I am one of the lucky ones to have put in my Manticore order last August. I received the unit on January 14th. The ground here was and still is mostly frozen solid. It was a week before I could get it out, so I spend quite a bit of time going through the manual and getting familiar with navigation through the settings. It is much easier to get to the setting you want to change than the 800 and I was comfortable moving through the menu within a few hours. Its build is as advertised solid, lighter and robust. It does seem to like its batteries more; we will see what happens on 8–10-hour days this summer.
I have braved the frozen ground and hit the few sites available to me within an hour of my house 4-5 times now. These local sites have been beaten (by me and others) like they owe me money for 30-40 years so expectations were low, but I just needed targets to learn with. I love the 2d screen. IMHO it's the best innovation since Multifrequency. We went so many years without any major detector innovations and I'm glad I'm still young enough to get to play with what is hitting the markets now. I am impatiently waiting the 2 coils size options, especially the 12X15 which I really think will be a game changer for my hunting style and areas. The 5.5X8" elliptical coil they are touting should really revolutionize the Ghost town high iron sites you guys' search. Mastering the Manti with the small coil in high trash sites is going to be something I look forward to doing, but that's a whole different ballgame and I'd recommend mastering the machine is a less trashy environment first.
I did sell both of my Nox 800's and my Fisher GB2 to offset the new machines cost...no regrets. I just like using the Manti so much I am afraid the 900 will not get much use but it's a good backup and I have the full complement of coils for it. My preferred mode so far is All Terrain Low Conductors which is very similar to the 800 Field2 settings on the 800. I was running Audio Theme Enhanced, horseshoe off, and I jumped in with both feet running 5 Region All Tones. Yes, she sings like a bird but in no time, you will grasp what the bird is saying. Then you tie all that together with the 2d screen and wow... The Nox800 took me a lot longer to get to the point I am with the Manti already and I attribute some of that to having spent all the time with the 800 over the past few years but even if you are stepping into a Manticore from another unit the learning curve will be less.
Power levels: Up until yesterday I was running 22-24 on my settings but I went ahead and bumped it up to 29-30 yesterday afternoon. Yes, it was chattier, but I quickly got used to it and even though my targets were not great they came in much stronger and target ID was very solid! I plan on running these settings for the next 40-50 hours before making any other tweaks...then we will see.
Limited headphone options: The M105s are decent and with the Enhanced tones give good clear signals so for now I am satisfied. Last summer in Nevada during the second outing to Wells I got pretty sunbaked and I for the first time developed what the doc's said was Eczema. I combated it for months and for whatever reason it seems to be totally in remission, but I must prepare for my summer hunts and not let my skin get to that point again. I have found a albeit strange looking hat system that allows headphones to be worn with a wide brimmed hat with neck protection. The hat is a K-Tek Stingray audio hat and Amazon sells them. I got mine yesterday and it looks like it will provide the protection needed in that Nevada hell heat. Just promise not to laugh too much when you see me coming in that hat. The other option would be the Garrett Zlink system and I will probably get one of those systems if Minelab does not address the issue of alternative headphone options...I miss my LL Bluetooth earbuds already.
Time for detector class...will report more later.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2023 01:06PM by xpmoguy. (view changes)