What is different about Excaliber?

[alton]

A guy at our club recently bought an Excaliber and his relic finds are now fantastic. He has an Explorer,DFX and other detectors. A lot of it has to do with the person using the machine and location. But he is the same as he was before he got it.

What gives Excaliber the extra depth? As far as I can tell it is not a pulse machine, but 17 freq. I'm guessing that it has discrimination and target ID.

So does the Sovereign doesn't it? Does the Sovereign get the same depth? Does it outgun the Explorer?

Clearly the Excaliber has something going for it. What is it?

I've been wanting to have a water machine when I visit my sister in Florida and when I hunt at the lake beaches around here. I've had the Excaliber in mind for a few years anyway but now it looks like I might be getting ready to plop down another $1100.

Inquiring minds want to know. What is it about this unit?

Thanks,
Alton

 

[adam in cal]

it certian situations the sovereign will ''out gun'' the explorer , but like you said it has a lot to do with the guys swingin it. from my understanding the excal is essentially the same as the sovereign, but fully waterproof and it lacks the ability to be outfitted with a target id meter. The sovereign is capable of phnomenal depth , as is the explorer but in my mind the sovereign beats it up in demo hunting, the only knock is you need to go fairly slow with a sovereign or you will pass right over good targets, I imagine it is the same with an excal. I have not used an excal before so I cant specificly speak for that machine, but I do know the sovereign is a tremendous machine ......If I were inclined to go water hunting I would without any doubt use an excal .......good luck

 

[RobRcer]

For one, it puts out 17 frequencies at once. A standard VLF style detector puts out just one!! The different frequencies go through mineralized ground better i guess, and get better target ID. The coil is a double D design too. So instead of a concentric coil putting down a cone shape, the double D coil puts down a coffee can shaped signal. The concentric coil detects less area at more depth, but the double D doesnt change with depth. I use the Excal to beach hunt, and it gets IMHO better depth than the pulse i had. Ive dug coins in wet sand sooo deep that i actually wanted to turn the sensitivity down!! Your arms get tired after digging 12+ inches for pennies. The first time i went out with mine i got alot of change, a watch, and a junk ring. Now my dad, brother, and me have them. Thats my opinion on it. Good luck, HH!!

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Everything Rob and Adam said is true. And yes, the Excal DOES have target ID, but in tone only...there's no visual. But in tone, it works exactly the same as the Sovereign...because it is essentially the same detector.

When I got my Sovereign Elite a few years back I hunted the beach with it before I ever land hunted and I used it for a month without the meter, so I could learn the tones. I found more money and rings with it than I could count that first summer. I also land hunted with it, into the fall and winter...digging silver coins and many CW bullets, buttons, etc. But it was never intended to be my land machine...I had a CZ-70 for that. I got it primarily as a backup machine and for the beach. I liked it so much for the beach that I got rid of it and bought the Excal. Which I've now used for two summers and has paid for itself several times over in gold and diamond rings.

Now for LAND hunting with the Excal, I never have but have heard of many who have/do and would say that it would be a terrific relic machine once you knew the tones and got used to them. I wouldn't think that you would want to hunt with it in a trashy situation, like a playground or an old home site for instance...or anywhere else where you would NOT want to dig everything. Because in those spots I think a little extra help in the form of a visual target ID would be a requirement for me. But for the woods, farm fields, or other sites where there was little trash or in the case of a campsite or similar spot where you DID want to dig everything (like we do at the beach) then the Excal would be a fine choice.

In addition to the Excal I also have a Fisher CZ-70 and the Minelab Explorer SE. I do most of my land hunting with the SE and all of my beach hunting with the Excal. The CZ is my backup machine these days. The machine that is the deepest would be the SE. The Excal and the CZ are probably tied for depth, though on the beach I would give the nod to the Excal. But the Excal's strength is not it's depth. It's the way that it hunts, it's the consistency of it, it's the super-simple but fabulous tone ID system. It's also the 17 frequencies, of course. And probably the fact that it's a "threshold" machine is a big plus too, because once you use it for a while you begin to get a feel for how it reacts on the really deep targets that with many other machines you would simply MISS altogether but with the Excal, you hear the threshold "break" or waiver momentarily and it tips you off to a near-miss, which upon further and closer inspection becomes and good target.

So, can you buy an Excal for the beach and "have your cake and eat it too" while using it as a relic hunter as well? I believe you can. If you haven't seen my post before on Excalibur sounds that I recorded on actual targets with my own Excal, hit the link below and you can download it. I made the sounds for the beach hunters but if you want to hear what a minnieball and a musketball sound like, listen to the penny. Buttons would be a little lower usually and coins are coins, but a nice silver quarter would have a significantly different "fineness" to it and a little more pitch than the clad quarter. But you'll get the idea. I made the sounds with Windows Sound Recorder and a small microphone I was holding in one of the headphone cups. I had it cranked up. The quality is good but the volume is low, so CRANK UP THE SOUND for best results.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,405738,405738#msg-405738

 

[alton]

That is great info you gave an good job on recording the sounds.

I've been thinking about recording my finds to an Ipod and reviewing them at home.

I feel like my SE will probably serve me fine as long as I stay on the beach and out of the water. I don't think you are allowed to go in the water in Florida. That is where I would visit.

Thanks again for the great info.

 

[Marc(NB)]

its all in the settings!Get her out of auto and fine tune it till the threshold is a steady hum.You can disc out the ferrous targets a tad just to knock out deep small iron.As far as the sov its the same machine except it isn't waterproof.Ive hunted with 2 good buddies who have the Exp, and defiantly the Exp is deeper,with my sov an with a S12 coil couldn't hit a deep musket ball,while the Exp was hitting it out!Ive then got it out of auto and at the 11 O'Clock position was was able to hit the target but faintly.Hope this helps to answer some of your question.HH

 

[Marc(NB)]

my good buddy before he bought the EXP used his Excalibur for relic hunting and was very successfully.He won a minelab team award for a relic contest down in the USA about 3-4 years ago and he was using the Excalibur at the time.

 

[Wisconsin Pete]

And after reading his posts and seeing all his treasures I knew I had to have the Excal...I follow Mikes posting like I was some kind of gruppie at at rock concert...because of Mike I'm now have the itch for the Explorer SE....but I'm containing that feeling till I get use to the Excal. Can't wait for all this snow to melt so I can get out and "swing my thing"...but with getting another 6 inches last night...I"ve got a while to wait...it could be worse...I could be living in New York

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Well I really appreciate your comments and those of others. I'm not groupie-worthy...really. I am just a metal detecting addict like everybody else. And like any good addict, I know how to use the tools that feed my addiction well. But seriously...wait, I WAS serious...no matter, glad to be such an inspiration.

Now as for this SE thing, hey...it's a great machine. But it depends on the type of hunting you want. For the beach, I just LOVE the Excal. For land, the SE is a very nice machine. Once you get used to it and get the hang for the tones, how to set ip up best for your area, and whether you like Digital or Smartfind...once you "get your style on with it" you get more and more comfy with it. I have a great machine in my Fisher CZ-70 but most of the time I yearn for the hi-tech bells and whistles of the SE...it can be more fun. Now at trashy sites I have to say that I was leaning toward going back to my CZ for them, but then I got the 4.5 x 7 coil and I really like that coil for trashy sites and so now the CZ is standing against the wall again for a while. It's ALL good, as they say.

I hope that you are as happy with your Excal as I think you WILL be when you get a chance to finally use it. This darn global warming is a bee-yatch, huh??? Speaking of which, does anybody else see the insane irony that the conference on global warming was cancelled today, due to excessive snow and ice??? That's too damn funny.

 

[UK Brian]

The Excaliber is always inferior to the the Sovereign range unless you are actually going into the water.
The Excaliber seems to have stayed at the performance level of the Mk II Sovereign. The Sovereign meanwhile has evolved by making access to the different functions instant (instead of having to open the case and move jumpers) and in the latest version the ability of the original Mk I to have the iron mask turned off plus increased sensitivity.
Add to that the inability of the Excaliber to take advantage of third party coils and it has to remain a poor second to the Sovereign for land or on the beach use. The Fisher CZ20 suffers the same problems. No easy coil change. Locked in salt mode that means land performance can really suffer and on the salt there's times when performance is really limited unless land mode is used.
Re the frequency question that raises its head several times a year its not the amount of frequencies transmitted but what the machine processes.

 

[ejudasf]

Last year I used the Excal for relic hunting. At first I used it in Pin-point/All-metal mode and left it like that. I did pretty good with it. Musket balls, Iron and Copper canister shot and lots of other odds and ends.

Before that I used other machines at the same site. None could compete due to the alkalai and some salt in the sandy soil. The only machines that were operational with minimal falsing were the dual frequency, pulse, and multi-frequency machines.

The X-terra series wasn't available at that time, but this time there was one, and it performed as well as the multi-frequency machines.

Anyway, I liked the Excal so much, that I ended up buying a Sovereign Elite for this site. A year was coming around, and I was able to get a Sovereing GT as well. I love the Sovereigns.

I also learned how to use the threshold tone now. The Sovereign Elite was modded to have Silent Search, which is a good concept for something, but now I prefer the threshold tone. It does give you hints to some of the deeper stuff.

I was also sporting the SunRay S-12 for my recent Archeological Survey, and I know it's a killer combination.

My opinion on why an Excalibur user will be very successful relic hunter, against a Sovereign w/meter or an Explorer will be the METER. The meter would sometimes dictate NOT to dig, while a 'non-metered' machine will beep only, and you gotta check the target. Just an opinion.

laterz

ed

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Yeah, I have to agree with all you said.

It's funny...I bought an Excal after using a Sovereign Elite and loving it so well for the BEACH that I wanted the Excal. You did the oppossite. I also had the Sunray S-12 with my Elite...GREAT COIL!

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

...where it excels is when you accidentally drop them in the water. It kicks the Sovereigns butt there.

I also don't see much benefit to being able to turn off Iron Mask on the beach. On land yes, but on the beach I'm fine with it.

I like the 10" BBS coil. Although I DID like the Sunray S-12 for my Elite, it's too big for the water. Whereas transitioning from dry sand to wet sand to the water is fine with the 10" FBS coil and the coverage is pretty good too. Although I HAVE thought about doing the watertight inline quick disconnect mod, because I DO like that S-12 for the wet sand and I DON'T do much deep water...mostly shallow.

But I got rid of my Elite with the 12.5 Sunray and got the Excal for the waterproof aspect of it and have not been sorry. It's paid for itself many times over in gold and diamonds at this point, in just two years.

 

[va bch fred]

n/t

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Hunting in discriminate may be something that SOMEBODY wants to do...for what reason, I wouldn't know. But the whole POINT of the Excal for me is the wonderful multi-tone system. In All Metal you don't get that. Might as well have a PI machine.

I have never even used my Dic/Pinpoint knob...it stays in Disc 100% of the time. I pinpoint in disc mode. As for the Discrimination knob, it stays all the way down...on "1". And the sensitivity usually stays at 11 O'clock. Turn it on, set the threshold, and off to the gold we go!

 

[UK Brian]

Always unless your going into the water I said.
Excalibers always lag behind the improvements of the Sovereigns and the Sovereign is a fraction of the price so unless your going in the water why waste money ? Replace the Excaliber headphones, coil etc to maximise its performance and its still behind.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

You are entitled to you opinion.

In my opinion, the extra functions of the newer Sovereigns are not needed on the beach. And I don't use my Excal for the land. As for aftermarket coils, I'm quite happy with the 10" because it transitions nicely from the wet sand to the water. A larger coil is too big for in-water use. And by in-water, I mean the wet sand at the water's edge...down by the SURF, where it's easy to get hit by an unexpected wave, which has happened to me many a time as I worked the low tide late at night. That's why I got rid of my Sovereign Elite with the Sunray S-12 coil and got the Excal 1000. Now if you are a dry sand hunter, than the Sovereign is fine. In fact, a Treasure Ace will do. But for doing the wet sand and shallow water I would rather spend the extra money and know that if I drop the machine in the water I won't have an expensive paperweight on my hands when I pull it out. And at the beach, the tones of the Excal and the tones of the Sovereign are one and the same. And the tones is all you need. Can't read a meter at night anyway.

 

[UK Brian]

Don't think you will see many meters apart from the U.S.
The waterproofed Sovereigns offer all the advantages of the Exaliber at a fraction of the cost. Lots being made in your home country and the depth advantage really pays off.
As for tones whats the point ? Their only a means to lose the items you want to find. Ferrous/non ferrous is all thats needed.
I see from your comments that you consider that nothing sinks deep on the dry sand ("even a Treasure Ace will do"). Try a top land machine and knock the discrimination right down and you'll be shocked at what your missing.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

I'm not missing a thing my friend...I have an Explorer SE and hunt in Iron Mask All Metal most of the time. I have a 12.5, a 10.5, and a 4.5 x 7 coil to cover every situation. I also have a CZ-70 that I use as my backup machine now but have hunted extensively on land and the beach with. But the Excal is my main beach machine now. And my comment on the dry sand was simply that the machine doesn't need to be as sophisticated to hunt the dry sand as it does when you bring it down to the water and the wet salt sand.

I don't hunt the dry sand much because at least here, the good stuff is MOSTLY in the wet sand at low tide. At least all the stuff I want is...the diamond rings. And I get plenty of them. The point of the tones, to me, is that I can decide not to dig a penny or a bottlecap or some foil if I choose not to. And I can tell most of the time, on those things. I have a very high accuracy rate on determining good stuff from trash by tone. I don't dig everything but I listen to everything and I dig MOST of it. You may think I miss a lot, and as I said, we each have to have our own techniques and hunt styles.


Here are just a FEW of my finds with my Excal from just this past summer, all posted on the Beach & Water forum and many of them on this forum when I originally found them. The Excal works for me and I have increased my finds with it since replacing my Elite with it. Mostly due to the freedom to work without fear of dumping it. And I know you can waterproof a Sovereign...be my guest. But the $1000 I spent on my Excal was recouped in the first few finds, so to aim your question back at you, "what's the point?"

My best of the summer...paid for the Excal FOUR TIMES over in one shot!
[attachment 48860 BadassRing.jpg]

And it was found the same night with this other one, a big fat chain, and a bunch of money...so paid for it another time over.
[attachment 48861 BlingBaby.jpg]

But wait, there's MORE!
[attachment 48877 6-11-2006c.jpg]
[attachment 48879 8-6-2006b.jpg]
[attachment 48880 29July2006b.jpg]
[attachment 48884 Bling.jpg]

So what I'm saying is you don't need to "make do" with a machine that's not made for the beach to "save" a few hundred bucks. You may call the Excal a backward and outdated machine, but I don't know ANYBODY that has one that hasn't done TERRIFIC with it. There must be a reason for that.

Happy hunting.

 

[UK Brian]

Your happy that improvements are not being carried over which is fine but twelve or so years back the Excaliber had the edge over the Sovereign with a slightly smoother threshold due I expect to the stretched circuit board. From then on all the other Minelab models improved and the Excaliber has sat still.
Until the last year when I hit a wreck site this side of the water the most Spanish/Portuguese coins (1600's) I've found came off U.S. beaches which in view of the fact that I only get to detect them for a few weeks every couple of years means lots is being missed.
I also use an Xsis Diver (similar to the U.S.Aquasound). It and my normal P.I. will give a hard hit over small items that the Excaliber skims over without a whisper.
Its time for a re think and a revamp. You can make a reasonable detector from the Excaliber with a third party coil and a replacement of the headphones but by the time you have invalidated the warranty you may as well go the whole hog and convert a Sovereign.