CTX and have been doing rather well with it. What can the Deus do as far as ID at depth on coins, tokens etc that the CTX can't. I know it's lightweight(that's not an issue with the CTX for me) and responds faster than the CTX. I tried a Deus a couple of years ago and just could not decipher the sounds and get a grip on the settings. I'm not a relic or beach hunter(parks, lots, private yards and some open field hunting) It just didn't seem like it was able to ID as well as a Minelab, please, educate me on what I'm missing by just using the CTX, Thanks for any and all imput.

Well,
First if a person assumes the CTX will only ID what it alerts on, meaning what it don't alert on it can't ID,,,Deus will see some nonferrous CTX won't ( any coil used).
Will take particular scenarios for this to happen.

Higher mineral dirt, Deus is one of the best out there even using LF coils. Add a HF coil even better. To distinguish nonferrous from ferrous- this can be a real feat for a detector.

Maybe the question here should be, is a CTX user finding all coinage in all sites using all the coils made for CTX?
Short answer not likely.
Iron is a CTX''s worst enemy.
Moreso with lower conductors like gold whatever, nickels and other lower conductors.

Deus will strike deeper nickels than CTX, although Deus ID again unreliable.

Limited digging basing dig decision on CTX ID provided, some coins, etc will be left in the ground.

What would I recommended to a person wanting to expand their detecting capabilities who currently has a CTX with both stock and small coil?
Good choice would be Makro Racer 2,, need the small coil though.
Nokta Impact,, need the small coil though. Very good modern trash Hunter.
These 2 detectors ID better than Deus generally.

Now if your dirt is real mineralized.
Deus with elliptical HF coil.
Not a good setup for modern trash.
Coil will punch though for depth,,will surprise a person based on the size of coil.

 

[calabash digger]

I'm gonna come at from a different view point as I'm not a coin shooter. Id well it doesn't help that much on the relics that I seek as their all over the over the place, so a machine that will handle the iron and see non ferrous targets at a fast pace and weighs little of nothing has a great advantage over the ctx in that scenario. As for the racer 2 with the small coil I couldn't stand the high toning on iron (nail heads) it seemed to like to do a lot .. Maybe I should have spent some more time with it but I didn't and sent it down the road and when I look at the resale values of it , it looks like many others are not that impressed with it either. I had the small coil for the CTX and put it in the iron infested sites I hunt and also field hunted some with it and it didn't take long to figure out while my partner was running around busting targets and I was having to go slow with that big beast that the deus smoked it for relic hunting... I tested them in my garden and deus and ctx where close on depth and such.. As for RELIC hunting in iron and modern trash cant find a more versatile machine than the deus. I would like to go out and watch a group of guys go out with the ctx to a park looking for coins., It would be amazing to see them just dig coins and no trash since the minelabs id are so accurate and so far ahead of all the other brands..... BTW the ctx did id coins at depth better in CLEAN ground in my garden than the deus.

 

[CT Todd]

Good points by the guys above here most are valid. I own both machines and hunt both of them back and forth no issue. You have already said you had issue with the Deus before. Well nothing has really changed that much. Stay where you are I think.

 

[Dan(NM)]

Thank you guys for taking the time to post responses. I think I'll wait to see what Minelab releases this month, if it's dud, I'll look into a R2.

 

[Jim Robertson]

I own the CTX and a couple XP Deus's one set on 4.0 and one on 3.2 also use a Vista Gold for very fast recovery. I look at detecting like I do gardening. When I need a hoe a rake will not work. Each tool is made to do a job as are detector's. It is so much fun to see what each detector can do and do very well.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Minelab target ID (Explorers, eTrac, CTX) is not that great on deep targets. If you always get solid accurate target ID's on Minelabs you are not digging deep enough targets. Yes the machines are amazingly accurate but only to a certain depth, then accuracy falls off a cliff, followed quickly by the machine even being able to get a tone on a target.

The owner of Findmall forum gave me an invaluable suggestion way back when I purchased my first Explorer. He told me to go out, ignore the target ID and dig only the deepest targets I could get a peep on solely based on depth, wow talk about an eye opener. The target ID was jumping all over the place, when it could even display an ID.

My Deus arrives tomorrow, I have to step out for a bit when I return I'll list my reasons for purchasing.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

I will speak specifically to parks, lots, private yards and some open field hunting, leaving off other reasons I purchased a Deus. Like another member mentioned, I view gear as tools, there's not a one size fits all detector or coil, though my current Explorer SE Pro and previous model Explorers have served me well.

Depth - Yes even the mighty Minelabs have their limits. Everything I'm hearing, from a dealer I trust, to actual finds recovered in the field by friends are telling me the Deus can go deeper.

Target Separation - Watching a Minelab vs Deus go head to head on a nail/coin/nail video, it was invisible to a Minelab but rang out strong on a Deus. This jives with reports of how good Deus can be in iron. Also jives with my experience with Explorers in iron. There once was a strip of old park in NY, the Explorer with the stock coil was repeatedly skunked in this area. There used to be houses along this strip bordering the street that were torn down long ago, today its just grass and trees. One day I took the Minelab 8 inch coil over there, really its more like a 7 inch coil and whammo coins everywhere. The rusty nails were just too much for the larger coil even as good as I am at picking through the iron with it. I have also encountered many a coin hiding in the shadow of iron, and near surface trash for that matter. Think of iron and nails as umbrellas polluting an area of ground around themselves. Trying to sneak up under these to get a hit on a coin can be a challenge. So I'm willing to give the Deus a try in these areas.

Deus HF Coils - First the Minelabs are NOT the 28 frequency machines the advertising makes them out to be. Connect an Explorer to an oscilloscope and you will see just 2 base frequencies, not 28. Technically Minelab is not telling a fib. The Minelabs transmit a square wave, odd thing about a square wave vs a sine wave, there are harmonic frequencies of the base square wave. So what the Minelabs do is transmit 2 base square wave frequencies, then the machine analyzes those two base frequencies plus another 26 harmonics of those base frequencies. But here's the deal, each order of harmonic frequencies of the base become weaker and weaker. So the machine may receive a strong signal back at the base frequency, but some of those higher order frequencies will be a fraction of the strength. Worth chasing sure, but is a signal received from a harmonic frequency at say 56 kHz on the Minelab the same strength of a signal a Deus transmitted at 56kHz, nope.

For the Deus HF coils in parks/lots my prey would be coins on edge. TBD if a Deus can get a hit on a coin straight up on edge and if so how deep, but coins tipped a tad from straight up this may get interesting. Depends on the area of the country you live in. In the north which sees hard ground freezes in the winter, NY in my case the soil can heave several inches into the air during the freeze. This tends to slowly flip coins end over end. A site that had been strip mined bare of signals, after a couple hard freezes it lights up again with coins that got flipped over enough to get a signal on them. So IF the Deus HF coils can get a hit on coins on edge or near on edge, yeah I'm up for that.

Small Silver Coins - half dimes, 3 cent silvers, half reales, cut silver here I would be looking for more depth from the Deus vs the Minelabs.

Disturbed soil and highly mineralized soil. Explorers HATE fresh tilled soil, enough said. I'm currently on the west coast, out here we have magnetic volcanic black sand and Explorers hate the stuff. Some sites are undetectable even with the Minelab 8 inch coil. It is very difficult to punch through this soil and get depth. The Deus is supposed to be better in this type of soil so I'm going to give it a try.

FINAL - If a target is deep does it really matter what the ID is? No. Using NY as an example again, at any site of undisturbed soil any target below about 6 inches will be old and that layer and deeper will be free of modern trash so you dig. And how deep are targets in that area? Insanely deep, layers of depth undetected that have targets the Minelab just can't reach on coin size targets. I pounded that area for 2 years with a 15 inch WOT coil. The deepest targets were all larger, large cents, silver quarters, brass shoe taps and all manner of larger relics but it couldn't hit smaller coins at those depths, even though they must be down there.

Seeing is believing...anyone remember Dave Z of Whites DFX fame? RIP Dave. One day at a site of deep larger targets and relics he got a signal on his DFX. I swept the target with a 15 inch WOT coil and heard nothing really, a bit of coil warble, soil mineralization, nothing I would dig. He starts digging and dang the guy is up to his elbow in the hole and pops out an indian cent. Then like three more even deeper in the hole. Flabergasted I said to him you didn't know what that was right, you dug only because it was deep? He said, "you don't miss much do you". lol At the depth limits of a machine's ability to even get a hit on a target, ID accuracy or any ID is out the window.

Here's another example using the lesson Dave taught me many years later. What target ID's a bit above and to the right of nickel on a Minelab? A pit of 40 Spanish 8 reales dang! This signal was so deep it barely upset the balance on the Explorer coil. After a Minelab CTX had already pounded this small area and recovered several single 8 reales. Had this small area not been producing 8 reales that day I would have written that signal off as a false, not even strong enough to be a false, maybe as mineralization. It was only because I was going really slow and listening for deep anything signals that I paid it any attention. Once we opened up a hole and removed a foot or more of sand, I was able to stick my coil down there and whammo screaming silver signal.

 

[BigTony]

Charles, does that statement hold true for minelab pinpoint as well?

If I get a deep target and I can pinpoint it I will attempt the recovery. If I cannot pinpoint it I move on.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Charles, does that statement hold true for minelab pinpoint as well?

If I get a deep target and I can pinpoint it I will attempt the recovery. If I cannot pinpoint it I move on.

Are you talking about the non-motion pinpoint mode? If so absolutely NOT, you lose depth in non-motion pinpoint mode, do not walk away from a target just because pin point mode can't get a hit on it. To differentiate between a true false and what may be a horrible almost nothing super deep target look for a pattern of repeatability. It may only repeat every 2 or 3 swings, but if it repeats every 2 to 3 swings in the same spot there's a target down there. Don't be afraid to temporarily crank up your sensitivity and gain to investigate a super deep target.

Apologies to Deus readers I'm in the wrong forum to be talking about Minelabs...I once took several steps past a faint signal with an Explorer, gain 7 sens 28 it took a few steps for it to register it was that faint. When you find one of these deep targets on the edge of the machines limits don't waste the opportunity to experiment with your settings by being in a big hurry to dig. It was so faint I bumped my gain from 7 to 8 wow huge difference, no way I would have walked past it at 8. Ditto for another target, solid signal with my sens at 28, got iffy at sens 26 and vanished altogether when I lowered my sens to 24. Capitalize on your learning opportunities.

Important: Also don't get faked out by a tiny surface target thinking its super deep. It will sound deep, ID as deep on the meter, but there's an easy check. Lift your coil off the ground, a true deep target will quickly vanish. If it doesn't if you can still detected it with the coil several inches off the ground its a surface/near surface tiny target trying to head fake you.

 

[minelabking]

Well said

 

[CT Todd]

This post has gone way to far and I type with one finger. I own both machines for years and am pretty good with them.

The Deus is a dream at 2 lbs swing all day. CTX swing all day but arm hurts.
CTX and Deus will dig targets at the same depth. Ones no deeper than the other.
Deus is far better in the iron
CTX is far better at TID at any depth
CTX and the Deus when propertly set up are turn on and hunt machines.
CTX will show you two targets at once on the screen
CTX is a better machine in modern trash
Deus is much better on tiny targets
CTX will hunt under water very well
Deus is good in the dry sand
Deus is very adjustable
These two machines are both excellent around a cellar hole.
CTX and the Deus are excellent units

These are just tools pick one and stay with it. Pick a program and stay with it until you really know it. Show me a guy with 4 machines in two years and I'll show you a person who hasn't learned any of them well enough to complain about any one of them.

What does a dime at 7" sound like with your machine ? Don't know? Why not
Learn your machines you will do so much better. No matter what machine it is. There are guys out there swinging units from the 90s that will kick your ass. They know every squeak that unit makes.

A little venting sorry

 

[BigTony]

n/t

 

[BigTony]

n/t

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

n/t