Ohio has clay..Best soil to hunt in is Florida where the minerals have been leached out of the sand..I don't know if the soil is hard or what. Do know that areas where my 1210, 1265 would go bonkers in, I cruise with the Vaquero. also, the Silver I had. The extra turns allow me to do just about anything regarding how close I want to be..If GB is fixing a balance point for the detector, then the closer you are to slightly "off", should equate into greater sensitivity.Just a guesstimate? Have not run any before and after tests, but am pickeled tink when I pop a dime at nine inches.I do know the depths on a Clean Sweep coil done by the previous owner, and picked up his air distance ,with a buried small womens ring.If air equals buried depth. no increase for my money.However, if Air is greater than Buried, then I could have a 5 to 20 percent increase in performance at the expensive end...(The first couple of inches being the cheapest) I like the simplicity of the machine and intend to go over several spots to see how far I've come in shaping my brain to this detector...Some people call that the learning curve, but in actuality ,it is "brain shaping"As great as this forum is, there hain't no substitute for using the machine to learn what you can do with it, cordially Nad