Compare The Competition To Your Sovereign Or Excal

[synthnut]

The more I think about it , the more I think that Minelab put a few items from each machine into the E Trac to sort of make each new owner feel comfortable ....For example, you can can how the tones will sound on the E Trac ..You can set it to "Normal" and have an upbrupt "BEEP" and that's it ....You can go to "Pitch Hold " which will give you the pitch of the last target that hit like the Sovereign does .... Is it as expressive as the Sovereign ? ...NO .....But it does a psuedo impression that isn/'t bad ..... What you will lack in the expression that the Sovereign has, is FEATURES !!.... and plenty of them .... A lot of people don't even use the features that the E Trac has ....They do a basic setup and go !!....They find great finds, and don't bother going any deeper !!.... It's like finding a good station on the radio, and dialing it in to that station and never listenning to any other station to see what you are missing !!..... As I've mentioned many times before in my other threads, the Sovereign is a much more simple machine , but just as fine a machine .... Simple Elagance .....

Critter,
You will not have the same connection with the E Trac that you have with the Sovereign ..... BUT , you will enjoy it just as much if not more because of all the various features and settings you can play with to zero in on targets ...... The Sovereign is not an E Trac , and and E Trac is not a Sovereign .... For me , they are great machines in their own right ....Anyone else that owns both machines I'm sure will agree with me ....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

The Sovereign is not an E Trac , and and E Trac is not a Sovereign .... For me , they are great machines in their own right ....Anyone else that owns both machines I'm sure will agree with me ....Jim

That pretty much sums it all up, doesn't it. Good post.

 

[kered]

Is she singing to the Sov when she bought the Etrac

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1F5BLLFAeM[/video]

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's my response to somebody in the main forum who was considering a Sovereign. Man, I should be a Salesman for Minelab. Put your boots on so you don't step in it...

I've owned most of what's out there and the Sovereign GT is the deepest for me in my soil on coins and gold rings (see my signature file below). Don't care how much you pay for a detector, it's as good as an Etrac or Explorer in terms of depth. Better than my Explorers were in my soil with more stable ID as well. Some other machines can just about keep up in depth when the soil is perfect, but the minute you hunt in the real world with minerals, iron, hot rocks, and other factors non-BBS machines will lag behind.

The Sovereign is simple to use so no confusing settings might get in your way of maxing out it's performance. With many other machines that offer a bunch of controls chances are you'll hurt it's performance if you don't know exactly what you are doing for a very specific site. Once you find what works for that site it all can change again at the next one. That's one of the reasons I'm no longer a Whites fan. You're a beginner? Then throw the sensitivity into Auto, turn the machine on, adjust the threshold just high enough to hear, and go hunt! It'll still beat most machines on the market in Auto sensitivity, and when you gain more experience you can adjust the sensitivity in manual and then really blow the doors off the competition.

Point is that it's going to be pretty much as easy to use and learn as any other machine, yet as you grow into it down the road you won't find that you need to buy another detector to get deeper or do better in rougher mineralized soils. The Sovereign IS as good as it gets. If you want to meteor hunt with it just throw it into PP or one of the All Metal modes. Regular discrimination which features Iron Mask will otherwise ignore iron for you, and is legend in it's ability to pull coins out of iron and other junk.

What people get fooled by is the Sovereign's basic looks. It reminds people of something built in the 80's with the simple dials, yet what you have to realize is that there is advanced alien like technology lurking inside the box that certain other brands can only dream about being able to copy. Kind'a like an old Ford Maverick in average looks but with a 351 Cleveland under the hood.

Weight isn't an issue for me, as I've built a custom shaft for mine and am powering it with a lipo battery in the battery holder. It's at least a pound to 1 and 1/2 pounds lighter than stock. I think even lighter than my Whites now. If you don't want to do that just hip or chest mount the box to drop the weight, which it can do right out of the box. That also makes it easy to wade and water hunt with when you want to do that.

 

[dbsmokey]

I just purchased a sovereign. I have used it only once. I am trying to sell my explorer 2. The explorer 2 was fine, I just couldn't understand it as well as my excal. I like the concept of modest power: power without the frills. I can't wait to get used to the sovereign. I can see I have some customizing to do....

 

[comcat]

hiya guys,,,i just learned a couple of things recently that the G T manual dont tell you,,and REALLY VALUABLE to me,,,the tips were in Treasure Hunting mag,,and written by a couple of Minelab guys who design and test them,,,Des Dunne,,John Grafton,,and Nenad Lonic,,,tip #1,,DONT use AUTO in bad ground,,this gives less depth ,,,use a reduced manual setting,,,tip # 2,,, do not increase THRESHOLD in bad ground or when machine goes quiet,,,but reduce SENSITIVITY until machine gives a more constant tone,,, how do you know bad ground ??? the machine NULLS constantly and will become quiet,,,so a slight REDUCTION in sens. will maintain threshold tone and put the machine back on track,,tip # 3,,Volume should ALWAYS be on full,,,as volume and threshold tone are not the same,,the volume gives prescence to small faint targets and is indeed a DEPTH control in its own right,,half volume will give you HALF the possible depth achievable,,,tip # 4,,WHEN TO DIG,,,all TWO WAY signals,and all signals that sound as the coil moves off centre,or continues after centre of coil has moved off the target,,,a CLIMBING SIGNAL,as these are probably the faint ones mentioned earlier,,WHEN A DTI meter shows a mix of pos. and neg. target numbers,,,and all NO HESITATION responses,,,,,,,WHEN NOT TO DIG,,,dont waste too much time on ONE WAY SIGNALS ,these are large and strange shape iron,,,THRESHOLD CUTS OUT and returns with low growl,,these are iron,,,NON REPEATING SIGNALS that move in disc and are loud and blaring in all metal, these are usually iron,,,SIGNALS that sound on the edges of sweep but disappear on sweeps through the centre of the coil,,,a DTI meter that shows an OFTEN REPEATING NUMBER,dig these initially and you will see that the false targets where nails or a twisted mass of wire,,,,,,well thats it,,i hope this will be of help to anyone using a sov.,,if you knew all of this before then you are a lot smarter than me,as some of this i found out by using the machine but other settings etc. i just would not have been able to find out myself, and like the rest of you,just plod along expecting the machine to be workin at its full potential,, ??? rgds

 

[Critterhunter]

EXCELLENT post! That is a good example of something that should be a stickie! Thanks for putting that up. Looks like full volume is where I'm going for now on because you can't argue with those who built the machine.

I may have to pick me up a pair of those Sun Ray headphones Kered raves about since they have a limiter circuit. Kered, do you find the tone quality of those headphones to be as good as it gets in being able to tell slight differences in target traits? I noticed they are very high ohm headphones yet Minelab I think recommends 32 ohms for the GT? Maybe my Sony Studio phones will surfice as I really like the medium size of them and the comfort. I've got an inline volume control from Radio Shack that I could use on them, maxing out volume on the GT and then bringing it down to a comfortable level via the inline volume control. A better method would probably be to pick up an inline volume control with a blast limiter. Does Radio Shack sell one of those or does anybody know where I can get something like that? I think years ago there used to be a inline control for detectors called a Depth Doubler or something like that that might have had a limiter on it?

If anybody has a pair of those headphones to sell shoot me a PM. Also, has anybody used them and found others to provide better audio quality?

My only findings that differ in terms of what you posted is Auto in rough ground. Only in one case at a rough beach did I find that Auto provided less depth than say 3PM or so on the manual dial. At other sites I've once in a while found that Auto went as deep or deeper than the most stable of manual settings when the ground was real bad. There are also times like on old trails with packed clay and gravel the the ground is just unhuntable in manual due to the fasling from hot rocks or fast changing ground conditions. Sure, I could hunt in manual but at times found that the false coin hits and such was more of a problem in manual where as Auto made the site workable and still provided great depth.

Still, listen and learn from the experts I guess. More experimenting is in order for me. Thanks again for posting that.

 

[kered]

So far they are the best phones i have tried, i have 2 pairs, when i go back to the excalibur after the sovereign or etrac with them, all sounds seam the same and drab, wish i could put some on the Excalibur. Another set of phones that i liked for the Soverign were the Pretetor ml's, the older ones, built like tanks and sounded great on the sovereign but not quite as good as the Sunray on the etrac. The Sunrays cut out a great deal of surrounding noise too(26db), soft leather cushions are really comfy for long periods, independent volume controls too, switches have the famous boots on, the only drawback is you tend to get sweaty lugs in hot weather.
I also have a set of virtually unused Koss as spare, they sound good but fall off your head with any slight movement unless you modify them and put a strap at the back, no volume control either
I've also tried others
MAZ, too muffled and gruff
Grey ghost, rather tinny sound
amongst others
As you know everyones hearing is different so try before you buy if possible as they may not suite you

RE volume, i won't say a word but i tried to tell you, i got that from Des years ago

 

[Critterhunter]

Thanks for the info. Looking for a used pair of Sun Rays I guess. Are there different or older models that I should avoid of those? What exactly is the model name I should look for from Sun Ray?

 

[Rick(ND)]

This is a very good post on the Sovereigns and think you will find those that know their Sovereigns will agree 100% with this article. One thing I would add is slow sweep speeds to give the Sovereign time to see a deep target and going faster when trying to ID the target by going over just the area of the signal which can be very small area, thus looking like just a wiggle.
Just thought of another tip on some of those signals that sounds good, but nulls after moving off it a bit as this is caused by a good target with iron very close to it and sometimes touching a good target.I found that when this happens I try to wiggle the coil back on that good sounding signal and keep it just over the good sound of the target and see where it starts to null then swing the coil back to where it sounds good and start going around the target with the coil. you will see that iron falses will null all the way around the target and only give a good signal one area only while a good target close to trash will read several way with the same signal. If you use the all metal pinpoint to pinpoint the stronger of the 2 is where it will pinpoint, so you may pinpoint the iron and not the good target. I find that some of these I have to pinpoint in disc by going over the target by starting to wiggle the coil over the tip is going over just that small area and turning 45 degrees or so and keeping the tip of the coil on the signal. Found many nice finds doing this in well worked areas.



Rick

 

[Rick(ND)]

These are the one everyone is talking about and just wish they had more volume for me with my bad hearing or i would be using them myself as they are great other wise for me.

 

[synthnut]

Rick,
How are the Pro Golds for you when setting up your E Trac with more of a variety of ways to set up what you hear ? ......Jim

 

[Rick(ND)]

Still not as loud as I need to have, so the E-Trac and the Explorers I found the Troy Pros gives me that volume I need and built well. The only problem is finding a new set as I have had 2 sets back ordered for over 2 years now. So if anyone has a set of the Troy Pros not the reg Troy headphones I would like to buy a extra set for a back up.
If my hearing was better then I would have the Sun Ray Gold as they are great in my opinion and many of the guys I hunt with love them.
On the E-Trac and the Explorer SE I use the pitch hold as it seem to help me quite a bit hearing those deeper targets.
I leave most other audio setting as factory setting as it works good for me.

 

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[Crispy Critter]

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I love my Pro Golds

 

[Rick(ND)]

I tried 3 set of the Black Widows and 2 sets of the Ratphones just in case I had a bad set of headphones, but still no go for me. The only set that was close to the Timberwolfs were the UniProbe headphones on my Sovereigns.I got a differnt set I just tried in my shop that are loud, but dont have the nice tone quality, cant remember what they are called, but cameo and made by Jim Pugh (spelling).

 

[kered]

Rick, have you thought of an inline amp that just amplifies everything before it gets to the headphones, don't know wheather or not it might distort anything but might help with your hearing loss so as to hear with the Golds

 

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