[quote Mike (Virginia Beach)]What do you mean by "pegged at 180"? That doesn't make any sense at all. When I get a dime or quarter, it's 180. A penny is like 176.[/quote]
Only zinc is 175-176 (or below if eroded) for me. A full copper penny is 180 (maybe--rarely--at 179). And dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and dollars should not get the same reading. While the metalurgical content may be the same, the mass is significantly different. Information loss is information loss. (And there's NO need for it. (If I wanted simple--idiot--readings, I wouldn't have bought a Sov in the first place.)) Do you get different readings on pre-'82 cents?
A nickel is about 145-ish. A Civial War minnieball is a 174 and a musketball is 172. Gold rings can be in the range of a nickel or maybe much lower, depending on how fine the ring is.
I may not have been as clear as I could have been but I didn't assert otherwise.
So your assertion that your meter is "locked on 180" is absurd.
Absurd? It is for quarters, dimes, and copper pennies. Isn't yours?
Unless you have your machine set to All Metal maybe. Or your meter is screwed up.
Not set at All Metal. Don't think my meter is screwed up. Have wondered if it needs a tune-up of some sort but, since I haven't used any other Sovs other than my own, I can't compare.
Or you are hunting at a site full of crushed up pop cans.
That's been known to happen.

But at 176. (See post a few weeks ago about party sites.]
The Sovereign GT is a great detector. The WIDE variance of tones,
I won't argue that. UP UNTIL it flattens every signal to 180. (This is a serious flaw in the Sov that needs correction IMO. Most responses I've seen to this have been in the "it's always been that way" direction. There's a lot of information being cut off at that point and there's NO need for it. Sov users aren't idiots. Would you want it to flatten out at 175-176 where intact zincs start? In the lower-to mid-140s where nickels start? IMO, it's pretty damn short-sighted to limit us between the conductivity of copper and silver. (And Minelab doesn't do it below that point.) It's pretty clearly, at least to me, a "it's always been that way" factor for Minelab that they don't change. Can you name--and I'm ignorant of any other companies that do it--ONE other company that manufactures a metal detector that scrunches copper pennies, dimes, and quarters (let alone ***ing half dollars or dollars) into ONE data point? The ONLY reason I can think of for Minelab not fixing that--since they've been making other improvements--is that it would likely change number readings that folks have become used to. (But users adjusted to the the 550 -> 180 differential.)
...and I can only think of ONE that will give you more in the way of info as to what you are digging and that's the Explorer SE. I sold mine (after mastering it and doing quite well with it) and bought a Sovereign GT package, simply because I wanted a little LESS information and the simplicitiy of a basic tone/numeric ID system without all the added bells and whistles of the Explorer SE. But I can tell you this: The Explorer SE will read 00-29 on a silver quarter...00 being the "ferrous" reading and the 29 being the non-ferrous and it will read something like 03-29 on a clad quarter. Likewise, it will read like 31-00 on a rusty nail where many other machines will read "Coin" or "quarter". So if the GT isn't enough for you, try an SE.
Perhaps I will.

From what I've read, the Explorer (don't know if SE-specific as you seem to imply) wlll give the same continuous audio tone info (if different pitch) as a Sov except without imposing a hardwired cutoff at copper and above. As well as adding the 2-way graphic info of conductive and ferrous content. Am I missing something?
Or go back to the Tesoro.
Sure not going back to simply the Sidewinder, that's for damn sure. There's no question the Sov was multiple steps above that.
Cheers,
_Rich_