Nokta Makro Legend, First Look…
-very, very nice build quality—very solid feel but much lighter than the Anfibio. Wand telescopes in and out much more cleanly. Coil is a tiny bit heavier than the AF28 to accommodate the MF winding.
-overall a nicely balanced unit-not so light as to make a larger coil “top heavy.”
-lot of information on the screen keeps all of your choices visible, very well laid out. Super fast access to any feature / adjustment. Maybe takes a bit of getting used to just how much is there. 1st day I’m already flying around it.
–great sounding audio, not “bitty,” nice faint range, not over-modulated.
–good tones come though the digital noises well, even at high Sensitivity levels. Reminds me more of the CTX than the NOX—full, strong sounding tones, clean processing and target assignment. (Indoor testing tells you a lot about how a machine handles any kind of interference).
-recovery speed just barely takes air test targets at full on–(so much for any of these “conclusive” on-ground videos). This is a feature that’s designed to work in ground while processing the full MF signal and ground. I would add that an Iron Bias control, added to this speed has the potential to clip / loose targets—possibly the reason why N/M initially opted for a pre-set. Where you have a lot of corroded or alloyed metal though (such as bottle caps), adjustable Iron Bias certainly improves the versatility and effectiveness of the machine. Not a feature to be taken lightly though—an advanced setting.
-turned down to Rec Spd 2, unit passes “iron cross” test with a medium sized band and two rusted spikes. Perfect tone and ID.
-big difference between M1 and M2 settings M2 has much more low conductor sensitivity, livelier, sharper tone overall.
-good, versatile selection of single FQs. I like the addition of “10” kHz as a “middle” high conductor / bad ground search mode. If the Anfibio is any indication I know that the 20 kHz will be sharp on gold and nimble in iron.
-Gold mode—the audio of this mode shows the sophistication of the filtering / processing. Clean, fast responses. Looks like a great fresh water black sand / edge “cherry picker.”
-I like the addition of a Stability control to augment (or even stand in for) normal signal balancing methods that often take a lot of trial and error to use effectively. Doesn’t seem to constrain the signal that much in air-seems like a combination of (lowered) FQ weighting and a low level adjustment of Discriminate and 1st Tone Break? I know for sure that this feature will allow the use of higher Sensitivity settings.
cjc