Frank, you've got a lot of wisdom there. So true. I don't want to come across as some old f*rt. I ain't that old. I grew up right at the edge of the digital revolution and I've been schooled in both worlds. Heck, at one time a few years back I even went to school for computers and self taught myself in about four languages, including machine language. Then I dropped off the face of the digital earth for a while, and now I'm playing catch up again in certain respects.
I'm going to preface the rest of this post by saying this- I ain't a digital hater. I love digital. I like digital. On certain days I love a mesmerizing digital computer screen and the extra ability to tweak a detector, so I'm not hating on it. Just different moods for different days.
But just the same, there is something to be said for more "analog" type controls or inputs (audio/visual). There is an old saying, that the more you overtake the plumbing the more easy it is to clog up the drain. What that means is that the more you remove the user from the raw audio and visual ID of a target, the more something is lost in translation. As an example, unless a digital machine converts the analog signal from the RX winding from the coil into digital, and then simply outputs that as it's direct analog to digital response in pure data, then something is lost.
The reality is that on many machines (nearly most these days IMO) take that analog to digital conversion, and before outputting it to the VDI or the audio, it's then run through tons of software to process and sanitize it into a more "user friendly" type of output. Think of it as fly-by-wire airplanes these days. No longer does the pilot feel the hydraulic resistance to the maneuvers of the controls he's making, or even can trim the controls in manual ways where as a computer determines what he is trying to do and then changes the position of a servo to simulate it on the control. When those types of planes first came out the pilots complained that they could no longer "feel" the plane and had trouble controlling it, so then they then put in electronic servos at the controls to "resist" the pilot and simulate the feel of resistance he would normally feel from the mechanical controls of say the rudder, elevator, or ailerons.
For what? Now we've got two systems (actually three) doing what one system would have done in the first place. Now we've got three times the potential for failure. And now we also have a artificial simulation of what the pilot *should* feel rather that what he'd really feel if he was flying a mechanical control craft (even hydraulics) in the first place. How do you really know now how that control "should" feel? How do you trust it's input? It's now a artificial represenation of what some programmer thinks you should feel. It's not reality, it's a simulation of reality, and now there is a computer and a programmer between you and what the real world is.
There is a simple child's game from years ago...To tell the first person next to you a sentence, and then that child is supposed to whisper it to the person next to them, and then the next to them, and so on, all the way around the room. When what was originally said gets back to the person who said it, it resembles nothing like what they said in the first place.
Point being that the more you remove a person from the analog, or at least digital raw representation of the original analog signal, the more that is lost in translation. No longer can you hear the distinct traits, the fine details, the "raw quality" of the signal. It's been sanitized, processed, and presented in a nice clean wrapper to make it more "user friendly." This is the very reason why there are many vinyl advocates out there for records. Something is "lost" in translation. The "finer" details. The "essence"...Is gone.
Same deal with VDI. The Sovereign outputs a simple 2V scale for the conductivity of the target. At first you might think "how primitive", but think about it. The conductivity of a target is based on a scale of low to high. I want simple pure "low to high" representation of the target's ID in a #. Since it's not sent through layers of fancy processing, what you see is what you get. That's why the VDI on the Sovereign is very "instant" and doesn't lag out of phase with the audio.
Terms of the audio...Man, not exaggerating. It's like the best of the old analog units in terms of detail, yet combined with the numerous multi tones of a Minelab. I've owned many machines over the years, both analog and digital, and yet I've never seen anything like it. Best of both worlds IMO. Can't get more detailed in terms of the length of the sentence it's telling you, yet it's also adding punctuation in terms of tone alerts. Who could ask for anything more, and who would settle for anything less? After all, the audio is key to a hunter. First and foremost we hunt by ear. Most of us anyway. The VDI is just added insurance as a second thought, or when we can't hear to split IDs on two close targets in conductivity.
I'm really surprised there aren't many more land ring hunters with the Sovereign than there seems to be, because IMO it's got it all to try to play that game of trash versus treasure in terms of what it can tell you about a target audio wise. I've owned some nameless machines known for their audio abilities (several in fact), and let me tell you the Sovereign is heads and shoulders better to me in audio. Not just because of the numerous tone alerts, but also in the long detailed audio. It's really got the best of both worlds IMO...
