I would ask how anyone would be able to say which is the best detector for $499? First the prices are all over the place for every brand out their except Tesoro which seems to tightly control their priceing with their dealerships so their are a lot of detectors that are in thr $499 arena. Second since their is no such thing as an industry standard test plot their is no way to have a standardized testing of detectors. Third since each detector is biased out of the box for one of many forms of hunting you have to adjust them specificly to your conditions to maximize the performance. So unless each detector is adjusted to the current conditons you again have major variables. Then you have peoples different desires. Personaly I hate the look of the most modern all digital targit ID detectors. The Teknetics,F70,F75,Ace250,MPX and all those that look like them are so ugly that they are actualy repulsive to me. that would not stop me from buying one if I thought I wanted one or they offered me something I needed but they would be my last choice. I like the looks of the Tesore's,Whites 5000-6000 series, The Fisher 1200 series, Mine Lab's older designs etc..........In my opinion most of these small compact all digital detectors look like cheap kids toys because they use such nasty cheap LCD displays. I have membrane switch's and thing they feel really cheap as well. I like togle switch's and knobs. So while I would be happy for anyone that got any new detector they had been wanting I personal would not want most of what is new and hot on the market right now!
I also would have to wounder what $500 detector would not do most of what anyone would need from coin shooting to relic hunting to some limited gold hunting. Seriously some people seem to think that $500 is cheap but in my mind that is about the point I think they should all start to get close in terms of performance. One should not have to spend $1000 to get a good machine. In fact for a anything less then deep scanning braod spectrum pulse inductuion type machine $500 is my personal limit! Anythingmore then $500 and I need to be looking at something that can scan at least 3-10 meters deep.
Also I have noticed that a lot of these new high tech all digital machines seem to be haveing a lot of issues with electromagnetic field and interference. Not enough shielding for the elctronics. Also outside of great dpeth,great discrimanation with true notch filtering and a great ground ballance circuit that can be set automaticly or manual what do all these other bells and whistles really do for you?