I have had a bit of time now with the 17x13 evo on my modified 3000. In all but the hottest deep red ground I can run the gain at least 50%. I always run on low frequency as it still manages to pick up the tiniest metal chips, unbelievable some times. Dropping the gain down gets rid of almost all noise. Not bad for a detector that "wouldn't " be able to handle a 17x13 evo! It picked up a quartz specimen at an old mine that yielded just under a gram.