where I live Scott, which is the iron ore belt from north east Alabama on down towards Birmingham. A detector that does extremely well on air test doesn't always get the depth here either.
I've hunted this area with a 2ba Nautilus, MXT, Explorer, Tejon, several Fisher CZ series, Troy X-5, Sovereign GT, Garrett 250 and 2500, .... and the X-Terra 50 & X-30.
Not all give good results, matter of fact, I sold the Garretts and the X-5 because they lost a huge amount of depth here. The Tejon had to be turned down so much to run stable that it lost any normal depth advantage compared to other locations I used it in. The Garretts did not fair well here at all, minor depth and poor seperation qualities in this bad dirt.
The CZ still gets respectable depth but the iron ore gives it fits and enhances the falsing on deep targets. The MXT runs great here and so does the Explorer, Sovereign, X-Terras, and the Nautilus with good results in overall stability, performance and depth.
I'm a firm believer that some machines just perform well in some areas and not so in others, they all have strong points and weaknesses. That's a given !
I'm anxious to see how the T2 will perform here, and, if all goes well I will have some idea by next weekend

I'm not very scientific by any means, I just like to hunt and see how a detector works in my area and that's all that really matters to me when it comes down to detecting.
Nice report by the way.
H.H.
Mike