7000 ground balance

I've read in another place and it has been suggested that when the upgrade was done, it meant you should or could only ground balance with the ferrite.
I still do the old ground balance tango and I can't see how a cheezel will always replicate some of the hot ground here in WA.
I'd be interested to hear some opinions with ground balance technique.
do you use the ferret or not.

I had high hopes for a particular patch of noisy ground when the upgrade/ferrite was released, used it as suggested and noticed absolutely no difference what so ever, I tried it at a couple of other patches with again no difference in my opinion before I dropped the bloody thing and it shattered. Anyway for the next 12 months or so I didn't use a ferrite or even think about using one but would occaisionally hear from people who swear by them so thought id give the ferrite another go which I did on the weekend just gone, again no difference. Don't think I will bother with it again.

The ferrite is supposed to help reduce noise yet a lot of people I have spoken to tend to run the machine flat out with sensitivity cranked up to 20. This makes the machine noisy again and they wonder why.
The last couple of weeks I have been running with the sensitivity down around 10 or 11, smoothing on low, and volume around 13. The machine seems to be running better and I am still pulling sub grammers out up to 12" deep. So yes I use the ferrite and yes I believe it quitens the machine down but you still have to learn the machine and tune it correctly to suit the ground you're detecting. I should add that I have been running the machine flat out with sensitivity up, volume up, threshold down in the mid teens all year and have not been 100 % happy with the performance. I have been questioning whether it finds deep targets with the machine cranked up due to just how unstable it will run. The deeper targets I have found this year we're with the lower sensitivity, smoothing on low, threshold in the low 30's. It is a lot more comfortable to listen to and easier to distinguish a softer sounding target.

Craig