I have read many of your posts concerning gain and to be honest, I never fiddled too much with the gain on any Explorer that I have used. When I started with the Explorer, I kept the gain low and had no problem hearing a deep faint signal. I have had tinnitus for the last ten years and in the last year or so, it has got much worse and I don't think I hear the faint signals as well as I use to. I have been hunting an old school that borders an interstate highway and even with the high end phones I use, I am constantly hearing the semi trucks rolling by. To offset this backround noise, I raised the gain on my Etrac a couple of digits higher than the factory preset. When I could hear the deep signals, I started digging many coins deeper than 10 inches and I had no trouble hearing them. With the gain set at 22 which is the setting I use to use, I could not hear these deep signals very well. Since the Etrac holds the last setting, I had it set up for the noisy freeway area and forgot to reset it when I moved to a different spot. I started digging deep coins in this older fairgrounds and it was then that I remembered I had the gain jacked up. I am now a believer in higher gain! One other note: I made the comment about running the sens in auto+3. In many spots where I hunt the number showing in +3 auto is 17 or 18 and in these spots it is rare that I can find a coin over 8 inches deep. In this one particular spot, I will run manual 23 and I do suffer with some falsing, but it is no problem hearing a coin through the small amount of chatter. I do find coins much deeper here with manual sens compared to the auto +3. The Etrac or any Explorer is flexible enough to hunt just about any spot or any type of ground without changing every setting in the menu. Great to have a classroom forum for all to share.