Hi sw1fty, as you may have seen by my signature line I have a Minelab Eureka Gold. So why am I looking for an SD2200?
I did a fair bit of research before I bought the Eureka Gold. I only had a budget of <$2000 and because I am new to the hobby I wanted to buy a new detector and not be landed with a used machine that may have had problems.
I decided on the Eureka Gold because it ticked all the boxes for me. For a $1200 detector it does everything it claims to do. I've picked up air rifle pellets at about 8" and small iron targets at similar depths, so no doubt if those targets were gold I would've found them too.
But DD is right, in mineralised ground they do struggle. They are not very quiet, so your ears really have to be sensitive enough to concentrate on the different sounds. This means you have to concentrate very hard to filter out the noise from the signals. By the end of the day I'm just mentally knackered.
I also feel that using the auto GB, especially in hot ground, reduces the depth and sensitivity so this means I'm manually ground balancing and then using fixed GB.
I figure if I can get an SD2200D or V2 for around the same price as the Eureka Gold I'd be a bit happier in the bush and come home with a bit more colour
Au