I've been a White's man for many, many years. The tone was pleasant to listen to. Then technology changed and White's (except for the MXT) fell behind. I tried the Deus - too hard to use and made a horrible squawking noise Then I tried a few Minelabs and could never quite get used to them, mostly because of weight/balance issues. The older you get, the more important this becomes. The EQ600/800s are about the best thing going today for coin/jewelry/park/school type hunting. They are light, balanced (with 3rd party rods and counterweight) and sound OK.

However, talking about the "detector of choice" depends upon the target you're after and the hunting environment. I recently ran a bunch of tests on the machines I have and determined for ghost town hunting, "carpet of nails/rusted tin", what is required is:

1) Fast response/target recovery.
2) High VLF frequency - 15KHz to 20KHz.
3) A small, preferably concentric coil.

I find the Impact with a 7" concentric, and the MXT with the 5.3" Eclipse to work just fine in all the nail tests I could throw at them.

Scouting the market for small concentric coils, doesn't turn up much. Tesoro made a slightly under 6"CC. Being that they are out of business, I don't want to take a chance on Tesoro. Garrett makes a couple of 4.5 - 5" "Super Sniper" CC coils. That's about all I could find.

The Anfibio 19 was the replacement for the Fors Relic (Monte's pick for best in GTs). Seemed I might as well get the multi. However, these, like the Impact are nearly 4 lbs.!

Being that my wife and I are planning a gold hunting trip to Alaska in the near future, I decided to get a Garrett AT Gold machine. Main factors were:

1) American made, or at least based here, wouldn't be surprised if the components were from China. (let's show some patriotism! )
2) 5" CC coil
3) 2.8lbs. (big factor for me).

When I test it I will post the results.