A new thought. What about the Compadre with small coil vs the fisher f2 with 8" and 4" coil, only a few dollars more but would it perform as well as the Compadre?
Actually, perform as well in the trash, I guess I would have to say yes but add they will do it in slightly different ways because you have the added feature of that screen.
I have about 1000 hours with the F2, somewhere near half of that with the sniper coil, and hundreds and hundreds of hours with the Compadre and they are close but the Compadre is still a bit more sensitive.
The Compadre will do that double beep thing and find targets near or even leaning on big metal in sites like tot lots or next to fence poles or metal bench legs, the F2 can find stuff really close too but it won't double beep.
The Compadre finds this task totally effortless and this is why I have always recommended every person in this hobby have a Compadre in the arsenal even if it is only going to be used in this type of situation...but it sure has found me a ton of great stuff in super trashy sites, too, including gold.
On the other hand if this is going to be a choice for a brand new hunter there is not much better value on the market today than the F2 multiple coil packages.
Hunting in unbelievably heavy trash, an area that is my most targeted and favorite type of sites to hunt, the F2 and that sniper coil will shine and it has been my most potent weapon for doing just that especially after mounting that sniper coil.
It helped me find 10 gold targets in 2013 alone, and 13 gold pieces in the last 15 months after I mounted that sniper and 98% of them in totally packed high trash volume areas.
Not to mention chains of all kinds, tons of coins and a huge amount of other great targets.
Because of the superb rapid recovery and target separation abilities of the F2 hunting in iron isn't really a problem for the F2 either, many times I have recognized good high conductive targets in the vicinity of, right next to and even laying under iron because I have learned the Fisher language so well and that would be both the tones and the behavior and information I get off the screen.
The F2 screen info will tell you much...learn to read between the lines and understand what it is REALLY telling you the sky is the limit.
As far as the absolute most sensitive unit on the market the Compadre gets the nod, for hunters that want something that is so close to that sensitivity level it might be hard to measure for the normal person, and add in the ability to switch to other, larger coils to hunt more open, big and less trashy areas more efficiently and faster the F2 is the one because it is a bit more versitile.
Also, the small coil makes it a whole lot easier to learn the hobby in general and the F2 specifically if they start out with the sniper coil and just leave it on for awhile as they get to know the ins and outs of pinpointing and everything else we must learn before even thinking about going to that larger coil.
By the way, the 8" goes pretty deep, the 10" coil will beat it by at least 2 inches and will give you some clearer signals on the deep ones plus it seems to be bothered a little less by heavy EMI and that goes for the 4" sniper, too.
Buying the 10" coil in the 3 coil package or aftermarket sometime in the future the total package cost will actually be about the same, however, as cheap as that thing is.
