An "all-rounder" with turn on and go fun or a "bells and whistles" metal detector with every feature under the sun? We review The Legend by Nokta Detectors.
The Legend's First Dive, "A Golden Day in Sydney Australia"
- Edward Burnett
Our Most Challenging Detector Review Yet - The Legend
With downloadable software upgrades and a continually expanding list of features and settings, The Legend has already evolved far beyond what we all thought was possible. The engineers at Nokta haven’t just stopped work now that The Legend is released, they’ve continued to make software improvements according to user feedback in an attempt to squeeze every bit of performance out of the machines hardware!
With the aforementioned updates, it's been quite a task to review this constantly evolving metal detector. At this point we are aware of another major software upgrade coming in the near future which will see a few awesome additional features! More on those new features here. The Legend is performing extremely well with software version 1.07 but keep in mind that the later versions will be even more feature packed!
What's in the Box?
The Legend comes in two high-value packages, The Legend WHP (Wireless Headphone) package and the Legend Pro Pack. Both packages include The Legend Metal Detector, LG28 (28cm/11") search coil and very comfortable low latency headphones but the Pro Pack also includes an additional LG15 (15cm/6") small search coil (perfect for gold) and an external battery pack to keep you metal detecting even longer!
In Australia the WHP Package at $949 represents the lowest cost of any of the "high performance all-rounders" on the market. Whereas the Pro Pack matches the cost of another popular detector (the Equinox 800), but with the inclusion of a small coil much more suited to gold prospecting. The smaller coil will allow users to take full advantage of The Legends dedicated Gold mode because of its increased sensitivity and ease-of-use in the Australian gold fields
Legend Pro Pack Pictured above
How does the Legend separate itself from the competition?
The question we get asked most about The Legend is “how does it compare to detector X or detector Y”, to which we answer...
"The Legend represents the highest performance, quality and most features of any detector remotely in the price bracket. If you want a detector that can do the beach, the gold fields and the park then we think The Legend is unbeatable at this price point"
Multi-Frequency
More than a buzzword, Multi-Frequency technology allows the Legend to perform well in a far greater range of scenarios than any Single-Frequency metal detector. The Legend is at home in the goldfields searching for nuggets, at the beach looking for jewellery or sniffing out coins in parks and fields.
Currently The Legend has 2 Multi-Frequencies (M1 and M2) in its park and field modes, M1 is designed for greater depth on copper, silver and other highly conductive metals whilst M2 is better on lower conductive metals like gold and brass.
Nokta is currently working on a third multi-frequency for the Park and Field modes which we are busy testing during the writing of this blog! M3 as it is known, is for wet conductive ground. M3 will minimize any false signals from coke (burnt coal) or conductive wet ground. Coke is particularly common in the UK but is not often a problem in Australia.
The Legend's beach mode also has 2 Multi-Frequencies, a Dry setting (D) for dry sand and a Wet setting (W) for wet salt sand and underwater use.
The Legend not only removes the need to have a dedicated beach detector, coin detector and gold detector, it also outperforms most of these dedicated metal detectors in their respective niches! The Multi-Frequency tech makes The Legend a high performance all-rounder!
Nokta Build Quality and Design
If you are familiar with the Simplex+ by Nokta, you’d know that it has a reputation for being a very well built and reliable metal detector. The Legend’s construction is largely based on the Simplex+ so you can expect it to be just as tough!
The Legend Fully Collapsed beside another Legend Fully Extended
A standout feature of The Legend is its waterproof control pod, also based on the bullet-proof Simplex waterproof housing. To this day, there has not been a single Simplex control pod leak with water in Australia! Again, we expect that users should be able to reliably take their Legends in and underwater without fear of it leaking!
The Legends telescopic design makes it very easy to set up and pack away. Fully collapsed. The Legend Metal Detector is only 63cm long making it ideal for nomadic treasure hunters who need the convenience of a collapsible detector.
What are the main features of The Legend Metal Detector?
The Legend has a bunch of unique features to make every detecting session easier. From its convenient telescopic shaft, built in flashlight for night detecting and its vibration function for the hearing impaired, its clear that The Legend has been well thought out.
- SMF - Increased performance in all locations on all metal types
- Vibration Feedback - For the hearing impaired or underwater detecting
- Waterproof to 3m - High-Quality waterproofing
- Collapsible Telescopic Shaft - Travel friendly easily storable design
- High-Speed Wireless Audio - APTX Low Latency Headphones
- Gold Mode - High Frequency Gold Mode with increased gold sensitivity
- Advanced Settings - Customise The Legend to your situation
- LED Flashlight - Light the way when detecting in the dark
- 3 Years Warranty - Servicing and repairs made in Australia
Evolution
Not only does The Legend have fantastic build quality (putting some manufacturers to shame), it’s also backed up by continual research and development by the Nokta engineers, meaning that new features and settings can be added to The Legend platform via software updates!
We've written about the upcoming update for the Legend here
With game-changing new features and settings like 'audio gain', 'tone pitch' and a third Multi-Frequency being added to The Legends already massive repertoire of tricks, it’s obvious that The Legend will stay ahead of the pack for years to come.
Performance of The Nokta Legend
Whether you’re searching for gold nuggets in the gold-fields, coins in the park or jewellery at the beach, The Legend has a variety of search modes and customisable features designed for every environment and target type... but how does it stack up in the real world?
Gold Metal Detecting
The Legends gold mode utilizes very high search frequencies for optimal gold sensitivity. With The Legends highest search frequency of 40kHz, it is capable of detecting extremely small nuggets weighing less than 0.01g!
The small LG15 Search Coil included with the pro pack is ideal for gold prospecting because of its increased sensitivity to small gold and ease of use around rocks, roots and other obstacles often found in the goldfields.
When gold hunting, we run The Legend in 'All-Metal' and dig all faint signals, even if they register in the iron range (small or faint signals often register in the iron range). These two nuggets were found in Ballarat Victoria.
Coin & Relic Hunting
One of The Legends strong points is its ability to determine trash from treasure with accurate target ID and fantastic depth on all target types.
The Legend’s Multi-Frequency technology makes it easy to identify coins at greater depths than the average metal detector, while its fast processing speed allows it to pick out coins and relics from between nails and other unwanted trash in the ground.
With extremely in-depth discrimination and tone options available, The Legend can be highly customised for coin and relic hunting. The Legend can however be used straight out of the box with its well thought out pre-set Park, Field, Beach and Gold modes.
Beach Hunting
The beach is a very challenging environment for metal detectors, many detectors will have problems as soon as they get near the sea because of the conductive salt water. Standard single frequency metal detectors will have to be 'dumbed down' in order to cope with false signals given off by the salt water but the best beach metal detectors don't have this problem.
The Legend can completely ignore the conductive wet sand/salt water and detect targets at far greater depths than an ordinary detector can. The Legend also has a stability setting available specifically for the beach which can be increased in the most challenging salt water environments, this makes The Legend even more user friendly at the beach!
This was the first target found on a day of beach detecting with The Legend! A 9ct gold ring which came up as a 34 on The Legend's screen.
In our testing we found that out of the box, The Legend is very stable and easy to use in a salt water environment, achieving great depth on gold rings and all coin types. In the water, using some optional waterproof headphones, The Legend outputs good volume which can easily be heard while snorkeling or even scuba diving.
The Legend has two versions of its Beach Mode - a Wet search mode for wet sand and underwater and a Dry search mode for dry sand beach detecting. We found ourselves using the wet setting most of the time as the best finds are often made in and around salt water areas.
Unlike most detectors, The Legend does not have to be restricted when detecting over wet sand. The Legend can often be run at maximum sensitivity over wet salt sand without generating any false signals, a very interesting trait about The Legend's performance!
A heap of Australian Pre-Decimal and modern coins found with The Legend during recent beach erosion in early 2022 with a nice surprise gold ring!
Who is The Legend made for?
The Legend can literally be used out of the box with the default settings, simply turn on, select one of the 4 modes depending on where you are detecting (Park, Field, Beach, Gold) and go! The Legend's default settings are intuitive and user friendly for those who have limited or no metal detecting experience.
When you are ready for the next level, The Legend Metal Detector has in-depth features, settings and parameters for you to grow into! With advanced discrimination and tone options, users can choose which targets types will be accepted / rejected, which tones will be emitted and how loud each tone will be just to name a few of the advanced settings.
We firmly believe that The Legend is suitable for those who have never picked up a metal detector before yet offers the performance and tuneability to accommodate even the most seasoned detectorists. With The Legends performance and features, very few people will feel the need to "upgrade" to another detector, The Legend has it all.
Please comment below if you have any questions about this new machine!