Review — Performance & Use

On UK permissions the Legend earns its keep by being adaptable, stable and surprisingly forgiving once you dial it in. Several UK voices have now lived with it across seasons, and the consensus is that it’s a genuine all‑rounder with a particular knack for trashy pasture and worked arable where separation matters more than raw depth. The factory Field program is the sensible starting point for farmland. Multi‑frequency in Field (M1/M2/M3) keeps the IDs steadier over changing soils than single‑frequency and helps the machine “stay quiet” as you cross bands of mineralisation. Nokta’s later firmware made real‑world changes that UK users actually notice: v1.15 added Beast mode and Deep Target Identification (dt), and v1.17 specifically improved Beach mode’s handling of highly mineralised wet sand; those aren’t brochure gimmicks, they change how you run the detector day to day (Sourced from outside the UK).

On pasture, experienced Legend users tend to keep Recovery Speed in the middle of the range and resist the urge to max Sensitivity. With the LG30 coil, a Recovery around 4–6 lets you separate non‑ferrous squeaks from iron grunts without losing too much depth, and gently lowering Sens when chatter creeps in stabilises the hunt. Forum advice also points to ground balancing a touch more often than you might with other machines: bob it over clean ground until it settles, and redo it when you move onto different colour soil or moisture bands. That habit pays off on mixed permissions where you jump from clay‑heavy low land to lighter top fields.

FerroCheck is the Legend’s secret sauce in UK iron. On Roman‑rich permissions and around old farmsteads, the bar graph gives a quick read on bottle caps, bent nails and big degraded iron that can sound lovely on audio alone. You still dig the iffy ones, because history hides in weird signals, but FerroCheck saves a lot of energy over a long day on plough. The 60‑line target ID scale helps too; numbers settle enough to keep your confidence up on hammered‑range conductors once you learn your site’s quirks.

Coil options matter in our hedged, trashy fields. The stock LG30 (12"x9") is a good compromise: more toe precision than a round 11" and better separation across iron patches. Drop to an LG24 or LG15 for gnarlier iron or stubble; you’ll regain manoeuvrability and target unmasking at the cost of some depth, which you can partly claw back by nudging Sens and easing Recovery a notch. Several UK users report Sens in the mid‑20s with Recovery at 4–5 on the smaller coils being a sweet spot on pasture; the machine still “sees through” the iron but keeps IDs readable enough to make decisions in the ear.

On arable, the dt feature is useful for those borderline whispers masked by coke or mineral bands. It’s not a magic button—pushing dt high will make the machine busier—but set low it can pop a few extra non‑ferrous tones from amongst the grunts, especially after a deep plough when target orientation is all over the place (Sourced from outside the UK). Beast mode is niche but interesting for testing depth potential on cleaner ground. It resets how the machine handles the soil matrix; on some plough or pasture you’ll hear deep masses that the standard modes barely acknowledge. Use it with patience and accept that IDs get shaky at the fringe.

Beach isn’t the primary brief here, but the Legend has solid UK credentials on the tideline. Plenty of British channels run it in wet sand regularly, and the v1.17 Beach change tightened things further for those high‑mineral south‑coast patches (Sourced from outside the UK). If you’re a land‑first detectorist who likes the occasional beach day, it’s confidently capable. The sensible workflow is MW (wet/underwater) in truly saturated sand, stepping to MD only when salinity drops; let the ground balance settle and don’t be afraid to lower Recovery to start hearing deeper rings between the black‑sand bands.

Ergonomically, it’s a grown‑up build. UK testers repeatedly praise the carbon shafts and over‑engineered coil ears that shrug off rally abuse. Weight is about 1.3 kg with coil and feels balanced. The menu is “one‑thumb easy” once learned: tone breaks, volume per tone, and user profiles mean you can store a pasture setup, a plough setup and a beach setup and swap in seconds. Audio is flexible enough to run old‑school 2‑tone on iron‑heavy pasture or 6‑tone where you want more nuance on modern sites. Bluetooth headphones in the WHP pack keep you wireless on land; just remember they aren’t waterproof and swap to wired waterproof phones if you’re going under (normal for this class).

There is one spec wrinkle to be aware of. UK retailer pages sometimes quote 3 m submersion, while the official manual and product page state IP68 to 5 m. In practice for UK hobby use—rain, puddles, creeks, shallow paddling—the difference is academic, but it’s worth noting that the manufacturer documentation is the authority here (Sourced from outside the UK). Overall feel on British permissions: the Legend rewards a calm hand and field sense. Keep Sensibility over sensitivity, listen for those clean edges in amongst the iron, and let FerroCheck and mid‑Recovery do their thing. It’s a serious tool that doesn’t punish you for not being a menu goblin, which is exactly what most of us need on a windy Sunday over lumpy ridge‑and‑furrow.