Well, I walked that same road. My conclusion was that I just ran wide open (no disc), listened to the tone and watched where it fell on the meter. If you're digging a tot lot, you WILL clean it out eventually. I've found small thin rings though, and like mentioned, they show to be in the foil range. Also earring backs can give different results. So just know that if you want to find the good stuff you just HAVE to dig some trash! Frustrating yes but remember that any detector is reading the conductivity of a target with many factors to change how it sees that target. Is it a thick, heavy gold ring? No problem! Is it a thin wispy ring..it's going to read different! Then you add depth and soil and even adjacent targets and you might just miss it altogether. Now this brings up a good point that people will tell you over and over--after you find your target scan the area again. This is necessary because of a phenomenon known as 'masking'. Go look up Dankowski's article 'Beneath The Mask' for a better understanding.
Sometimes you can use your brain to discriminate before you even make your first swing. Mainly this would be like looking over a park to see where the highest concentration of activity is, then just hitting those spots. You'll still dig a ton of trash but you'll be in the high potential areas for rings and coins. Is there a place where a footpath has a trip hazard? Check there. People fall and the good stuff sometimes doesn't get back up with them!
Back to the detector, yes, all detectors can be confusing as to what you're really seeing when your quest is for gold. Those targets are just too similar to aluminum and foil. Now on COINS, both my ACEs could be trusted that when it said quarter, it was a quarter! Pennies too, and nickels are sometimes iffy but pretty reliable too.
I hope I gave you some information you may not have had before! This is a fun hobby but can be frustrating when starting out! All those folks that have found so much bling and coins with whatever detector have put in lots of time to do that. You'll certainly have some lucky finds along the way, but the more you use your machine, the more you'll understand what it's telling you and that will help you to decide when you want to dig and when you want to walk.
Try it with no disc and dig everything for awhile. You're gonna get tired and dirty but you'll notice after that how much easier it is to understand what the ACE is telling you!
Lately I have been notching out everything below a dime. I'm so sick of trash and pull-tabs that I don't give a sh!t about "gold" anything. If I want a gold ring I'll go and buy one.
