There are a lot of good machines out there. I have owned White's, Tesoros, Garretts, and the XP Deus. I have tested some of the Minelabs and Bounty Hunters. I would seriously go "visit" any machine before I bought it. And I don't care about the hype. That's people trying to sell you something.
I once thought I would try salt water near shore/wash line digging. I was successful. Here's an example of what I came up with. The Bounty Hunter and the Garrett AT Pro did not work well. The XP Deus did ok, but it doesn't get great depth. Don't know if we really want to dig stuff 12" at the beach, in the water, but it didn't get great depth. The Minelab Excalibur I tested (a friend's, well I just plain didn't like it), the Tesoro Tiger Shark and Sand Shark, had one of each, well at that point I decided the ocean was too rough here to go in and lots of people get hurt where I go due to road construction debris having been tossed in the water by hurricanes, so I stopped. I won't do salt water detecting until I can find a beach that goes out pretty flat for a bit before it turns into a canyon. Around here it's "canyon land". About 200 miles away it's better, but I don't really want to go to a beach that far away.
The Tesoro Cibola and Vaquera did great at a salt water beach. I still have a Cibola and am seriously thinking about getting another Vaquera.
Another example. I was digging the highly mineralized Virginia Red Dirt. The stuff from hades. The White's TDI would get items, but being a pulse induction machine, it dug every blasted nail and horse shoe out there. That gets tiring real fast. It was also pretty heavy. I can't handle the heavy models, arthritis. I also tried the big Garrett and a couple Minelabs there. I could hardly pick up the Minelabs. Their PI machines are heavy as Mack trucks and I can't handle one physically. Age will do that to you.
The Cibola was ok down to maybe 4" on a minie ball, but that is inadequate most places. However the Vaquera would pull them with the big DD loop down to at least 10". My Garrett AT Pro only got down a few inches in that dirt. I have figured out which configuration the XP Deus likes in Virginia and I can dig a minie 8-10" deep. My older White's VLF couldn't handle that dirt at all.
I personally have dumped at least 6 machines at a loss because they did not either work for me personally, or they did not live up to their advertising and some were just same old stuff, different day, there was no need to get another machine.
I would just try it before you buy it. Make an appointment with a multi line dealer and have a day out! Choose whichever is best for you. Nobody else's opinion really matters all that much because you will be the one to use it.
