Sov GT as an old coin shooter?

[Eagle_74]

Hi guys,

I'm seriously considering trading in my CZ3D for a Sov GT or a Tejon. When i purchased my CZ i also purchased a cibola for my nephew and found the audio only with great dicrim to give MORE confidence before i dug....and frankly it was more fun to use than sweeping back and forth and watching the needle bounce.

I occasionaly beach hunt, but mostly its parks, old homesites...any chance at turned over dirt that looks promising...always in search of old coins. I have always used VID machines and that is probably why i only found a couple of pieces of silver jewellery. I would like to actually find anything gold!!!

I know the GT is deep, its built like a tank...gives alot of information via its audio signal. I also know it has a slower recovery speed...but i owned an Explorer XS which i loved!! IS it slower than an XS in recovery??

I like the fact that it is versatile...lots of coils...has great discrim....built well....but will i be disappointed in it as a coinshooter in old parks, homesites with a fair to moderate amount of trash??
I can always use the cibola...or a smaller coil for extra trash areas...

What do you guys think?

 

[gear box]

You already know you will have to go slow with the Sov. So if that is not a problem with you, NO you will not be disappointed, in fact you will be amazed. The main reason I got a GT was I hunt only old coin's and I like to go slow without all the bells and whistles.
Good hunting Gary

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Eagle,I have used CZs including the CZ3D.These are great metal detectors but have an appetite for iron.The Sovereign works best where the CZ has its biggest problem old parks with lots of small iron wire or nails.I use the Explorer and for me the Sovereign will separate blend targets better(non iron targets next to coins) The CZ is deep and even coil size matched the Sovereign is deeper.The Sovereign isn't for everyone,buy a used one with accessories just in case.If you take time to learn the Sovereign its one of the best old park detectors ever made.Even though the recover is slow I don't see it as a problem. Good Luck Ron

 

[Eagle_74]

I've researched and found some sites that produced little because they are just soooo infested with iron. I like soing slow...really investigating a signal and trying to guess what it is..or try to isolate it and get it sing to me if its a coin...It sure would be nice to settle down on a detector that I know has excellent depth and superb discrim. Gt is sounding better all the time

Thanks Gear and Ron...

 

[Rick(ND)]

One of the things I really like on the Sovereigns is with a meter what you are hearing in your headphone you are seeing on the meter, not like the Explorers as the threshold has to come back before you get a visual ID. This helps a lot on the deeper signals as you can work the coil over the target and try to get the numbers on the meter to the correct ones or close to them. I also like the fact that the threshold tones change to those of the target it sees and keep the tone until the next target giving me more time to hear a good signal with the tones changing.
In old park hunting for deep older coins my Sovereign GT will ID them more accurate of any detector I have used. When I say accurate I mean coin verses trash, but all copper pennies, clad and silver will read the same and the Sovereign are also nickle magnets as the nickle has a different tone than pull tabs and beaver tails in most cases.

 

[Eric]

Hi,

I am from the Netherlands and I had several sovereigns. Many detectorists here are happy with them as they are deep. With the sovereign I found more on hunt than with the other detectors. Recovery speed is a bit of a trade off but you can't have it all.

By the way, I only hunt for old coins and relics and yes, the sovereign does very well on old coins.

Eric. The Netherlands

 

[Southwind]

To be quite honest you should post this in a general forum. Not surprising everyone here will suggest the Minelab just as the same question on the Fisher forum would suggest the CZ is better. Just a suggestion if you really are looking for an honest answer. Not suggesting that people will purposely lie or mislead you, only that we are all a bit biases to what we use. Heck, thats why we use them.

My personal experience with the GT was that while it was a great relic detector, I didn't care for it as a coin shooter.

 

[JHM]

I have had an explorer xs and I liked it also. My only issue was I never was really good at pinpointing with it. I also have a sovereign and had a cibola. I don't feel the Sovereign is any slower than the explorer. The sovereign and cibola are a good combination. The only issues with the sov is the weight and if your in a LOT of iron it will null. In this situation out comes the cibola with the small coil. The sovereign can get heavy but you will also have a 2.2 pound detector as a backup. The sovereign is as deep as anything out there once you learn what to listen for. The tejon is not a bad option either.

 

[Eagle_74]

Thanks for the responses guys,

I ended trading my CZ3D for a tejon with some extra coils. I really liked the CZ but i have several sites in mind that i want to try a machine with a fast recovery and good discrim...looked like a good chance to try one out.

The sov gt has a certain lure for me..hope to own one some day.

 

[Critterhunter]

Check out my tests of the S-5 coil. With the GT's iron mask on feature and this little coil you'll pull coins in trash that no amount of fast recovery speed on other machines can compensate for. Recovery speed is useless when the targets are on top of each other. That's where the GT shines.

 

[Neil]

Thanks for the responses guys,

I ended trading my CZ3D for a tejon with some extra coils. I really liked the CZ but i have several sites in mind that i want to try a machine with a fast recovery and good discrim...looked like a good chance to try one out.

The sov gt has a certain lure for me..hope to own one some day.

try and get one of the widescan coils for the tejon, it really helps in target seperation but still gives you good depth.
good luck with it!

 

[Critterhunter]

Hi guys,

I'm seriously considering trading in my CZ3D for a Sov GT or a Tejon. When i purchased my CZ i also purchased a cibola for my nephew and found the audio only with great dicrim to give MORE confidence before i dug....and frankly it was more fun to use than sweeping back and forth and watching the needle bounce.

I occasionaly beach hunt, but mostly its parks, old homesites...any chance at turned over dirt that looks promising...always in search of old coins. I have always used VID machines and that is probably why i only found a couple of pieces of silver jewellery. I would like to actually find anything gold!!!

I know the GT is deep, its built like a tank...gives alot of information via its audio signal. I also know it has a slower recovery speed...but i owned an Explorer XS which i loved!! IS it slower than an XS in recovery??

I like the fact that it is versatile...lots of coils...has great discrim....built well....but will i be disappointed in it as a coinshooter in old parks, homesites with a fair to moderate amount of trash??
I can always use the cibola...or a smaller coil for extra trash areas...

What do you guys think?

If I didn't think the GT was as deep as an Explorer or as good as the best when it came to working hunted out sites I wouldn't have bought one. I checked into opinions on this before deciding to buy it. I wasn't going to settle on this and if I felt something was deeper or out performed it in certain ways I would have gone straight to the Etrac. I may still buy one of those in the future but if I don't I'm confident the GT is not being outclassed by any machine on the market. In fact, based on what I've heard (on the net) and seen (in the field) with all three I'm willing to bet any one of them could out perform the other two if that user knows that machine best. I think with all three equally matched experience wise it would probably come down to coil size as to who's going to punch deeper.

Having owned a few Explorers I'd have to agree with what's been said about the recovery speed of the Explorer's VDI display lagging way behind it's audio. The two seem detached from each other to the point where you'll hear a target but often won't see it on the screen until you've got the proper sweep going. The GT's VDI is instant...what you hear is what you are going to see. For that reason it may lag behind other machines with recovery speed but it can be faster than them in certain respects such as how fast the detector translates the target into information.

As I said before no amount of recovery speed can compensate for two targets once they are touching or laying on top of each other. Once that happens most machines are going to either null the two targets out (most common when the trash target is iron), or they are going to average both targets together and produce a response somewhere halfway between the two on the conductivity scale (most common when the trash target is non-ferous). My testing of the GT and it's iron mask on feature show it's got ability that fast recovery on other machines isn't going to compensate for in certain situations. It'll allow a clean coin ID to be heard mixed in with iron trash, and it won't tend to average two non-ferous targets. Often it'll display the target with the higher conductivity, or if it does average it may only drop the highest number by a few digits.

The target ID float of the Explorer is another issue I had with it. Often targets would give me the impression they were junk because of it's seeming inability to pick a target ID # and stay there. I use that type of response as a tool to determine bad versus good targets in some situations but found I couldn't use this method with the Explorer because of this.

As far as weight goes, the GT balances so much better than the Explorer so the Explorer feels much heavier when swinging it and will wear me out faster. But, if you still feel it's too taxing just hip mount the box or go to a small coil on those days. Various other ways to lighten the machine up as well that I'll be looking into.

 

[Neil]

the sov does average both non ferrous and ferrous targets just like every other machine on the market. because of the dd coil you can isolate better than those with concentrics but thats about it. did you ever dig a dime and a nickel together? or similiar? you would know from that alone and also masking is a good example of targets blending. it would be sweet if a detector could read two or more targets and pick just one but targets orientation in the ground(above/below/same level), reset speed, coil position, soil comp and moisture comp, dd vers conc coil, these are some of the things that help isolate/locate targets amongst other targets.

 

[Critterhunter]

That's not what I've found with my trash testing, and in such a way that it would be impossible to isolate one target from the other. You can dig that information up in my old thread "Newbies comparison of Sovereign to Whites" or whatever I called it. I found that even a pulltab placed on top of a coin would often produce a perfect coin ID or only "average" the target by dropping the coin's ID number by say 2 to 4 digits.

For instance, a pulltab over a silver dime might cause it to now read like 174 or 176 instead of 180. This is compared to other machines I've tried this with and found that they averaged a lot of non-ferous targets about halfway between the two. Doing the same test with other machines might average the number out to somewhere in the 150 to 160 range.

That's one of the reasons why I'm excited about running the notch on the GT. It should be possible to notch out a common tab range and still get hits on coins and rings (any target not near the tab's VDI #) that have tabs laying over them in the hole. I tried that by notching out a certain tab and then laying it over various targets. Results were most would sound off loud and clear and either ID true or within a few digits of their number. I'm not saying that's always going to be the case, though.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I think Iron Mask earned it's reputation on the Sovereign. It was indeed something that allowed you to pull good IDs from non-ferous targets that were masked by iron. In my experience with my Explorers I was never impressed with it's supposed Iron Mask feature. It didn't seem to offer me any better ability to hear coins in iron than some other machines I've owned. The Sovereign's Iron Mask has convinced me otherwise.

 

[Neil]

iron mask was introduced first on the sov. on the etrac they have discontinued the name iron mask and named it quick mask. it is simply an iron disc range that has very fine adjustment. as you know, its non adjustable on the sov, but its fully adjustable on the explorers/etrac. you might take the time one day to call a minelab tech and ask them. its one of the strong features on the explorer/etrac, cant imagine how you missed that when you say youve hunted them so much.

I find hunting and testing can produce two seperate results. even the subtle difference you mention in your testing, which doesnt include the composition of dirt, is that correct?, shows averaging. not to argue but weve just come up with different results on some things.

on the iron mask thing, if you really are interested in the truth of it, post over on the explorer or etrac forum, ask Andy S. for an explanation or anyone else there. he has worked with minelab engineers so he probably has a good idea of what it does.

 

[Critterhunter]

I've owned 3 Explorers and have borrowed others over the years as well, so I'm well aware how an adjustable "iron mask" works. I always like to run my machines through various tests as I feel it's one of the best ways to really learn a machine and it's capabilities.

In my humble opinion (and I'm sure others will strongly disagree) I found iron mask on the Explorer more to be a quick and dirty way to adjust iron rejection than anything else. While it seems to offer somewhat better ability at pulling non-ferous target signals out of iron than other machines in certain respects, I found the difference modest at best.

There are circumstances where other machines seem to excell at unmasking targets that it perhaps couldn't and vise versa. I wouldn't necessarily give credit to those machines as having some special or exotic capability, no more so than I would say that about the Explorer. It's capability is just not that much stronger so as to stand out compared to what another machine can do with difficult targets in it's own way. Perhaps in being able to identify targets under circumstances that are different than what another machine likes to see...I guess then I would call iron mask on the Explorer a special feature in that respect, but not something stronger and better. Just different.

Experience differs from person to person. Others may disagree but that's what my testing/experience has shown me. Based on this I expected the Iron Mask feature on the Sovereign to be nothing special either but it's proved me wrong. It really does seem to have a much stronger ability in this area. Enough for me to justify calling it a special ability that doesn't exist on other machines regardless of how fast they are at seperation. Much more so than what the Explorer showed me.

As far as posting in the Explorer forum goes, I feel no need to ask something that I already formed an opinion on for myself. I have no doubt many Explorer owners will differ and have no wish to start a model war, so I think I'll pass on that one...

 

[Neil]

thats about the answer I expected

 

[Critterhunter]

Actually, if you knew me you wouldn't expect that answer. Politics is sport to me and I love a good debate. However, there would only be two logical reasons for me to ask the sort of question you suggest in the Explorer forum.

One would be if I was seeking answers. Since I've already formed my opinion and answered my own questions by conducting my own testing, I see no need to ask.

Second, so start a GT/Explorer flame war. I have no wish to do that either, so posting would be pointless. Nobody is going to change my opinion and I'd expect that, without writing a detailed test article to prove my findings, I won't be changing theirs.

On the other hand, I'm more than willing to conduct such tests again and write an article if somebody will donate me an Explorer to use.

 

[Neil]

only two logical reasons to ask that sort of question? you forgot learning, but I see its the words and debate you really treasure, not the truth of a matter.
nobody can change your mind once an opinions been formed? for your sake I hope thats not true. Out.

 

[kered]

As Neil says the iron mask on the explorer is fantastic(used it mainly in AM) and the Etrac even better. When i hit a carpet of nails on the etrac that gives almost constant null i change to quickmask, sounds to ferrous and wide open (no discrimination) you can hear every single target(and with tone id too)no need to reduce the sens, any target that sounds almost iron can be re-checked from different angles, and a quick look at the screen, if there is anything there it will let you know. I tried this in conduct but the high pitch of nails etc did my head in, similar to someone saying tutututututut with a whistle in there mouth, only drawback is you have to remember both sets of sounds as they are slightly different in ferrous mode compared to conduct. I rarely look at the meter as the depth I'm talking about its unreliable and go mainly by sound, previous sovereign use really helped here.

For relic hunters too that look for bigger iron objects, putting a couple of lines of discrimination on will cut out the smaller nails/staples, iron flake etc. and still allow the larger iron through, this together with the new pinpoint mode sizing really helps, far far better than just a straight forward NULL