I happen to find the display much more informative than the sound. I understand the skill of learning to tell a good target from bad by the sound, but I also realize that skill is becoming less a requirement, and more nostalgic with each new generation of detector technology. Before long detectors will display a picture of whats in the ground, and yet will still see those claiming sound is the best way to detect.
I choose to embrace technology to better my detecting experience. My days of digging everything that beeps was over 10 years ago. Well, with the exception of tot lots of course.
I see no need myself. I do very well relying on the display, and I have yet to see a single time of regretting doing so. I make very good use of the time I have for detecting. Yes when I would detect for 8 hours I was a lot less selective, but now I'm lucky to get in 1-2 hours so I've got to make the best of it. I do that with a very accurate display that I have learned just as well as any sound.
The display is just another form of input but I'll make you a bet. I'll bet I can bury 10 nickles and 10 pull tabs and give someone new to detecting, and many that call themselves veterans, a non-display detector and say the DFX. I'll bet they can ignore every pull tab and dig every nickle with the DFX, and only have a 50 50 chance with the non-display detector. That is just one of the values of a display. All I would say is if the VDI stays between 18-21 its a nickle if it above 21 its a pull tab. Try explaining the sound to someone new and see how long it takes to make it work.
You know I've got the video where I took a non-display(Tesoro) and the E-Trac to our local park where very deep coins remain. The non-display could not find one single coin the E-Trac found, and both detectors were new to me. Even at those depths the E-Trac was telling me copper(wheats) from silver with astounding accuracy. Look at the Clash of the Titans thread you'll see I started with 4 detectors(3 display 1 non-display) and ended up leaving 2 at home because they wouldn't even make a peep in all-metal on the coins the other 2 were finding.
One of the detectors I left at home I have 7 years experience with. In this case experience lost out to better technology hands down.
My choice of weapons.