This is just my opinion. I used my new SE for a year. Now it hangs as a backup for my EII. My biggest problem with the SE is that the deep iron falses hit like a coin on the EII. That is, they sounded good from two directions (swing east-west, turn, swing north-south). The EII will do that once in a great while, usually on a bent nail, but my SE did it all of the time. So, I started using all metal in ferrous tones to compensate for the problem. I think a lot of people came to this solution and swear by it. It is a good relic hunting setup. I really like to hunt using conductive tones though, where you don't have to look at the screen much to figure what you have, just go by tones.
After a year of frustrating use of the SE, I got the EII out and tried it again - It was like an old friend (I have used the EII since they came out). An old friend that does not lie about deep iron. The SE will hang as a backup machine or be sold. I did send it in for a checkup. Minelab did me right, but acted like they had never heard of such a problem and really seemed to not get it. I know they have had this complaint many times. They put new guts in the control box and gave me a new slimline coil. I tried it for a while but really have lost confidence in the SE.
The reason I bought the SE was the advertised claim that it handles iron better. I noticed that claim came out of the ads pretty quickly. It surely does not handle iron better than the EII.
OK, I am done whining about a $1000+ detector that works worse than the previous model, purchased under false calims.... Can you tell this left a bad taste in my mouth?
I am sure others have a completely different take on the SE. I do think it is odd though, that lots of folks started using ferrous tones and all metal after the SE came out. Before that (EII) everyone was hunting in conductive tones with just a small strip of iron mask to the left.
Hope this helps and HH - BF
