Nokta The Legend vs Simplex Ultra: Which Nokta Should You Buy?

Two things, and only two things worth paying for. The first is simultaneous multi-frequency. The Legend runs two simultaneous multi-frequency profiles, which is the property that separates a salt response from a target response on wet beach sand and steadies a machine in mineralised dirt. The Simplex Ultra listing does not publish multi-frequency operation, and you should read that absence as an absence.

The second is the second coil. The Pro Pack includes a 6 inch DD as well as the 11 inch, and a small coil is not a luxury on a trashy site, it is the difference between hearing two targets and hearing one muddled signal. Buying that coil separately for the Simplex costs real money. Everything else the Legend adds, the extra single frequencies and the finer adjustment, is of genuine use to somebody who already knows what they would change and of almost no use to somebody who does not. The coil size chart sets out what a small coil gives up in exchange.

Both figures below come from the Nokta listings in our catalog. Where Nokta does not publish something for one of the two machines, the table says so rather than borrowing a number from the other.

This is the table that keeps you honest. Nokta prints different things about each machine, so several rows are gaps rather than differences.

You hunt wet salt sand or seriously mineralised ground, where simultaneous multi-frequency stops being a specification and starts being the reason you hear anything. You hunt trashy, iron-heavy sites often enough that the 6 inch coil in the box will live on the machine half the time. Or you already own a detector, know exactly which setting you keep wishing you could change, and can name it.

Buy it too if you expect to keep one machine for a decade. Nokta publishes four coils for the platform, priced from $127.99 for Nokta LG15 Coil (6 inch) up to $169.99 for Nokta LG35 Coil (13.5 by 12.5 inch), which is cheap next to most flagship coil ranges. The Legend coil compatibility chart lists what fits, and the full Legend review goes into the machine on its own rather than against this one.

This is your first machine you intend to keep, or your sites are ordinary parks, pasture, dry beach and the shallow water at the edge of it. At $299.00 it is the cheapest fully submersible detector in this catalog, and 16 feet is far more depth rating than a wading detectorist will ever use. Full waterproofing is also the spec that stops a rainy afternoon ending a hunt, which is worth more over a year than any adjustment you have not learned yet.

Buy it too if the money you save is going to become the rest of your kit. The difference between these two prices buys Garrett Pro-Pointer AT, Lesche Digging Tool and Sod Cutter with sheath and CKG Finds and Digger Pouch with change left over, and those three change your day more than a second multi-frequency profile does. The beginner setup is the rest of that list, and Simplex Ultra settings by site type is where to start once it arrives.

A pinpointer, first and without argument. Nokta PulseDive Pinpointer is the Nokta option and doubles as a scuba pointer; Garrett Pro-Pointer AT is the one most often recommended outright. Either converts a five minute dig into a one minute dig, which over a season is several hundred more targets recovered from the same hours.

Then audio, because both machines ship without headphones. Nokta Bluetooth Low Latency Headphones for The Legend is the matched low latency set for the Legend, and Thresher Submersible Headphones for Nokta is the submersible option if the Simplex is actually going under water, where wireless does not work at all. After that, stop buying and go swing: the coil coverage and sweep time calculator will show you how much of your permission you have honestly covered, and the number is usually humbling.