I started with a busted cheaper BH unit that couldn't handle my dirt and falsed on almost every swing, the worst kind of situation to start with but I had nothing else so for 100 hours I struggled with it, tried to learn the basics and eventually learned to tell the solid, better and real signals from the false ones most of the time.
Three months later I bought a new high tone Vaq and the very first time I swung that thing and heard those tones I knew I had something special in my hands, those sounds spoke to me at a deeper level than I had ever known before even though I had no experience with the entire language.
Over the next several months I spent many hundreds of hours learning that language and even though I never mastered it totally I did become pretty proficient and then I bought a Compadre and found the language was mostly the same...and I was happy.
Not too much later I bought an F2 for limited use only but I was surprised how easy it was to use and how productive it was, we clicked immediately and I ended up using that thing as my prime tool for 3 years and somewhere north of 1000 hours and we had a great and shockingly successful time together.
Over time I came to know there was a much deeper dimension to those 4 simple tones and I relied on those tones every bit as much as the screen information I was seeing.
Eventually I could easily tell a quarter sound every time, near the end I started to be able to tell the difference between a copper cent and a dime more often than not even though all those coins were supposed to have the same exact simple tone.
Then I graduated to an F70 for the next 3 years and realized the sounds and tones that came out of that one also possessed a much more deeper audio language than most suspected.
Using that one the screen info was very helpful but the audio became just as important to me.
All that I was able to do, all the surprising and shocking things I was able to find had just as much to do with the audio as the screen.
Give credit for the master class I had just listening to my Tesoros for all those many hours for all those listening skills I eventually learned that made me more successful than I dreamed was even possible...even with the Fishers.
Now I am messing around with an Equinox, I love the screen but trust me I realized early on it is more about the audio with this thing than the visual so I am on a mission to explore and learn those sounds as deep as I possibly can as fast as I can because I know they will be able to unlock the most secrets from the very difficult dirt I am forced to hunt in when I do.
I traded away the Vaq but I traded it for a Mojave and I still have my Compadre and continue to pull them out from time to time because there is something comforting about listening to those tones and that, along with the thumbing techniques I learned, still talk to me and enable me to locate and ID hidden and buried treasure to a degree that many just can't understand and some just can't believe.
Funny how most of those types usually appear to pass judgements on how good or bad these throwback analog units actually are without spending a whole lot of time learning them...not as much time as I have, anyway.
For years I have always told anyone and everyone I could that screen units are great but everyone should spend a decent amount of time standing behind any audio only unit but specifically a Tesoro, and just learn to really listen.
What you will learn can only be a huge asset to you and can greatly enhance your skill set as the years pass even if you decide you prefer detectors with screens.
It has for me, I took a long and sometimes convoluted and difficult road to get to the place I am at now and I have absolutely no regrets.
I am nowhere near a master hunter but I am not half bad and I know without Tesoros in my life I have no idea what kind of hunter I would have become but I suspect not as good as I turned out to be.
I am, and will be, eternally grateful to that company and for the great detectors they produced that changed my life.
