You bought the XLT because of its many facets to tell you whats in the ground before you dig. Certainly a gold ring that is broken because of heavy wear or a tipped coin or one next to junk could give you a bad sounding target. If you wanted to dig everything should have bought a much cheaper unit without all these facets. To become proficient with an XLT a whole summer of hunting might put you in the ballpark, many of our better XLT users have taken months and even years to get the most efficiency out of their unit.. Use the signa-graph, meter and audio varinaces to become a selective digger as thats why it has all the bells and whistles. Some learn quicker than others, but its not done overnight so be patient...Dan