25 votes

Gopher's guide to picking a metal detector

I'm a fairly new detectorist, only been detecting for 25 months, I've only used five detectors Nokta Simplex Plus, Nokta Legend, Minelab Vanquish 540, XP Deus, XP Deus 2, so most of my knowledge of other machines comes from YouTube videos and forum posts, not first hand experience, this post will be all over the place as I didn't plan it out, sort of a stream of consciousness, all prices are in Canadian dollars, it should be cheaper in the USA but with new tarrifs who knows

I guess the biggest issue budget, machines are expensive, the cheapest machine I think worth getting is $275 and the most expensive general use ones break $2000, specialized machines can be $3000 to maybe $10,000 like pulse induction and imaging machines

Also, if you want to just hunt parks and such, you can get away only using single frequency machines, but if you want to hunt salt water beaches, or even freshwater beaches with lots of black sand, you are going to want a multifrequency machine that runs multiple frequencies at once

I am only going to mention on the main three manufacturers in the bulk of this post, Nokta, Minelab, And XP, but at the end I will briefly touch on Garret and Fisher and Bounty Hunter

I guess first I'll list the single and multifrequency machines, since it depends the environment you want to search

I don't know if I need to leave a space under each line like reddit, so I will

The single frequency detectors are;

Nokta Simplex lite

Nokta Simplex BT

Nokta Simplex Ultra

Nokta FindX

Nokta FindX PRO

Minelab Xterra Pro

XP Deus (1)

The multifrequency detectors also have single frequency capabilities unless otherwise mentioned, they are;

Nokta score

Nokta Double Score

Nokta Triple Score

Nokta Legend

Minelab Vanquish 340 (no single frequency)

Minelab vanquish 440 (no single frequency)

Minelab Vanquish 540 (no single frequency)

Minelab Equinox 600

Minelab Equinox 800

Minelab Equinox 700

Minelab Equinox 900

Minelab Xterra Elite

Minelab Manticore

XP Deus 2

Our of all those detectors, I don't recommend the vanquish series, even though they work great at the beach, the box is not water proof, a rouge wave could end it's whole career

I also don't recommend the equinox 600 or the equinox 800 as the suffered from leaking issues and broken coil ears, the 700 and 900 came out addressing those issues

So, if your budget is on the lower end, and you are never going to go to a salt water beach, or you don't want to fiddle with setting and just want a turn on and go machine, the Nokta FindX Pro is a good choice, it's $275, the cheapest machine released to compete with other cheap Chinese machines on Amazon, there's a YouTuber I know who does very well with it, it's definitely not a toy machine, like a couple I didn't mention, like the Xterra Voyager released for kids by Minelab, and a Nokta one I forget the name

If your budget is a little more and you will not hit a beach, the simplex machines or the Xterra pro come in next, they have some settings to tweak, and the Xterra pro has selectable frequencies up to 20khz

I guess this is a good time to put a little blurb about frequencies, lower frequencies like to hit higher conductors like copper or silver

Higher frequencies like to hit mid to low conductors like gold or iron

lower frequencies use more battery power and go deeper

higher frequencies use less battery power and don't go as deep

higher frequencies will also hit smaller targets than lower frequencies

On the market there's machines that will go from 4khz to 120khz as of today, a new high frequency coil was released for the XP deus 2, most machines where you can't select a frequency will use somewhere between 10 and 15khz which is a good medium frequency

And last for the single frequency machines is the XP deus 1, which is a very old machine now, I don't recommend getting it unlss you can get one super cheap second hand, it's still $1000 in stores and if you get the high frequency coil that's another $500, and as of today the deus 2 released it's high frequency coil, so it kinda makes the deus 1 deprecated imo, I can't think of a spot where I would use the deus 1 any more once I get the new coil for the deus 2

Now for multifrequency machines, like I said the vanquish is a good machine, but there's no single frequency option and it's not water proof, features all other multifrequency machines have

The score, double score and triple score are water proof, infact the triple score pro pack is the best bang for your buck you can get, it cost $670 and comes with the good elliptical coil, a big coil, a hand digger, a pouch, headphones, a hat, and a pinpointer, basically everything you need to get started, if I was getting my first detector I would strongly consider the triple score pro pack, the detector itself is almost as good as the top tier detectors when it comes to unmasking targets

The Minelab Xterra elite is a newish release, it's a nice multifrequency machine with a single frequency option and is water proof, it's released to compete with the triple score

The Nokta legend and Minelab Equinox (700 and 900) were the flagship models for a while for their respective companies, the legend has a few more settings than the triple score, and the equinox has more settings than the Xterra elite and the vanquish, both legend and equinox are water proof, have multifrequency and multiple single frequency options, the legend has single frequency options between 4 and 40khz, and I'm not sure about the equinox but it's probably similar

The top two machines on the market are the Minelab Manticore and the XP deus 2, both machines cost in the ballpark of $2000

I don't know much about the Manticore, but it gets high praise from people, the deus 2 has the best audio on the market, the deus 2 is my favourite machine I ever used

So in summery, I guess if you're on a budget and not hunting the beach, go for simplex, findX, Xterra pro

If you are on a budget and hunting the beach go for a score machine, the best one in your budget, or a vanquish but be anal about not getting it wet

If you are not on a budget but don't want to pay $2000 go for the legend, equinox triple score, or Xterra elite, these machines have room to grow into them

If you sure you will stick with detecting a long time, and you have lots of money, might as well go for a Manticore or deus 2, these machines will be relevant for a long time to come probably

And I said I'd touch on other brands, bounty hunter you could get if your just curious if you even like detecting, it's about $150 for the tracker iv, and it will find stuff, but it's a very basic machine, I rather use the findX pro

Garret machines STAY AWAY FROM THE VORTEX, It's been plauged with problems since release, their engineers should be ashamed of themselves, other Garret machines work okay, if you can get one cheap second hand, it could be a way to go, but if you pay full price for one you can get better working machines for the same price range

Fisher is older, and works okay, again if you can get one second hand for incredibly cheap maybe it would be okay, but they are really outdated, I do want to try the Fisher cz21 but it cost $2000 and i don't want to try it that bad

If I wasn't clear on something let me know and I'll try to clarify

8 comments

  1. [2]
    polle
    Link
    Can you tell us a bit about the hobby? I'll admit metal detectoring (if that is the correct term) has always seemed like a strange passtime to me. Is it just the joy of finding some unexpected...

    Can you tell us a bit about the hobby?

    I'll admit metal detectoring (if that is the correct term) has always seemed like a strange passtime to me.

    Is it just the joy of finding some unexpected object? Is it about the potential value of some jewel?

    I'd love to hear about some of your finds in the past years.

    6 votes
    1. Gopher
      Link Parent
      I started with coin roll hunting, and saw people with dete tors finding old coins so I wanted to get into it, it's not about the money, maybe if you are in a city you'll find gold once in a while,...

      I started with coin roll hunting, and saw people with dete tors finding old coins so I wanted to get into it, it's not about the money, maybe if you are in a city you'll find gold once in a while, or a Florida or California beach, I only ever found a gold ring once In my town, I find silver jewelry every now and then, and I find about $150 in coins a year

      I just like finding random things, it's the same high as gambling I guess, you never know what's under the coil, some things I found that I think are neat is a sterling silver matchsafe from Victorian times, although it was busted up, early 1800s flat button, a 1900s spoon, a 1900s printing plate, a 1930s adventures of Jimmie Allen pin, a 1940s cap gun, 1936 dog tag from a pet, stuff like that

      7 votes
  2. [5]
    cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    I don't metal detect myself, so I don't have anything substantial to add to this topic in terms of advice. But I do watch a bunch of prospectors/detectorists/magnet fishers/relic hunters on...

    I don't metal detect myself, so I don't have anything substantial to add to this topic in terms of advice. But I do watch a bunch of prospectors/detectorists/magnet fishers/relic hunters on YouTube, and figured I would share some of their channels here for anyone else interested in the subject:

    Aquachigger <- My fav
    meMiner (fellow Ontarian)
    nuggetnoggin
    Dani Dip
    Bondi Treasure Hunter
    Tassie Boys Prospecting


    BTW:

    I don't know if I need to leave a space under each line like reddit, so I will

    You don't. :) Tildes uses Github Flavored Markdown which supports soft line breaks. So on Tildes, similar to a WYSIWYG word processor, you can simply hit Enter/Return once after any line in your text that you want to have end in a line break.

    Example
    with
    single
    Enter

    3 votes
    1. [4]
      Gopher
      Link Parent
      I watch Paystreak Superfreak Calabash digger Digging dude Texan detector and coin collector Treasure Outdoors Monterey Magnet Man Walter Lee detecting gopher (me lol) And others not coming to mind

      I watch

      Paystreak Superfreak
      Calabash digger
      Digging dude
      Texan detector and coin collector
      Treasure Outdoors
      Monterey Magnet Man
      Walter Lee detecting
      gopher (me lol)
      And others not coming to mind

      3 votes
      1. [3]
        cfabbro
        Link Parent
        Sweet. I am always on the hunt for more YouTubers to subscribe to. Thanks! Although it appears I am already subbed to a few of them and didn't even realize it. :P p.s. LFTL: Paystreak Superfreak...

        Sweet. I am always on the hunt for more YouTubers to subscribe to. Thanks! Although it appears I am already subbed to a few of them and didn't even realize it. :P

        p.s. LFTL:

        Paystreak Superfreak
        Calabash Digger Adventures
        The Digging Dudes
        The Texan Detector And Coin Collector
        Treasure Outdoors
        Monterey Magnet Man
        Walter Lee Detecting
        digginggopher (I'm assuming this is you? I was actually already subbed, so I must have done that last time you posted about detecting! :P)

        1 vote
        1. [2]
          Gopher
          Link Parent
          Yeah okay we had this convo before lol deja Vu, I remember somebody listing the channels they watch and I responded with some I watch, that must have been you

          Yeah okay we had this convo before lol deja Vu, I remember somebody listing the channels they watch and I responded with some I watch, that must have been you

          1 vote
          1. cfabbro
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            Heh, yeah, deja vu indeed. I clearly tend to repeat myself on certain subjects, metal detecting apparently being one. :P

            Heh, yeah, deja vu indeed. I clearly tend to repeat myself on certain subjects, metal detecting apparently being one. :P

            1 vote
  3. [2]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. Gopher
      Link Parent
      Yes I've seen the show before and the movie that wraps it up, it's entertaining, even though I don't know who Simon and garfunkle were

      Yes I've seen the show before and the movie that wraps it up, it's entertaining, even though I don't know who Simon and garfunkle were

      1 vote