Soveriegn GT impressions

[Murph]

Have around thirty hours hunt time with this machine so decided I could post a somewhat fair assessment of it.

The vast majority of my hunts are on salt water beaches so the priority for me when making the upgrade was stability in wet salt sand and knee deep water. The GT was no disappointment in this regard. Gone was the annoying falsing in wet sand and the ridiculously low sensitivity settings that accompanied this in attempts to rectify the situation when using my entry level detector.

I take with a grain of salt depth claims with any particular machine but the GT has been no disappointment here either. Coin size objects at ten inches are no problem for the GT and I have dug them at twelve easy.

The tone ID while IMO is only reliable to around 8 inches is probably my favorite aspect of this detector. Deeper targets can sound good bad or indifferent until the ground is broken or even just stomped on or surface debris cleared away so double checking deep targets is pretty important before you go digging to china after a faint tone.

With the entry level detector I got a lot of "learn your machine and what the tones are telling you". To be honest I just have to give it the old eye roll when I hear this especially when compared to the GT. My entry level machine was a three tone all or nothing response. If it takes you any time at all to figure out those so called "neuances" my guess is your career consist of asking the question paper or plastic 150 times a day. The information the tone ID provides with the GT could actually be described as unlimited. To me this means experience and practice with this machine actually leads to improved finds and less trash. Now there is something to "learn".

The only down side I have found when it comes to this detector is when I am on the way back to the car and pass through the play grounds and picnic areas. In other word trashy sites. The nulling threshold and bombardment of tones is confusing at best and perhaps this is the area for a silent search LCD type detector. However with the GTs silent search option and disc adjustments it can be turned into a decent coin shooter for these areas absent any LCD info.

My bottom line is it is unlikely to beat this machine for my purpose of beach/wet sand shallow water hunting. I suspect it would make a good relic hunter also in areas where targets are reasonably spread out especially with the iron mask feature.

But then again that's just me I could be wrong and your mileage may vary. HH

 

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[DaChief]

Ditto on many things so far with my limited experience with my Sov. Elite.

I have used it now for three short impromptu hunts. I have over 18 years of experience most of which is with high end detectors. I can say that I am enjoying the Sovereign Elite. I did hit a really trashy area yesterday and found that in those conditions it is, as usual, lots of work as it is with any detector. Who said everything was going to be handed to us on a Silver Platter? Sound familiar. I dug many cans and can slaw as it is called. Much of it came in at the coin ID level. I finally let that area go because of limited time. Just prior to that though, my son and I were on a promising area that we were given permission to check out for a possible return hunt. We only had a few minutes access to the location because the manager was leaving and could not leave us there unattended. The location was an old WWII camp which was occupied for about 6 years. In the few minutes we hunted the area, we found our share of pop tops but he managed to pull his first Mercury Dime (1937D) out of the ground along with a brass key tag of some sort that was numbered. We have been promised a full day on the location soon and will look forward to doing that. I was quickly able to identify the pop tops based on the fact that they were all mostly the same and they all gave the same exact tone. I had the meter mounted also since I am still getting used to the machine and they all read at about 460 on my 550 meter with the meter calibrated to 500 for a clad quarter. Since I was limited on time, I skipped many of these 460 readings knowing that they were most likely the pop tops.

I have yet to get to a sandy beach with any promise but hope to do so possibly this weekend and will report my findings if that is the case.

All in all, I am impressed with my Sovereign and hope to get to use it to its full potential soon on both a quality beach and a Civil War location.

 

[Michigan Badger]

You're right Murph but there are still lots of THers who won't hear these things. I don't get it myself

I almost got voted out of TN for selling my GT but I only did it to try the SE and new PD. I won't have time to mess with another detector while playing with these.

But I'm almost betting I'll be back to the GT. I do hope the SE proves to come up to its favorable reviews...we'll see.

I never posted this before (as I recall) but one reason I finally dropped Nautilus was when I took my GT and IIB out into the garden and simply buried a clad dime. As anyone knows, all detectors do crappy on freshly buried coins (especially clad coins). But my GT with 10-inch coil beat my Nautilus IIB with 10-inch coil by a good margin.

I know how to use the Nautilus and I even posted the 1st Nautilus video on YouTube Until I removed it many dealers had links to it. But, the fact is, Minelab makes a superior machine.

I found this same thing with the great Tejon. I still like that detector but its price is too close to the GT and the GT will kick it big time.

Before I bought my GT I heard lots of things like it can't handle certain soils and it gets bad electrical interference, etc. Both proved wrong for me. Here on the Michigan Rock (northern Mich and Mac Island), hot rocks and mineralization rule the day. The GT has no problem at all and I never dug one hot rock. With the Tejon and Nautilus I dug plenty. The depth of the GT is even better than the Silver uMax with 12x10 coil. Next to the GT the Silver is the best machine out there (in my opinion).

Oh, and all those reports about electrical interference...pure bunk. We have an Air Force testing field near us that puts out an awful signal every evening. It caused my Tejon and Nautilus to "motorboat." They go so unstable I'd have to quit hunting. Not so with the GT. It was smooth as silk.

It's probably a good thing more don't believe this. I like buying those mint GT's for $350-$400 used

Badger

 

[Keppy]

You're right Murph but there are still lots of THers who won't hear these things. I don't get it myself

I almost got voted out of TN for selling my GT but I only did it to try the SE and new PD. I won't have time to mess with another detector while playing with these.

But I'm almost betting I'll be back to the GT. I do hope the SE proves to come up to its favorable reviews...we'll see.

I never posted this before (as I recall) but one reason I finally dropped Nautilus was when I took my GT and IIB out into the garden and simply buried a clad dime. As anyone knows, all detectors do crappy on freshly buried coins (especially clad coins). But my GT with 10-inch coil beat my Nautilus IIB with 10-inch coil by a good margin.

I know how to use the Nautilus and I even posted the 1st Nautilus video on YouTube Until I removed it many dealers had links to it. But, the fact is, Minelab makes a superior machine.

I found this same thing with the great Tejon. I still like that detector but its price is too close to the GT and the GT will kick it big time.

Before I bought my GT I heard lots of things like it can't handle certain soils and it gets bad electrical interference, etc. Both proved wrong for me. Here on the Michigan Rock (northern Mich and Mac Island), hot rocks and mineralization rule the day. The GT has no problem at all and I never dug one hot rock. With the Tejon and Nautilus I dug plenty. The depth of the GT is even better than the Silver uMax with 12x10 coil. Next to the GT the Silver is the best machine out there (in my opinion).

Oh, and all those reports about electrical interference...pure bunk. We have an Air Force testing field near us that puts out an awful signal every evening. It caused my Tejon and Nautilus to "motorboat." They go so unstable I'd have to quit hunting. Not so with the GT. It was smooth as silk.

It's probably a good thing more don't believe this. I like buying those mint GT's for $350-$400 used

Badger

Yes sir..Badger is right on there i have been useing a ..Sovereign.. since about 1995 never had any..Electrical interference..with the ..Sovereign.. and never found any soil it could not handle.And yes i heard all those bad things that people would say about the ..Sovereign..But i don't think any of them ever used a Minelab.......==Jim==

 

[NeilinFR]

In those trashy areas try using your GT with the sens turned all the way down or close to that and see if that helps some. I can work right up next to chain link fences with mine and it will work extremely well in this setting(it will bong when at the posts that hold the fencing up). Ive made some nice finds at these fences, seems people like to put stuff next to them when they are playing around.

HH
Neil