"EARN THIS"

[PowerDubs]

This thread is not about anyone else's thoughts on the Nox other than mine. Don't take that in the wrong way- but this is just to document and share my experience with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I started with a Garrett Ace 350 my wife bought me. I found several cool things with it, but very quickly learned I wanted more info (the Ace350 does not have a target # displayed which was the big thing I wanted at that time)...

So I bought an AT Pro.

I used the AT Pro for the next year and learned to appreciate not only the target #, but being able to hear the iron grunt. I found a LOT more cool stuff with that detector.

But- I wanted more info, so I bought a CTX.

I used the ctx for the next year. It's biggest advantage to me was the on screen graph (simplified explanation) which not only shows low/high tone or left/right whatever you want to call it- but also up/down into iron.

That is a tremendous feature. I dug a LOT less junk with the CTX- as it shows the difference between a solid target and a splatter, shows when the target is dipping into iron (might be bad based on depth) or when the target is rising up ( could be silver)... even bangs on coin spills showing the line bang from nickel over to penny/dime/quarter- with tones- but never put the icon down into the iron area. Tremendous feature.

I'll say this now- the Nox is getting reports to find stuff the other detectors miss. That is the only reason I bought it.

If that is true- I am sure Minelab will release a Noctx with a more detailed display.

But for right now- I bought a Nox to see if it can find stuff in sites I have already hunted that the CTX and AT Pro missed.

I honestly don't care if it finds stuff that the others can hit as well- if that is all it does, I prefer the screen and info on the CTX even if it weighs more. So the Nox needs to 'EARN THIS'!!

So far- because of the snow, I have only had the nox out in a few melted cleared spots in my yard. Nothing found- nothing even dug.

Of course I don't know the language yet- I am just using the default park 2. But I am pretty sure if it locks onto something I will recognize it.

I will say my first impression under the power lines along the street is that it is more noisy than the CTX. The CTX will cancel out any noise as if it isn't there at all.

But if a little noise on the Nox means it hears something the others miss- I am OK with listening for that through the racket. It just hasn't done that yet.

I'll keep this thread updated as the weather warms up and let you know if I think this thing is worth it to me.

 

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[fuceye]

I wait for the frost to melt as well....

 

[Wiganer]

I wait for the frost to melt as well....

my dog would love a bit of frost right now

 

[fuceye]

Yellow snow...yum yum.

 

[Bquamb]

Sub'd to hear more. All the best on your maiden voyage. I just sold my CTX due to life stuff and dont care to buy another. It was great, however i never fell in love with it... I had maybe 500 hours and still i never truly fell in love with the machine. Not to say it didnt work, it absolutely did and I had found many silver coins, a zillion pennies, 3 gold rings and had 3 of the 4 available coils (12/17/10x5). It was great but, just something about it. Can't wait to try this NOX when ever it arrives.

 

[PowerDubs]

Still hasn’t earned anything.

I’ve had it out at 3 different places I have found lots of old stuff with my AT Pro and my CTX.

I bought this to see if it could find stuff the others have missed. Has not done anything to blow my skirt up yet.

So far all I can say is-

#1- lighter than the ctx sure, but I can swing the ctx all day on my 17 coil no big deal.

#2- very fast response. Must admit this is nice.

#3- It seems to be very sensitive to small stuff- at the expense of a LOT more noise going on.

... Target ID is pretty shitty. And that is just comparing # to #- like on the AT, not counting the vast loss of information the ctx screen gives me.

... depth meter is virtually useless

Also is much much more noisy around power lines, dog fences, etc. The CTX is dead silent in the same spots. I could probably adjust settings, but neutering the machine negates it’s entire purpose.

Tomorrow will be our first time to a new (to us anyway?) spot- so we will see what happens.

 

[fuceye]

Good luck I hope you have a fun day....

 

[smokeythecat]

Powerdubs, thanks for an honest response. I REALLY want one, but as they come in the box it's too heavy for me *sighs*. I'm hoping someone will put an aftermarket "S" coil out there to eliminate the problem, but, from what you're saying, it might be wise to wait till the end of the year to see what other manufacturers come up with. Or with the newer version of the Equinox to come out. These things always change, it's how it is.

 

[1942 merc]

So far the only thing I notice is the weight compared to my deus .It is better balanced than an ATP but pretty much the same weight .Three hours at a spot I have pounded with my ATP and deus with nothing but bolts with nuts on them and some bent nails and signals I can never find . I am getting no depth either . Best I am getting is six inches . I do not know the machine yet or am I doing any adjustments other than noise cancel and GB and raising the sensitivity a couple numbers .I hope this detector is not all hype .Good thing about it is , if I decide to sell it there are 100s of ppl still waiting that will for some reason pay more than it is worth with out knowing what they are buying yet .

 

[fuceye]

Equinox is not a depth machine. I,ve heard that some people are very happy with
6 inches...I personally dream of 12 inches but am happy with 9.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Are you noise canceling, ground balancing? Have you experimented with the different settings? I honestly cannot understand your experience so far.

 

[Echoplex]

PowerDubs, thank you for your report.

"It seems to be very sensitive to small stuff- at the expense of a LOT more noise going on."

If the tiny signals are too much, try running it in one of the low-frequency-weighted programs like Park1/Field1. Also, Iron Bias settings of 1 or 2 can greatly reduce a lot of the smaller falsing in the main modes, especially Park2/Field2. Time with this machine is key. I didn't bond or feel comfortable with it until after several hunts. The first few were frustrating because I did not fully understand how all of the settings interacted with each and I hadn't customized the tones and breaks. Now I wouldn't want to use anything else. The only settings I find myself tweaking from site to site are recovery and sensitivity.

Regarding EMI, did you try single frequency at any of those sites? The dog fences typically run 7.5-10 kHz, so you should be able to use 5, 15, 20, or 40 kHz with silence and possibly even max sensitivity. With power lines, 15, 20, or 40...

The depth meter needs refining, but I still find it extremely useful. I usually "calibrate" myself by paying attention how the first few targets at a new site show on depth and go by that for that particular site. Full bars, it is almost always deeper than 6 inches and I will dig anything with full bars.

People claiming no depth, what are you running your sensitivity, recovery, and bias at? This is a real head-scratcher for me because I am consistently digging 9-10" dimes and pennies and the Nox is banging on them. Got a 10" tiny ww1 great seal button yesterday that my MXT/13" Detech coil could not see on max gain (my buddy was swinging my MXT). Many people with E-tracs, CTXs, and Deus are reporting similar depths with the Nox. Also, plenty of videos out there confirming this. I've always considered any machine that can bang at least a 10" silver dime in the wild a deep machine. Maybe my standards are too low?

 

[eman1000]

I have never used or even seen the CTX other than youtube so I am wondering is it fair to compare a 600-800 dollar machine to a $2500 dollar machine?
I bought the NOX but if I could have bought the CTX from someone for $650 I would have.
I get the AT Pro comparison and even the Deus maybe at $800-1200, but if I paid the money for the CTX then I would expect the target ID to be awesome.
I know each time I have upgraded I look back on the cheaper model and see what I paid for. I've never downgraded so to speak in price range.

 

[fuceye]

PowerDubs, thank you for your report.

"It seems to be very sensitive to small stuff- at the expense of a LOT more noise going on."

If the tiny signals are too much, try running it in one of the low-frequency-weighted programs like Park1/Field1. Also, Iron Bias settings of 1 or 2 can greatly reduce a lot of the smaller falsing in the main modes, especially Park2/Field2. Time with this machine is key. I didn't bond or feel comfortable with it until after several hunts. The first few were frustrating because I did not fully understand how all of the settings interacted with each and I hadn't customized the tones and breaks. Now I wouldn't want to use anything else. The only settings I find myself tweaking from site to site are recovery and sensitivity.

Regarding EMI, did you try single frequency at any of those sites? The dog fences typically run 7.5-10 kHz, so you should be able to use 5, 15, 20, or 40 kHz with silence and possibly even max sensitivity. With power lines, 15, 20, or 40...

The depth meter needs refining, but I still find it extremely useful. I usually "calibrate" myself by paying attention how the first few targets at a new site show on depth and go by that for that particular site. Full bars, it is almost always deeper than 6 inches and I will dig anything with full bars.

People claiming no depth, what are you running your sensitivity, recovery, and bias at? This is a real head-scratcher for me because I am consistently digging 9-10" dimes and pennies and the Nox is banging on them. Got a 10" tiny ww1 great seal button yesterday that my MXT/13" Detech coil could not see on max gain (my buddy was swinging my MXT). Many people with E-tracs, CTXs, and Deus are reporting similar depths with the Nox. Also, plenty of videos out there confirming this. I've always considered any machine that can bang at least a 10" silver dime in the wild a deep machine. Maybe my standards are too low?

You could have very nice ground...

 

[Wiganer]

I was on a salt water beach yesterday on the Atlantic coast, using beach 1 in the wet sand, noise cancelled , ground balance at 0, near power lines, and it ran silky smooth, and I pulled a dog tag out of the wet at over 12 inches, I'm well happy with my 600, just feel sorry for my dualfield, it will be finding a new home.

 

[vferrari]

Don't underestimate the power of lowering sensitivity (yes, I said, "lowering sensitivity"). This machine is hot and deep at the defaults. Default sensitivity of 20 is like the sweet spot of 90 to 93 on the Deus. There is a Deus program called sifter which works well in thick iron to bring out non-ferrous targets by lowering sensitivity into the 80's. If you are getting a lot of ground noise - first up recovery speed then consider turning down sensitivity. Yeah it seems counterintuitive from a pure depth capability standpoint, but what you are doing is lowering the noise floor and increasing the signal-to-noise ratio which increases "effective" depth. It works, believe me. This machine wants to run fast. Let it run fast. The ML default settings are GREAT starting points (could not say the same about Deus - needs tweaking right out of the box). Don't over drive sensitivity. If anything you should be lowering it from the default of 20, rather than increasing it under most circumstances.

Regarding EMI:

First Auto Noise Cancel - Manual Noise Cancel if Auto did not give you a quiet channel (you can only do this on the 800). Make sure the coil is raised in the air off the ground when you noise cancel. GB if necessary. Then if still noisy, lower sensitivity. Don't be afraid to go as low as 13 to 15. You will still get decent depth and hopefully hear your desirable targets because you have lowered the noise floor.

Finally, if all else fails, start thinking about notching out undesirable target segments so you can at least hunt the site for a subset of target types. Say you want to focus on silvers only, then sacrifice the noisy nickel and non-high conductor VDI's below 20. If you want to focus on gold, then notch everything else but that segment (e.g., focus on VDI's from say 8 to 15). Do whatever it takes to knock down the broadband noise so you can at least hunt.

Another alternative is to go single frequency. Typically the lower frequencies (which are most sensitive to high conductors at depth) are more susceptible to EMI, which means you will be biased towards the mid conductors if you use the higher available and quiet frequencies. There are no pat answers so you may find the lower frequencies are more quiet.

HTH

 

[PowerDubs]

Mini update-

I've been out a few times between the snow storms. I have found several good items, including silver.

So far I am standing by my original bullet points- machine is very sensitive, can hit targets in my test bed that my CTX can't. The VDI blows. The depth meter blows. Be prepared to listen through the noise.

The Nox is like the young new guy you know at work. Looks professional, but won't stop talking, you aren't sure if you always can trust what he says, but he is smart enough to get things done that the old guys can't. It's not that he is lying on purpose- he is just young and needs a little refining.

So it accomplishes what I bought it for- it will find stuff the other machines can't. That is a game changer, will 'bring old sites back to life' and will sell a lot of machines.

But be aware- for someone coming off a CTX, they are different tools.

If I want a stable quiet machine, tons of excellent data on what I am seeing both on VDI and screen picture, if I am hunting somewhere that I am on a manicured lawn, cherry picking down to about 6 inches- I'll use the CTX.

If I am somewhere where there is old stuff deep, and I don't care about digging some trash to find treasure- I'll use the Nox and dig by tone. I will dig *much* more junk, take much more time, but it *will* find more keepers.

To the guy above who said it isn't fair to compare the 2 detectors on price- I am not really. I am comparing them on function, regardless of the price. Each works better for certain criteria.

Hitting something the other machines don't even see is huge. Can't dig it if you don't even know something is there. Walk on by...

If (when) they come out with a 'ctnox' version- I will be buying it as well.

My buddy is also buying a nox- and he is coming off of years on an AT Pro. So for him the perspective could be different as he never had the same level of info that the CTX provided.

He calls me over to scan the target with the CTX and confirm with him what I think it is. Now I am calling him over with the AT Pro and tell me what he thinks I am hitting with the Nox. Fun times.

 

[Echoplex]

The Nox is like the young new guy you know at work. Looks professional, but won't stop talking, you aren't sure if you always can trust what he says, but he is smart enough to get things done that the old guys can't. It's not that he is lying on purpose- he is just young and needs a little refining.

This is such an awesome analogy. lol. The good news is that, with time, the new guy will start to build your trust and you'll know exactly when he's bull******* you.

 

[eman1000]

Mini update-
So far I am standing by my original bullet points- machine is very sensitive, can hit targets in my test bed that my CTX can't. The VDI blows. The depth meter blows. Be prepared to listen through the noise.
.

The VDI blows really? I'm relatively new to using VDI and only have 1 other machine to compare the Nox to but I wouldn't say it's bad. How does everyone feel it compares to other machines on the market?
Just as a quick test I can put a nail within an inch of a coin with the F22 and the VDI is all over the place but with the Nox you can pretty much tell there is 2 targets or the target is worth digging. (It doesn't seem to average the numbers so to speak)
If I get a repeatable number in a trashy area in the coin range I'm digging.