Couple of thoughts of where Andy is coming from re: Silencer and Reactivity. Just want to clear some stuff up. The basis for my statements are what Andy says at the bootcamps and I have not gone back to see if it contradicts anything his says in his book.
First of all, full disclosure. Andy has graciously allowed me to assist in instructing his bootcamp on a couple of occasions. He does it knowing full well we have some differences in philosophy in how we set up the Deus but he knows I have success and can articulate to the class why I do what I do. Primarily, he is a multi-tones and discrimination guy and he allows me to contrast that as the full tones/no disc guy. I have recently come full circle and now have come to the conclusion that three major program groups are useful to me depending on the situation: Full tones/no disc (Hot Program Group). I like this in parks and in dry sand with low density trash areas. Multi-tones and disc (and a pitch variant I use for unmasking) (Fast/Unmasking Program Group) work best in high density ferrous/trash situations, and, finally, I like to use Gold Field (All Metal Program Group) in hot dirt backed up by an unmasking program. Andy has found it useful to provide both our points of view on Deus program philosopy to his bootcamp attendees. OK now that that is out of the way.
Silencer: Andy still maintains that above 0 it can appreciably affect depth performance and cites a fairly large percentage hit if you run it up to 4. I have not seen that bad a hit on depth but, as I said, I only have anecdotal evidence to back me up on that and have seen Calabash's videos which show you can still hit deep targets under some conditions. Andy has not compared Silencer depth impact to any other setting (e.g., Reactivity). He states that XP put silencer in merely at the request of the North Americans who have to deal with crown caps which apparently are much less of problem in the UK and France.
Reactivity: Andy asks a question at bootcamp: Does Silencer affect depth? He says the answer is...no! This may be somewhat a matter of semantics, but what he is saying is that reactivity does not make deep targets disappear but it sure makes them hard to audibly detect because the tone, though present, is clipped appreciably for the small and deep targets. If you miss the chirp, then you miss the target and that can be construed as an INDIRECT impact on depth capability. He maintains that if the Deus can pick up the target even if you may miss the audio, then depth isn't "technically" affected, even though it is "practically" affected and hence why folks say you can lose significant depth when reactivity is high. Again, Andy has never compared the two effects (Silencer and Reactivity) directly with regards to depth, because he doesn't consider Reactivity as directly affecting depth.
Hope that helps.
