Tone or numbers

[GazinUK]

Can the Nox be used as tone only for id? As a lot of videos I've watched tend to rely on the numbers.

 

[CT Todd]

You can use it either way of course but your in the UK and with 3000 years of habitation you should be digging all positive signals. The hell with the tone or numbers.

 

[dewcon4414]

I agree with Todd..........but ive always been a tone guy. The Nox has somewhat good TID digit wise, not as good as the CTX and its smart screen thou. Single digits always seem to be more jumpy...... so thats why i go with the tones. Depth, metal bleeding, and minerals WILL change both.

 

[greenmeanie]

I hunt by TONE and then when I get a hit look at the number.
So I would say yes you can hunt by tone alone.

 

[Florida Son]

The "50 Tone" setting has also been called the "Excaliber Audio" setting in Clive James Clynick's book on the EQ. I do not run an Excal so I cannot confirm this....Maybe others can chime in.

 

[Mega]

Audio is far more reliable that TID,i never make a sole digging decision just by what the screen tells you,audio is also far more reliable at slighter greater depth,when hunting for silver hammered coins or roman at depth then i dig all those whisper deep signals that wont ever trigger a TID reading.Then of course if you are hunting for real deep targets and you have the machine setup right then even when the target cannot trigger the TID or even the audio because the target is either deeper or say a small silver hammered coin then that is when you can rely on the audio threshold which can/will give that small change in the audio threshold which could be a very desirable and valuable target that you couold have missed if you had just soley relied on TID or audio........using the threshold as it was designed has produce some very nice deep targets for me over the years including a couple of celtic gold 1/4 staters just because of using the audio threshold and digging those signals.

Alot of decent find could still be left in the ground and missed if your solely using TID and the screen,even the slightest audio whisper i will never walk away from that target,it has too come out.

 

[calabash digger]

What Todd said...….

 

[midalake]

Can the Nox be used as tone only for id? As a lot of videos I've watched tend to rely on the numbers.

I have been hunting exclusively in one tone on a salt beach, so no one may have more experience in using numbers to dig. What I have found is two fold.

1. When is Disc. mode the number tends to be jumpy and almost all good signals [+1] and more lock-in well. Almost all targets have crisp edge sounds and not a broken or scattered sound.


2. When I go to all metal mode the numbers tend to lock better, no matter if it is ferrous or nonferrous, but ferrous targets will lock-in harder. When in all metal mode if the target crisp's up more and is a cleaner sound this is a big tell the target is ferrous.

I have dug 100's of "iffy" targets so far with almost all of them still being ferrous and to note the few odd-ball targets that were non-ferrous were of no worth.

I will agree with what Dew said, you have to watch black sand conditions and moving salt water. You need to be more careful with these two variables.

Dave

 

[Brianc]

I would relate this to texting vs picking up the phone and calling someone. You get more information from a person's voice then could ever get from a text. The most important thing is to learn your machine.

 

[IDXMonster]

Absolutely STELLAR analogy!

 

[chuck ky]

How often do you get a signal that gives an audio reading but no screen reading. I haven't used first Eqinox but have used the Sovereign and the T-2 and never experienced that on them.

 

[Mega]

How often do you get a signal that gives an audio reading but no screen reading. I haven't used first Eqinox but have used the Sovereign and the T-2 and never experienced that on them.

That is why they have a uadio threshold facility on detectors,so at depth if the threshold is setup you can hear those very deep theshold hum changes that indicates that a possible target in in the ground,usually they are either small targets or deeper and cannot give a return signal to trigger either the TID or audio channel of the detector.On the Sovereign of course you dont have a screen so basically you have just audio and threshold,on my T2 when using large coils the return signal on some deep/small targets just cannot trip the TID or audio but because i use the audio threshold and can hear the very low volume threshold hum coming in too play.Of course using threshold audio it cannot distinguish between a good or bad target,that is when the only way in finding out is by digging.

Here in the UK some of our best and desirable targets going back 1000s of years are the deep ones and those are often found by using the audio threshold and cannot be hear or seen either on a TID machine or even audio but by using a threshold audio on a detector which most modern detectors have these days then you can stand a chance of getting some amazing finds.

 

[chuck ky]

I had a screen on my sovereign. Some say that detectors that have gone I.D. a deep dime will still give the high time reading but the screen will show the target as being lower. I've never seen this on any detector I've had with a screen.

 

[u2robert]

Tone all the way.

 

[laplander]

Tone first,
second tid, then back to tone
third dig it all
Targets on the edge of detection whether it be depth or size will tone up and give no tid.
HH Jeff

 

[dewcon4414]

Chuck.....the reason you never would on a Sov or Xcal is because they have a very high masking of iron.....about a 6 IB on the Nox.

 

[GazinUK]

You can use it either way of course but your in the UK and with 3000 years of habitation you should be digging all positive signals. The hell with the tone or numbers.

Okay, so what is a positive signal compared to a tone or number? am looking at the 600 but am convinced I'm going to be digging a lot of iron based on what I've seen. Have years of experience with Explorer and Deus but it seems that the Equinox may not be the combination of both as I'd hoped for.

 

[laplander]

I have had both the Explorer and the Deus and have moved on and not looking back, the Equinox is a totally different machine. I think Todd's reference to anything "positive" is anything not iron according to the ID on the Equinox.
HH Jeff

 

[chuck ky]

I can only compare with the T-2 but if I dig the best sounding signals I will only dig iron but the numbers tell me it's iron.

 

[jmaclen]

Hi,
On the Nox 600 and 800 I definitely use and depend on both tones and numbers.

I have used an Explorer a couple of times and have owned the Deus. The Equinox 600 or 800 are totally different. The tones on the Nox are somewhat similar to the Explorer in that they can be really clear tones with very little brittleness or static on good targets. Recovery speed, target separation and the unmasking abilities of the Nox are far superior to the Explorer series in my opinion as are the overall ergonomics. Tones on the Deus have a lot of "character" in that they can sound broken or crackly on the edges and can really tell you tons about the target. They aren't very musical compared to the Nox tones which can have more distinct, undistorted clear pitches on good targets. With the Deus and Orx I concentrated more on the amount of scratchiness of the tone and somewhat on the actual pitch to help me identify targets. With the Nox I would listen for really clear, well defined pitches before looking at the easy to read display. For me, the Deus is primarily a tone detector since the controller display is really small and hard to read for me and lots of people. I would only briefly check my display when deciding to dig or not with the Deus or Orx to see IF there was a target ID number and possibly how deep it was using the Deus. Depending on the clarity and pitch of the Nox tones (once you memorize say the 5 tone or 50 tone options) you can hunt pretty well without looking. Unless you are hunting in the dark with the really too bright display backlight turned off on the 600, (I put a purple or red plastic filter over my 600 display at night), I would highly recommend looking at the Nox display however. The jumpiness or not of numerical target IDs, the depth meter and the easy to use (unlike the Deus) onboard pinpoint function can tell you a lot of extra information about the target too which after many hours of use can be extremely dependable.

Using the discrimination features on the Nox 600, the horseshoe button which quickly takes you out of discrimination and allows full iron responses, using a little threshold tone for nulling over iron or other discriminated target ranges, adjusting the iron bias and adjusting the iron range tone break, pitch and volume level can really help you learn how to deal with iron targets with practice. I rarely dig an iron target unintentionally anymore unless I am taking a chance on a really deep iffy signal in hopes of deep silver or gold coins and jewelry.

The Nox 600 and 800 in Field 1 are reported to do very well discriminating out coke responses so they do not mask good targets in the -3 to + 4 range (small gold) due to the multi frequencies chosen for Field 1 by Minelab.

Jeff