One thing about prior non-Minelabs I've owned, is that in order to get any kind of depth out of them I had to ride sensitivity to the very edge of where it just started to get a hair unstable. You don't need to do this with a Minelab (FBS or BBS units). They will still punch deep even with sensitivity say 2/3rds down from max stable.
If somebody is new to a Minelab they should run it in Auto or just a very low manual setting for a while (say 3PM or lower) to understand how it should react on real targets and also while completely stable. Forcing sensitivity high while learning the machine can be an exercise in frustration to a newbie to these machines.
I had to pound that thought into the head of a local newbie to detecting who picked up an SE Pro. He was chasing a lot of false hits and such, and being new to detecting having only used a Bounty Hunter for a few months, I explained to him that Minelabs don't need the sensitivity cranked to punch deep. Just about a few weeks ago he seemed to finally get that concept, after lowering sensitivity when he had remarked about there being too many false hits at certain sites, or that in particularly trashy sites he couldn't sort through what was real and what was not.
Far as the Sovereign goes, whether riding sensitivity high at the edge of max stable is a good idea or not I think might depend on coil choice, not to mention ones particular soil or sand types. I've found certain coils don't like max stable sensitivity and will often null out like iron is present yet those nulls won't repeat if you stop and slowly swing over them.
As another example, the 15x12 I owned seemed to get less depth, or at least less good ID/tone at depth, if I rode sensitivity up near max stable. In fact, it seemed to give best ID/tone when the sensitivity was down to about the 2 or 3PM mark, where as it was stable at some of these sites at say 9PM or even full blast manual.
When I found a deep fringe target, no matter how iffy the hit, I'd start playing with sensitivity and that's how it panned out most of the time, which confirmed my tests at a new site each time where I liked to bury a coin and then play with sensitivity on the 15x12....I'd hunt that way for a while, and then once I found a deep fringe hit, I'd re-adjust sensitivity up and down while doing the Sovereign wiggle to see what made the ID/tone more effortless to work up.
Too high and the target would start to break up or become very unstable like an odd piece of trash or false coin hit from iron. I believe the 15x12 was just too big for my soils to gain depths on targets, where my stock 10" Tornado seemed appeared deeper for me.
With the 12x10, I'm finding this coil likes rode to the very edge of stability and that won't hurt depth, regardless of if I swing at a somewhat faster rate, which actually seems to improve it's depth, while still with such a razor sharp DD line it'll sniff out coins among iron with a general long "looking for my next target" sweep, even before I stop and wiggle things out of there to see what's up.
I'll run the sensitivity to the point where it just starts to chatter a hair, and I don't find nulling from too high of that or too fast(er) of a sweep to cause excessive nulling. With other coils I've found that if sensitivity is raised to near the edge, I have to crawl with my sweep to keep it from nulling on the ground matrix a lot.
Doesn't appear to happen that that is the case with my 12x10. Haven't used the 8" Tornado much yet to see how it pans out for it, but with just 3 short hunts it appears it doesn't seem to have the nulling out issue, even with a somewhat faster swing.
Besides, usually at most sites with the 12x10 it allows full blast sensitivity for me and still isn't chattering, falsing, or nulling out. But if I'm at a site where it does have it's limits, like say around 9M to 11PM perhaps, to where any higher and it's too unstable for the given EMI or minerals, that's when with the 12x10 I will ride sensitivity just a hair into that edge of stability of sensitivity, to where here and there it falses or chatters or nulls a bit with say every other sweep or so.
With knowing how a machine and coil should act with a phantom hit, and how a real hit should act, most of the time I can figure out what's a false hit without having to stop and re-sweep over that spot to be sure. That's why it's very important when first using a machine to run it in Auto and low manual for a while, so those subtle traits of what is false and what is real get learned and remembered, to where when riding the edge of sensitivity just a bit into it being unstable doesn't cause grief.
OBN- Yes, based on your tip a while back, I tried your tip on my GT, and if hunting in PP mode with full blast sensitivity, which 99.9% of the time is completely stable for me at even the harshest of sites, I don't even lower sensitivity to what is stable for disc when flipping back to it to wiggle over a target and check it out. The ID/tone might be a little harder to work up and stabilize, but it's still fairly easy to do because I'm centered over and wiggling right over the target just to see what the target might be.
Just the same, I found at one particular very badly mineralized beach where even the legendary abilities of BBS to punch through bad ground was nulling on coins at only about 5" deep, that even with sensitivity kept at what was stable for disc (3PM if I remember right), PP mode was still punching deeper. And, this was even with the volume all the way down, where PP will get less depth than disc in good ground.
But here it wasn't about PP's better depth with full sensitivity/full volume, but rather just it's ability to punch through heavy minerals like a PI, and so it showed me that PP is not just about it's better depth with sensitivity/volume maxed, but also it's ability to see through grounds that even BBS has issues with. And I always think when I experience that with disc on my GT, that if this machine is having issues with a site's minerals then imagine how far other machines are being brought to their knees. That's when for sure PP mode is going "where no man has gone before" on a detector IMO.
One of the things about PP mode that I am finding very powerful about it, is that there is no need to "break through" a target and cause it to sound off. Just a mere glance of it to the side of the coil will easily pronounce it's presence, where as in disc with either a target at extreme depth or shallow but in super heavy minerals or black sand, in disc you sometimes have to center right over them and work it to get a response to "break through" the null or threshold.
It reminds me of using different methods to go up a floor in a building. PP mode is like riding the escalator in terms of an audio response from the target offering no resistance, while disc can at times be like trying to push a ball up a flight of stairs. Some effort is required to get targets to sound through sometimes, and if you're just doing a long general "hunting for my next target" sweep in disc, a deep target or one shallow but in heavy mineralized matrix's of sand or soil might not ever even give any kind of threshold change unless you stop and wiggle right there.
That's why I'm even using PP mode on land now, and besides...Even though the 12x10 allows me to sweep faster, PP mode makes it even a bit faster. Normally I'm not in a hurry but in large open fields a somewhat faster sweep and pace is beneficial when the object is to cover ground looking for any hits, rather than slowing down to sniff between them.
PS on Auto versus manual- I have had good luck with Auto at sites I even pounded hard with prior machines, to where it seems to track the ground much like Auto tracking on a machine for the ground balance, in that if the soil is changing from hot to cold often a static manual setting might be too hot or too cold of sensitivity to see the target. I also suspect it might have it's perks in heavy iron to recover from nulling a bit faster and unmask items in the "glare".
Same deal with a low manual setting, and I'm going to run some tests to see how that pans out with masked coins. But I'm finding with the 12x10 because it so distinctly "sees" and then "not sees" iron or other trash as it moves with the sharp DD line, that I don't think lowering sensitivity in heavy trash or iron is beneficial to me. The 8" Tornado I have been lowering sensitivity to about 3PM in heavy trash just to see if it prefers that to avoid glaring off nearby junk, but I can't say either way on that yet. Tests are in order to see which way the wind blows on that for me...
