It actually works great in most of the lakes around here. There are a few lakes that are very high mineral where only PI's work but they are in the Norhtern parts of New Jersey. Still I hope to hunt them someday. I live in the Southern part of the State and our lakes are not very mineralized so the X-5 works great in them. There is however one strange charcteristic about the lakes in Southern NJ that I have found isn't really that uncommon after talking with others in the Central States. And that is the Fresh Water shifts the ground balance in the low mineral direction. In several of the lakes that I hunt the ground balance control ends up all the way at the low mineral end of the control and the X-5 still have a negative going threshold as you lower the coil to the ground. Since the X-5 likes a slight positive threshold I have to run with slightly less Sensitivity than if I could get a proper Ground Balance. Still it isn't off by that much and the depths that the gold is coming up from has proved that to me beyond a Shadow of a doubt (pardon the pun PLus the X-5 loves gold chains and other tiny gold while still having great depth on larger gold. This ground balance being all the way at the low mineral end of the control is not specific to the X-5. I found this out years ago when I used my fisrt hunted the beaches at these lakes with the Mark I. (in general and to give you an idea about mineralization in Southern NJ the Mark I would GB right in the middle of the preset zone for most land locations) It Ground Balanced halfway between the preset GB zone and the fully clockwise Low Mineral end of it's GB control. My first manually GB machine that I took into the lakes was a Teknetics ST and it woudn't GB in the waters of these lakes either. Even with the GB control all the way at the low mineral end(fully clockwise) it wouldn't quite make it. The manually GBed Fisher CZ's run into the same problem when in the water of these lakes. I don't really know what the Fresh water adds to the mix that tends to lower the Mineralization as far as a detector sees it but it seems to effect most manually balanced detectors in the same way. Since most detector manufacturers are more concerned about high mineralization than low mineralization I will probably never find a manually balanced machine that will have the range needed to GB properly in a low mineral freshwater lake. Sorry for the long post!!!!!!!!! The short answer to your question yes the X-5 works superbly in most of the lakes that I hunt.
PLus the X-5 loves gold chains and other tiny gold while still having great depth on larger gold. This ground balance being all the way at the low mineral end of the control is not specific to the X-5. I found this out years ago when I used my fisrt hunted the beaches at these lakes with the Mark I. (in general and to give you an idea about mineralization in Southern NJ the Mark I would GB right in the middle of the preset zone for most land locations) It Ground Balanced halfway between the preset GB zone and the fully clockwise Low Mineral end of it's GB control. My first manually GB machine that I took into the lakes was a Teknetics ST and it woudn't GB in the waters of these lakes either. Even with the GB control all the way at the low mineral end(fully clockwise) it wouldn't quite make it. The manually GBed Fisher CZ's run into the same problem when in the water of these lakes. I don't really know what the Fresh water adds to the mix that tends to lower the Mineralization as far as a detector sees it but it seems to effect most manually balanced detectors in the same way. Since most detector manufacturers are more concerned about high mineralization than low mineralization I will probably never find a manually balanced machine that will have the range needed to GB properly in a low mineral freshwater lake. Sorry for the long post!!!!!!!!! The short answer to your question yes the X-5 works superbly in most of the lakes that I hunt.