Buying new, not a whole lot to choose from at that price with similar features and capabilities.
If it is new at $400 that is a great price.
Used there is more, I bought an F70 for $400 that never saw dirt but not everyone is comfortable buying any kind of second hand detector...others don't mind at all.
In testing soil conditions, coil types and settings definitely matter, I have seen a few where badly performing detectors were slammed but definitely would have done a lot better with different settings so always a grain of salt thing, however...
Here is a vid where the Vaq does a pretty good job with just the standard coil...there is a large selection of aftermarket coils of all kinds for this one which is a bonus.
I love mine even though I don't use it much anymore I still pull it out from time to time and I will never sell it.
It paid for itself easily in the clad, silver and gold it found for me since I got it, plus two other coils.
Overall it has the perfect feature set to be very productive in most sites and conditions plus it is fun to use.
Learning the Tesoro language isn't all that hard, the basics are pretty easy and as you get better and more fluent more success will follow.
