You also have to factor in, the type target you are aiming for. Because I have heard it said (by some DFX'rs who can't argue with results on the deep silver in the turf), that the DFX is ...... however ..... superior on tweeking for low conductors (ie.: jewelry, etc....). I'm not sure about this, as I don't see many of them on the beaches where I'm at. And if someone WERE to take DFX's out to the turf/land to specifically try to hone in on jewelry and low conductors (IF that were the supposed merit over the Explorer), then it still doesn't make sense to me, because there is NO SHORTAGE of low conductors to find, ANYWHERE on land (not talking relicky hunt sites, for the moment). I mean, think of it: you can go to ANY junky inner-city blighted turfed park, turn on ANY machine, simply lower your disc, and preto, you can dig low conductors till your arms fall off. I can understand the logic on a beach or some specific jewelry hunting application, where to get slightly more teensy chains or something would be the goal. But this is certainly not the objective in turfed parks, where low conductor abound, for any any and all machines.
In any case, I have no trouble on fairly small gold items (barring earing studs, tinsel thin chains, etc...) anyhow with the explorer, provided you are in ferrous, etc... There comes a point for ANY discriminator (particularly power-house depth demon machines) where yeah, you'll start to miss tinsel fine earing studs or whatever. But given the power house than the explorer is, I think it does a decent job at little gold items. Not as good as others perhaps (especially when you're talking all-metal pulse), but good enough for standard discriminator usage, when the desire to pass nails/iron the beach is needed.
