Deus Is On The Way!

[Carolina Tom]

After some research and a little bit of thought, I have taken the plunge. I ordered the XP Deus! It should be here this week. I am really excited. I also ordered the Andy Sabisch book.

If any of you "Deus-Pros" have any advice for me, it would be most appreciated.

The poor little AT Pro is going to be pissed when the Deus arrives.... damn...

 

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[rks1949]

After some research and a little bit of thought, I have taken the plunge. I ordered the XP Deus! It should be here this week. I am really excited. I also ordered the Andy Sabisch book.

If any of you "Deus-Pros" have any advice for me, it would be most appreciated.

The poor little AT Pro is going to be pissed when the Deus arrives.... damn...

Yeah,my ATP is getting used very little now days! Once you go wireless,it's hard to go back to the wired headphones! I still use my ATP though,and always keep it close by incase rain is in the forecast,and I want to go coinshooting,or a water hunt! Don't throw it under the bus just yet!

 

[Carolina Tom]

Yeah,my ATP is getting used very little now days! Once you go wireless,it's hard to go back to the wired headphones! I still use my ATP though,and always keep it close by incase rain is in the forecast,and I want to go coinshooting,or a water hunt! Don't throw it under the bus just yet!

I like the AT Pro, for $700, you can't beat it. I will hang onto it as a back up machine, as well as one someone else can borrow... when hunting with me. I am just getting the hang of the thing, and now, a new learning curve... damn.

I am putting you on my "Deus Pro" list of people to ask questions to... Get ready.

Thanks, GL&HH.

You are 100% correct about "wirelessness". The only thing that I really hate about the AT Pro is that wire form the machine to headset. It is always in the way. It is the single biggest detriment to my hunting. I know that you can make the AT Pro wireless, Rapoo etc... but I would prefer it be wireless from the get go. That was the HUGE factor for me. I am really looking forward to getting the Deus.

I am going to pick it up tonight after work. I will get it charged up, and be ready to hunt on Friday after work, weather permitting. It has been raining in the South the last few afternoons, so we will see how it goes.

 

[Dave Rishar]

You picked a very good machine. I do see people occasionally selling used ones, but I've never seen a person accuse XP of making a crap detector. The Deus is a bit unusual in some respects and some folks have a hard time getting used to it. I can completely understand this.

It does not excel in every area, but it's pretty damned good (definitely good enough anyway) in almost every area, and the overall package is just a pleasure to use. The menu is quick and intuitive, the machine weighs next to nothing, no wires...you know the drill. The ergonomics are just nice. Mine was supposed to be my rainy day machine, but it quickly became my sunny day machine as well simply because it's so nice to use compared with my other detectors. My Minelab generally stays in the trunk because I can't be bothered to swing it, and while my uMax is nearly as pleasant to use, it simply can't match this level of performance. (To be fair to the poor uMax, it's an entry level machine and this isn't a fair comparison, and it still rules the roost in terms of finds due to the virgin sites that I was able to hit with it.)

A useful bit of advice that was given to me, and that I only partially followed, was to use a factory preset for a while in order to learn the machine. I started with one and quickly began changing things based on theory, rather than observation. After the observation period, I changed them some more...and now I'm pretty close to being back to factory settings. (My standard park program is damned near Basic 2 with a pair of notches and one or two other small tweaks.) There are guys on the UK forums with experience going back years, right to the beginning, who are still using factory programs and doing well. The Deus has a lot of settings that can be altered, and some of these settings affect other settings in ways which aren't immediately obvious or even particularly well documented. To go along with this, I'd also suggest to stay with the same preset once you've settled on one. People often speak of detectors having "languages," and the key to successful hunting is becoming fluent in those languages. Note that a given Deus is Deus Fast is not speaking the same "language" as a Deus in Basic 2, so frequent changes will likely result in some confusion. Changing the settings (particularly settings like frequency, reactivity, silencer, tones, etc.) will change the "language," so make these changes sparingly and only after you're understanding what it's telling you.

 

[Pointman]

I'm still learning my Deus after five months and I agree with Dave concerning learning the basic language of the machine. I tweaked around and settled on some settings that I like and I found that the basic settings work pretty good or even better, but the tones are different than what I have been using. For me, I have to get used to the tones or I may as well not even detect.

Only thing that I may add, is when coin shooting, for me, iffy signals are hardly ever a coin. A coin will ring in pretty consistent or even loud even at depth. Sometimes verses the CTX the Deus seems to home in louder or more consistent on the deeper coins.

 

[JimDon]

Wow Tom. You are stepping it up big time. Hardy had one that he let me take a couple of swings with it. I liked it but am happy with the etrac for now. I do like the compactness and wireless set up but I have heard a story of a guy losing his controller walking thru the woods to get to a site and couldn't find it. The replacement was over $1000. Good luck. I am curious how you do with it.

 

[Carolina Tom]

Thanks for the encouraging words guys! I am dreading the learning curve, but in the long run, I believe that the machine will work well for me.

I "test drove" it around the front yard last night. The sounds are completely different than the AT Pro. I hope that I can pick this up quickly.

I will head out after work this afternoon, weather permitting... yeah, Friday the 13th is the maiden voyage... (insert trepidation here)... and we will see how it goes.

Thanks again, and I hope that everyone has a treasure filling weekend.

 

[Dave Rishar]

Thanks for the encouraging words guys! I am dreading the learning curve, but in the long run, I believe that the machine will work well for me.

Don't dread it. I was coming off Tesoros and a Minelab, which are about as different in tones as tones can be, both compared to each other and also to the Deus. I picked it right up. It's remarkably easy.

I'm a full tones guy. I tried it the other way and it wasn't working for me. There are some guys who have been doing this for a long time that won't use full tones and do extremely well, but enabling full tones just made it click for me. You won't get the information from those tones that a Minelab will give you, make no mistake about it, but there's information there - lots of information. However, the machine has a number of other ways of delivering information as well - different "channels," if you will. You can create a duplicate program with a different frequency (or some other setting) adjacent to the program that you're using, for example, and you can forgo the horshoe and use the X-Y screen as I prefer. You have some options in how the detector feeds information to you, and one of those combinations may be the one that makes it all click.

It's kind of difficult to describe. It seems as if XP took a very holistic approach when designing the user interface, so the operator can pick any number of paths to make the machine talk the way that they prefer. The problem with this is that there are just so many options that one can become confused. That's probably where most of the learning curve comes from.

I may not be explaining it properly. There's not any single factor that made it easy to adapt to, but rather the whole package. With the small exception of the fact that (relatively) quick settings changes are locked out when in X-Y, there's really nothing about this machine that aggravates me. I learn more effectively when I'm not aggravated. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say.

 

[ShovelNose]

Lots of studying ahead Tom. It is a great MD to use in iron laden home sites. Have hunted with 2 folks that have had them and after comparing signals in our soil it just couldn't match the depth or the ID accuracy of my ET but still a pleasure to use. There is a guy that sells them that is in the Matthews club. He has the most experience with it in these parts. He may be able to help you. It will take well over 100 hours using it to get any where close to knowing it or for that matter most upper line MD'. In time you will see there is a lot of reasons that there are so many people using Minelab around here. HH JR

 

[Bart@Big Boys Hobbies]

After some research and a little bit of thought, I have taken the plunge. I ordered the XP Deus! It should be here this week. I am really excited. I also ordered the Andy Sabisch book.

If any of you "Deus-Pros" have any advice for me, it would be most appreciated.

The poor little AT Pro is going to be pissed when the Deus arrives.... damn...

Congrats! AWESOME detector! Holler if you have questions!