Question for Sovereign GT

[foreign object]

Any you guys have much experience with the Sovereign Gt ? Wondering what kind of real world depth they have in mild to moderate mineralized
Also i understand that it is a 6 tone machine and if so can they be reduced in number to say three or four or are you stuck with all six?

I guess Minelab is phasing them out of their line up and assume they they will repair until the warranty is up. How long does Minelab generally service and repair (have parts) after they discontinue a model.

All info is appreciated.
Thanks
foreign object

 

[old lobo]

We need more information from you. Where are you located? Mineralization and ground moisture are different around the country, and those things effect depth, so thats why where you are would be helpful. what kind of hunting are you going to do? Coin hunting in parks or old homes, relic hunting, and either fresh water or salt water hunting each have machines that work best for that purpose, so thats why I'm asking. In my case I live in Southern California and mostly beach hunt. I used an Ace 250 for 3 1/2 years and saved all the change I found during that time, (I was doing the dry sand and parks, because that doesn't do well in our wet black salt beaches). During that time I watched what everyone else was using in the wet sand, which is where I wanted to hunt. By far, the people that weren't using a p i machine were using either the Sovereign (not waterproof, but you can change earphones and coils) or the Excaliber (waterproof but the earphones and coil are hard wired).I used the money I found with the Ace to buy the Sovereign GT and I love it for the purpose I bought it for, but I have a Fisher CZ-70 pro that I like for park hunting because of the quick responce of the signal and it gives me the depth reading, and it's also rain proof which comes in handy some times.
Your information of the Sovereign having 6 tones is wrong. The tones are unlimited, there is no meter so a person can get some idea of what they found by listening to the pitch of the signal. A person with good hearing can train their ears to tell the difference between a dime and a quarter by the sound, and the only way to have single tone on that machine is to use all metal, then you will only get one tone on any metal, the only problem is you won't have a clue what it is until you dig it. If you are relic hunting all metal and one tone are fine, but for any other kind of hunting either of those is a pain in the butt. If you want a detector with a meter but with only one tone you might consider a White's MXT, if you don't need a meter a good single tone choice might be a Tesoro.
As I said in the begining telling us where you are and what kind of detecting you are going to do would help to find someone from your part of the country to be more helpful than all my blab.

 

[Ism]

Sovereign GT is a variable pitch machine going from low pitch(low conductor) to high pitch(high conductor). A meter can be made (I did) and at least one member makes them for sale for a reasonable price.
See the Sov GT forum to have all your questions answered and also look at the videos on YouTube.
The warranty is 3 years and now transferrable. I don't know why they are discontinuing it unless they just aren't selling as many.
Minelab also raised the price recently by a couple hundred bucks.

 

[Critterhunter]

The GT I own has outstanding depth in my neutral, mild, and heavy mineralized soil and sand sites. There are also more tones than you can hear, but it's not confusing. You soon key in on the tones that you are interested in. Minelab and several other companies have made meters for it for years, and if you can't find one used meters are easy to make for it. The scaling is super high in resolution on the 180 scale of most meters, in terms of from foil all the way up to copper pennies. I've found a lot of nice finds by just digging targets 1 digit off the 20 digit spread of where all (99%) of all pull tabs, round and square, fall. Nickels are almost a sure bet, as they tend to read 143 to 146, well below the starting point of tabs at around 148 or 149. The tone of nickels is also very distinct from tabs. And though there is a digital wonderland going on under the hood of the Sovereign, what I like most (besides is raw power and depth) is the long, detailed, rich, analog like audio. It's not been overly processed or santized/shortened. For that reason by audio alone you can often find keepers you might otherwise not dig. The audio report is also very "robust" at depth.

It is a slow machine, so if you just have to swing super fast then this is not the machine for you for sure. However, if you control your sweep speed, and use a quality DD coil with a sharp DD line such as the Stock 10" Tornado (on Elite or GT), or the SEF 12x10 (even better), recovery speed is not an issue. In fact, I prefer a slow machine these days, as I feel it allows me to slowly work and linger around "junk" looking for hints to high tones in there. One of these coils will also seperate two targets laying right up against each other. It's all in how you work and use the coil. Also, these days looking for the deepies I prefer a "long lingering look" without the machine trying to reset on me, so I can soak up the best response at fringe depth. I feel that's the key for me to plucking out the super deep ones, and as said if you use a good DD coil and don't swing the coil like you are launching a golf ball then recovery speed is a non-issue. BBS, running at 1.5 to 25khz, seems to ride over my minerals with smooth "warm butter" like stability too. Needless to say I love this machine, but be warned it's very unlike any other out there that I've owned or used. It takes time to stop hating it and then to love it, but IMO it's worth the effort.

Far as warranty goes, bought new (you got until the end of the month for Minelab to make more, but I'm sure dealers still have them in stock and might even be stocking up on them....just that if the dealer doesn't have it in stock then your order must be in by the last day of December. Same with the 8 and 10" Tornado coils (10" comes stock) or the SE Pro. But...Bought new you've got a 3 year warranty. I would suspect Minelab will fix them then for several years beyond that as well as that's just good customer relations. Think of it this way...Somebody might buy one new from a dealer a year from now that has them still in stock. That means they should easily fix them 4 years out because they'll have a 3 year warranty. I'd suspect they'll fix them say 7 years out at least, otherwise that might make some people mad if they stopped fixing them the minute they ran out of warranty.

 

[foreign object]

Thanks for the replys guys.
Foreign