One of the things on the Elite is they changed the switch position on them, so for us that used a Sovereign before we found many of the switches in the wrong places when we went to adjust them. They put them back on the GT where they were before and added a few extras toggle switches too.
The Elite and the GT both have the same battery packs only different color, the GT now come on a straight shaft with a adjustable hand grip so you can adjust it for better balance. Minelab added a toggle switch on the GT for silent search or a Threshold so you can set it for the type of hunting you will do,the Elite had to be internally set for silent search if you wanted it. The GT also has a toggle switch so if you hunt in all metal for prospecting you can ground balance and lock it or run track so it will track the ground, but this is in all metal mode only as it does not work in disc mode. The tone ID is only in disc mode as all metal the meter will not ID either in all metal mode. Most are coin hunters with the GT or the Elite so we run the disc mode and have the meter and tones to ID. The GT also give you a choice of iron mask the Elite don't, this is usually been on on all the Sovereigns other than the original one, now with the GT you can turn it off to help in some of the site with a lot of iron so you don't get too much falsing on smaller iron,but with it on like the Elite it may chatter a little more around iron, but you will get good targets close to iron too. Myself I have never found a spot that I would want to turn it off as it works so good for me around iron.
Now this will be where some will disagree, but I find the GT is a bit more sensitive too as i seem to get more iron that will sound good, but learned how to check signals from a different angle to tell if good or bad. I seem to dig deeper for some of my coins I find also with the GT. I also find that the meters seem to ID deeper too and give the correct numbers over the Elite or any of the other Sovereigns.
All the Sovereigns are good in the right hands, but feel those that have used other Sovereigns will find the GT is a little better all around detector.
One more thing is the Elite came new with a 550 meter many will rescale to 180 numbers, but the rechargeable battery was extra when new. The GT comes with the rechargeable battery,but the meter is extra and now uses a 180 meter that from what i understand will not work on the older Sovereigns or the older Minelab meter work on the GT, the Sun Ray will work on either and think the Night Hawk will too.
Rick
