Question about Minelab Excal and Sovereign

[onthespot]

I have a question for all the Minelab hunters. Why do allot of people have a Sovereign for the beach and a Excal for the water? I thought a Excal was a waterproof Sovereign. What is the benift of having both machines?

 

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[s1u2r3f4]

I have a question for all the Minelab hunters. Why do allot of people have a Sovereign for the beach and a Excal for the water? I thought a Excal was a waterproof Sovereign. What is the benift of having both machines?

Good question.

 

[River Hound]

Hi I am new to this but I think its kind of simple.Sovereign has notch discrimination meaning if I want to hunt for nickles I can and I can notch out dimes and quarters if I choose to. bottom line more control over discrimination

 

[onthespot]

Thanks for the answer!

So the Sovereign has better discrimination? Any other reason the Sovereign is better out of the water?

 

[River Hound]

I don't think so

 

[Sir Gala Clad]

They are different tools

Think of the Excalibur and the Sovereign as different tools.

If you dive, or shallow water hunt below waist deep you will need to use the Excalibur as it is water proof.

If you live in an area where it rains constantly, an Excalibur or any water proof detector is ideal as you don't have to worry about moisture damaging it.

The price that you pay for this ruggedness is that the detector is heavier, costs more to buy and maintain as it has to be built stronger and pressure tested. You also loose flexibility as the head phones and coils are hard wired and cannot be changed to meet beach conditions. Also, as it uses an older Sovereign technology it is less capable than the current Sovereign GT.

Yes, you can be more flexible by installing water proof connectors to change headphones and coil size. But that becomes a weak link and voids your Minelab warranty.


Now let's look at the Sovereign:
As long as you can keep it dry and protect it from moisture it is the detector of choice.

You can rapidly configure it to the beach you will be hunting on.
For instance, you can change to a 15" WOT coil to detect deeper targets and cover more area rapidly. You can also use the SEF coils which detect deeper and are easier to pinpoint than the standard DD coil. You can sweep the large coils in the water, but I don't as there is is more drag.

Switch to an 8" coil for detecting in trashy areas such as beach entrances, parking areas. Or use it to detect knee to waist deep in the trough. You could, but I wouldn't because if you slip or get hit by a wave wrong the salt water will destroy it, your detector will be toast and you will end up with one very expensive door stop.

Most treasure hunters use the standard slim line Tornado 10 inch Double D coil as
their go to beach detector.

You can also hear the tones better as there do not have to be holes to equalize water pressure. You can change head phones for different wind conditions plus get head phones that have limiters to protect your hearing if you go over shallow coins while searching for faint signals.

You can easily break the Sovereign apart of ease of carrying and rapidly change from shaft mount to chest mount or hip mount.

Before Minelab stopped production of the Sovereign, it was heavily supported by other manufacturers . For instance you could buy VI meter(s) from Minelab or Sunray which would be ideal for coin shooting in parks.

Or you could buy and install a Sunray S-1 inline target probe for ease of finding targets in the hole, the 1" tip of the probe could be used like a minature search coil in narrow areas such as cracks in a reef or in between rocks.

Of all the knobs, the notch filter would least likely be used by beach hunters, as it could notch out the return signal from gold which varies over a wide range as it is alloyed with other materials, E.G. (copper, silver, zinc, silicon, nickle) for hardness and color.

Normally, you would not set your discriminator above 3, I use a lower setting of 1 as I want to hear all tones so that I know what is under the coil. With practice you can identify most tones except can slaw. As a rule of thumb, you dig when you get a repeatable tone as beach sand is soft.

Like the Excalibur the threshold on the Sovereign nulls when you go over ferrous metals (iron) and the pitch changes to the next metal object the coil goes over, which takes a little getting used to.

 

[hamiddetecting]

We are waiting professor SandMan

 

[hamiddetecting]

Think of the Excalibur and the Sovereign as different tools.

If you dive, or shallow water hunt above waist deep you will need to use the Excalibur as it is water proof to depths of 200 feet.

If you live in an area where it rains constantly, an Excalibur or any water proof detector is ideal as you don't have to worry about moisture damaging it as it is water proof.

The price that you pay for this ruggedness is that the detector is heavier, costs more to buy and maintain as it has to be built stronger and pressure tested. You also loose flexibility as the head phones and coils are hard wired and cannot be changed to meet beach conditions. Also, as it uses an older Sovereign technology it is less capable than the current Sovereign GT.

Yes, you can be more flexible by installing water proof connectors so that you can change headphones and coil size. But that becomes a weak spot and voids your Minelab warranty.


Now let's look at the Sovereign:
As long as you keep it dry and protect it from moisture it is the detector of choice.

You can rapidly configure to the beach you will be hunting on.
For instance, you can change to a 15" WOT coil to detect deeper targets and cover more area rapidly. You can also use the SEF coils which detect deeper and are easier to pinpoint than the standard DD coil. You can sweep the large coils in the water, but there is is more drag

Switch to an 8" coil for detecting in trashy areas such as beach entrances, parking areas.

You can also use it to detect up to knee deep in the trough. You could, but I wouldn't because if you slip and it drops into salt water, the detector is toast and you are the owner of an expensive door stop. Most treasure hunters use the standard Tornado 10 inch coil Double D coil as their go to beach one.

You can also hear the tones better as there do not have to holes to equalize water pressure. You can change head phones for different wind conditions plus get head phones that have limiters to protect your hearing if you go over shallow coins while searching for faint signals.

You can easily break the Sovereign apart of ease of carrying and rapidly change from shaft mount to chest mount of hip mount.

Before Minelab stopped production of the Sovereign, it was heavily supported by other manufacturers . For instance you could buy a VI meter from Minelab or Sunray which would be ideal for coin shooting in parks.

Or you could buy and install an Sunray S1 inline probe for ease of finding targets in the hole, the 1" tip of the probe would work like a minature search coil in narrow areas such as cracks in a reef or between rocks.

Of all the knobs, the notch filter would least likely be used by beach hunters, as it could notch out the return signal from gold which varies over a wide range as it is alloyed with other materials, E.G. (copper, silver, zinc, silicon, nickle) for hardness and color.

Normally, you would not set your discriminator above 3, I use a lower setting of 1 as I want to hear all tones so that I know what is under the coil. With practice you can identify most tones except can slaw. As a rule of thumb, you dig when you get a repeatable tone as beach sand is soft.

Like the Excalibur the threshold on the Sovereign nulls when you go over ferrous metals (iron) and the pitch changes to the next metal object the coil goes over, which takes a little getting used to.

 

[firemac]

Like sir gala clad said, they are different tools, but I use my etrac on the dry and wet sand, and it is fantastic there, and when I move to the water out comes the excal, I had thought about an sovereign before I got the etrac but I like the VI of the etrac,

 

[s1u2r3f4]

Like sir gala clad said, they are different tools, but I use my etrac on the dry and wet sand, and it is fantastic there, and when I move to the water out comes the excal, I had thought about an sovereign before I got the etrac but I like the VI of the etrac,

Interesting... I was just about to get a Sov. I didn't even consider the etrac. I have an Excal and Explorer ll. I know the Exp is dated. Would it be better to get the Sov instead of the extrac?

 

[Sir Gala Clad]

like jumping on a sinking ship

The problem with the Sovereign is that Minelab stopped production on it.

You will not be able to have it repaired, except by canibalization, once Minelab runs out of parts, most likely in five years.


Second party parts have already become extremely difficult if not impossible to buy such as the Sunray S-1 in line probe. The person who sould me my Sovereing said it was very difficult for him to get the Minelab V1 probe which he purchased before the Sovereign went out of production.

Sunray stop manufacturing this probe as they were dependent upon Minelab for the Vclip to mount it on the shaft.

I had the smaller SEF coil I think it was a 12" X 10" on back order, which was cancelled, as Kellyco could not get it.

 

[onthespot]

That is why I love this forum, great info and insight!