Question on Ground Balance

[kregh]

Ok folks - I need a brief education.

I currently use a ACE 350 which has been pretty good to me so far.

What am I missing out on by not having a ground balance unit? Is it depth? and if it is -what could we be missing out on? 1 inch? 4 inches? please clue me in.

I am interested in getting a unit with ground balance - but if I am going to see 1 inch increase in performance in the red clay of Ga - then I dont really think its going to be worth it.

Thanks in advance for the enlightenment.

Just as a side note - my 16 year old son hit a gold pendant today with a ACE 150 - simply amazing that such a low end unit could hit gold so hard. It was his first time out MD'ing.. so I suspect this should get him off the Xbox and out into the real world - what a great hobby this is!

 

[metalhead]

The question of depth is always gonna be a touchy subject because everybody's ground is different, everybody hunts in different conditions. I would say that, yes, having a unit that has ground balancing capabilities is going to give you more depth. Not only more depth, but fewer targets will be missed due to the ground conditions being too harsh for the detectors circuitry to handle (for example, red GA clay). Having a double "D" search coil is already a plus in these higher mineralized conditions, because it sees much less of the mineralization that is in the ground under the coil ( a much narrower band than compared to a concentric/round search coil).
Anyways, I hope that I explained this clearly enough and didn't confuse you any.
Best of luck to ya! Happy Hunting!