Thanks for your input Goldwright, as you may well have figured out, the Deus will not provide accurate TID's at depth as the CTX does. After a point, the screen will simply draw a blank on a deep target, rather than guess an inaccurate ID. The Deus will still hit well on deeper targets, though by that stage the TID's are long gone, and you will be relying on the tones. Not necessarily an inherent fault of the detector or a bad thing, more due the fact that it was always intended and designed to be a tone driven detector. Really the only time I ever use the TID's on the Deus is for cherry picking shallow to mid depth coins on modern sites. Anything deeper, and I pretty much completely ignore the screen and go soley by the tones.
The new V4.0 software is reported to have improved TID accuracy on deeper targets, though we will have to wait till later this year to
Unlike my previous detectors, I don't tend to get bogged down mulling over whether to dig a target or not. If the tone sounds good on the Deus, it comes out of the ground and I quickly move on to the next target. In that respect, you can cover a large area in only a short period of time, and dig more good targets that would have previously been left in the ground due to a iffy ID's. Once you get your ear in on what is a good deep coin or desirable non-ferrous tone, the more efficient the whole detect/recovery process becomes.
As for some of the settings, have a good play around with the reactivity and silencer. I find that other than the frequency, these two settings have the greatest influence over the depth capability of the Deus, especially the reactivity. Using copious amounts of discrimination does affect it to a degree, though not as dramatically as the reactivity.
Higher reactivity is best left for junky or iron filled sites, with lower reactivity for deeper targets on cleaner sites or open ground. Reactivity 2 is a good compromise between recovery speed and depth ability, usually with the silencer turned off - period (-1). The lowest reactivity setting will also require a slower sweep speed, probably more on par with what you would normally use for the CTX. After initially locating a target, further slower sweeps can help clear up the tone on say a deeper coin. Don't be tempted to swing the Deus like a cat on fire, even if it has ultra fast recovery speeds - you will overlook targets.
The silencer is just a filter or another form of discrimination to reduce chatter from iron in the soil. I have rarely seen a need to utilise it, hence it is always turned off. Have it set too high, and it could possibly filter out weaker signals from deep targets.
A majority of the time I detect on 18kHz, with the odd area utilising 12kHz for deeper predecimals. 18kHz has been the best for umasking in iron (ie. relic sites), using the higher reactivity settings.
Really just a matter of having a play around on the day to see what combination of settings best suits your sites, as they will no doubt differ from mine.
As these two detectors are so different in ability, technology, and the way they go about locating targets, rather than them being seen as competitors, I prefer for them to be seen as complimentary to each other. Different tools for different tasks so to speak.
Have fun GW, all the best with your purchase.
