Here is the reply I got from Ralph at Sunray regarding the S12 coils

[Neil]

I copy and pasted this, its from a pm I sent him through findsmall. Very interesting stuff and this should clear up some stuff on Sov coils in general that are built by Minelab:

Neil,

In checking with Minelab this morning they confirmed that nothing has changed in the BBS and Tornado coils through the years except the housings for weight reduction, etc. Windings are the same and the pre-amp inside the coil is the same as well. There is no reason for a coil that was made for an (Elite or earlier) to not work properly on a GT. Hope this helps.

Ralph (Sun Ray)


Quote
Neil
Hello Ralph,
There is a post over on the Sov/Excal forum that is saying the S12 isnt compatible with the Sov GTs circuitry.
Mine works great but several guys have posted this.
When you get time could you please address this over on that forum. Ive never heard it before.
Thank you,
Neil

 

[badarse]

Neil, that ML info is not accurate. I do not know who Ralph spoke to at ML but there were several different pre-amps inside minelab coils. I know this first hand because I've pulled apart a good dozen or so over the years. Earlier coils used circuits based on the following IC's LM394N, LT1028 and a few used SSM2100P. Some later BBS1000 and BBS800 used the AD797 along with the Tornado series of coils. The earliests Sovereign coils had slightly different winding specs but last I checked all newer versions were the same. If anything the S-12 should work better on the newer sovereigns as the circuit in the Elite and GT is improved over previous versions.

 

[Neil]

Thanks for the followup info Bob.

 

[OBX Franz]

In checking with Minelab this morning they confirmed that nothing has changed in the BBS and Tornado coils through the years except the housings for weight reduction, etc. Windings are the same and the pre-amp inside the coil is the same as well. There is no reason for a coil that was made for an (Elite or earlier) to not work properly on a GT. Hope this helps.

I like that part of what he said. I have my tornado back on now, but will have to do some experimenting to see if I can get my s12 to work better. I misread 1 year warranty for 1 month, and was freaking out that I would have to send my coil in asap. Now that I know I have more time, I can try some stuff out. Hopefully it's a pebkac situation, or more precisely "problem exists between detector and boots"...