We ran the Nokta Simplex Ultra for six weeks across three site types: a municipal park that has been detected since the 1970s, a freshwater swim beach, and a plowed field behind an 1890s farmhouse. The goal was not to see whether a 15 kHz single frequency machine can compete with a flagship, because it cannot. The goal was to find out what the nokta simplex ultra metal detector actually does well, where it runs out of room, and whether it still deserves the reputation the Simplex line built.
Short answer: it does. Here is the long one.
What We Ran
Stock machine, stock 11 inch SX28 DD coil, no aftermarket shaft. We used the built in speaker for the first two weeks, then switched to Bluetooth headphones for the rest.
The relevant hardware: 15 kHz single frequency VLF, target ID 01 to 99, sensitivity across 30 levels, automatic and manual ground balance, notch discrimination, frequency shift for EMI, six search modes, and IP68 waterproofing to 16 feet. It weighs 2.6 pounds and collapses to 25 inches. Three year warranty.
That spec sheet has not changed much from the Simplex the hobby fell in love with. What changed is the refinement around it.
Site One: The Hammered Park
This is the hardest test we have, because everything easy is long gone. What is left sits under iron, next to iron, or deep enough that most machines call it nothing.
Settings: Park mode, sensitivity 22 of 30, iron volume low, recovery speed at the middle setting, ground balance on auto, then locked manually once the numbers settled.
Sensitivity was the first lesson. We started at 28 because that is what people do, and the machine chattered constantly under a nearby power line. Dropping to 22 and running frequency shift twice cleaned it up completely. Frequency shift on this machine works, and it works fast. Anyone hunting urban parks should learn it in the first hour.
Six hours over three visits produced 40 clad coins, four wheat pennies, a 1943 steel cent, two brass buttons, and one silver Rosevelt dime at roughly seven inches on the edge of a walking path. The dime was the interesting one. It read 78 to 81 and bounced, which on a machine with a 01 to 99 scale is enough resolution to make the call. A cheaper detector with a 0 to 9 scale would have given us nothing to reason about.
Where it struggled: two coins sitting inside iron halos. We heard something, dug, and found nails. That is the cost of a single frequency machine at this price, and no setting fixes it.
Site Two: The Freshwater Swim Beach
This is where the Simplex Ultra earns its keep, and where the 16 foot rating stops being a line on a box.
Settings: Beach mode, sensitivity 24, ground balance auto, vibration on.
We waded to chest depth and worked the drop off where swimmers stand. The machine went fully under for stretches of ten to fifteen minutes with no issue. Freshwater is forgiving compared to salt, and a 15 kHz VLF handles it without complaint. In wet salt sand this machine will need sensitivity pulled back hard, and that is an honest limitation of single frequency at any price.
Four hours produced 60 plus clad coins, a stainless steel chain, three bottle caps we should have skipped, and a men's class ring at about five inches. The ring read 62 and held steady on every sweep angle, which is exactly the kind of signal you learn to trust.
The vibration alert deserves a mention. Underwater with a snorkel and no headphones, feeling a target through the grip instead of straining to hear the speaker changes how you hunt. It is a feature most machines in this bracket skip.
Anyone shopping specifically for water work should compare the full waterproof metal detector range before committing, since the Simplex Ultra sits at the affordable end of a deep category.
Site Three: The Plowed Field
Settings: 99 Tone mode, sensitivity 25, ground balance manual, recovery speed one step faster than default.
Open ground with room to swing is where a lightweight machine pays off. We covered more acreage in a morning than we would have with a three pound flagship, and the 2.6 pound weight is not marketing. By hour five your arm knows the difference.
99 Tone is the mode to learn if you hunt old ground. It assigns a distinct pitch across the ID range, and once your ear calibrates, you start rejecting targets before you look at the screen. Finds were modest: a flat button, a harmonica reed plate, two large cents too corroded to date, and a lot of farm iron. The 15 kHz frequency is well suited to this work, favoring the mid conductive targets that old sites produce.
Ground balance had to go manual here. The auto setting drifted in the mineralized clay, and locking it manually tightened the threshold noticeably.
What Annoyed Us
An honest field test needs this section.
- The retractable shaft creeps. Over a long hunt the lower section worked loose twice and needed retightening. Not a failure, but a small irritation.
- Bluetooth pairing is fussy on first connect. Once paired it held fine for the rest of the test, but the initial handshake took three attempts.
- Iron falsing in dense nails. Expected at this price and this technology, but it needs saying. If your sites are carpeted in iron, the recovery speed helps and does not solve.
- The screen washes out in direct midday sun. The backlight is good in low light and less useful at noon.
- Wet salt sand is a real ceiling. The machine works there, but you give up sensitivity to keep it stable. Simultaneous multi frequency exists for a reason.
None of these stopped us hunting. All of them are worth knowing before you buy.
Settings We Would Start With
- Trashy park: Park mode, sensitivity 20 to 22, iron volume low, run frequency shift if the threshold is unstable.
- Freshwater or wet sand: Beach mode, sensitivity 22 to 24, vibration on, ground balance auto.
- Old field or homestead: 99 Tone, sensitivity 24 to 26, manual ground balance, recovery speed one step up from default.
- Heavy EMI anywhere: Drop sensitivity three levels before touching anything else, then shift frequency.
The pattern across all three sites: this machine rewards lower sensitivity than you think it needs. Running it hot produces noise, not depth.
The Verdict
Pros
- Genuinely waterproof to 16 feet, whole machine, not just the coil
- 2.6 pounds, which you feel in hour five and every hour after
- 01 to 99 target ID gives you real information to reason with
- Frequency shift handles urban EMI better than anything else near this price
- Vibration alert makes underwater and noisy site hunting workable
- Turn on and hunt, with manual ground balance and notch waiting when you want them
- Three year warranty and ongoing firmware updates
- Collapses to 25 inches, which matters if you travel or hike to sites
Cons
- Single frequency, so wet salt sand costs you sensitivity
- Falses in dense iron more than a multi frequency machine would
- Shaft locks need occasional retightening
- Screen is hard to read in direct sun
- Bluetooth pairing takes patience the first time
Who Should Buy It
Buy the Simplex Ultra if you are starting out and want a machine you will not outgrow in one season, if you hunt fresh water and want real submersion rather than a splashproof promise, or if you already own a flagship and want a light, waterproof second machine you will not worry about dropping in a creek.
Look elsewhere if saltwater beaches are your main ground, since simultaneous multi frequency is the right tool there, or if your sites are so iron dense that separation is the whole game.
If your budget is tighter than this, work through detectors under $200 and our best cheap detectors guide before settling. If you are buying your first machine outright, our beginner detector guide lays out how the Simplex Ultra stacks up against everything else new detectorists consider.
One piece of advice from six weeks of digging: budget for a pinpointer before you budget for anything else. It saved us more time than any setting on the machine.
Bottom Line
The original Simplex earned its reputation by giving people real waterproofing and real target ID at a price that had previously bought neither. The Ultra keeps that bargain and sands down the rough edges. It is not a flagship and does not pretend to be. What it is, six weeks and a few hundred targets later, is the machine we would hand someone who asked what to buy first, and the one we would still grab for a lake trip after owning something four times the price.
See current configurations and coil options in the Nokta Simplex Ultra collection, or browse the wider Nokta lineup if you want to see where it sits against the Score series and the Legend.
Questions about whether it suits your specific sites? Call us. We hunted this one hard and we will tell you straight.
