Garrett ACE Apex vs Nokta The Legend: Is the Legend Worth the Jump?

A second coil, a fifth single frequency at 40 kHz, and a second simultaneous multi-frequency profile. Those are the three published differences that would change a day of detecting. The second coil is the biggest of them, because a 6 inch DD on an iron-choked site does something no setting on a 6 by 11 coil can replicate, and buying one for the Apex is an extra purchase.

The 40 kHz frequency is narrower in usefulness than it sounds. High frequencies favour small, low-conductive targets: thin gold, tiny nuggets, small jewellery. They are worse on large silver and they get noisier in mineralised ground. If you hunt coins in parks you will rarely leave the multi profile, and the extra band is a specification you paid for and do not use. If you hunt jewellery or prospect at all, it is the reason to buy the Legend.

Two makers with quite different disclosure habits, so read the gaps as gaps.

The rows below are the honest comparison, including four where one maker prints a figure and the other prints nothing.

Weight or wireless matters, or the budget stops well short of the Legend. Garrett publishes 2.5 lb, which makes the Apex the lighter published machine of the two, and Z-Lynk is built in rather than bought, which is a real saving if you already own or intend to buy Garrett MS-3 Z-Lynk Wireless Headphones. The Multi-Salt mode is a genuine multi-frequency capability aimed at exactly the ground where single frequencies fail.

Choose it too if you want a Garrett dealer behind the machine. Service, parts and familiarity are worth something over a decade, and Garrett has more of all three in the United States than Nokta does. If you want the Apex on paper first, its target ID chart and settings by site type are the two pages to read, and the ACE 400 against the Apex covers the step below it.

You want the most detector for the money and you do not need a Garrett dealer. Two coils, five single frequencies and two multi profiles is more hardware than the Apex, and Nokta coils are inexpensive afterwards, from $127.99 for Nokta LG15 Coil (6 inch) to $169.99 for Nokta LG35 Coil (13.5 by 12.5 inch). That combination of more in the box and cheaper to expand is unusual.

Choose it too if you hunt varied ground. The 40 kHz option and the two multi profiles give you somewhere to go when a site fights you, and having a 6 inch coil already in the bag means you can answer a trashy pasture without a shopping trip. The Legend review covers the machine alone, and its target ID chart is the number reference.

The pinpointer, again, and it is not close. Garrett Pro-Pointer AT is submersible to 20 feet and Nokta Pointer is the cheaper Nokta equivalent. Recovery speed decides how many of your signals become finds within the hours you actually have, and no frequency on either machine touches that.

After that, permissions. A mediocre machine on old ground beats a flagship on a picked over park, every season, without exception. If you want somewhere to put that effort, how to get permission is the most valuable page on this site, and the dig time budget calculator will tell you how many targets a given site can realistically give you in an afternoon.