Which Sovereign and Which Meter?

[Propugnator]

I haven't posted on this forum before (I don't think). I have an Explorer XS that I mainly use for beach hunting and I am thinking about getting a Sovereign to take over that role. I have done very well with the Explorer XS but I feel that I am missing some gold and platinum targets (which is what I am primarily looking for), and also some quarter and silver targets.

I use the Explorer XS in the dry sand mostly but it seems to do well in the wet sand also. I mainly run the Explorer XS between IM-16 and IM-14 with very high sensitivity. I do have a few problems with the Explorer which makes me want to get a Sovereign instead for this type (and possibly other types) of hunting.

1. The Explorer XS is too noisy (background type noises), and the background noises are similar in tone to quarters and silver, making the Explorer harder to use. If I decrease the sensitivity and/or increase the IM, all it does is decrease the sensitivity and depth on good targets, and the background noises are still there. Switching it to the Smarfind display makes it lose too much sensitivity to small targets. 2. The Explorer XS signals over good targets are too sharp (narrow), I would like to get longer, more drawn out signals and tones for the good targets. 3. The Explorer XS needs more sensitivity to smaller gold. Specifically gold chains. I usually need to set the Explorer to IM-16 or IM-15 to get only the shallower, larger gold chains, but then I have to hear all of that iron too. 4. The Explorer XS needs a little faster sweep speed/recovery. This is usually not a problem but I would like to usually use a little faster sweep speed but not risk skipping over more good targets. By the way, I am not trying to badmouth the Explorer. I think the Explorer is a great machine and I have had some success in using it. In fact, probably my overall best find in metal detecting, I found with my Explorer on a beach. It is an 18K Gold and Platinum ring with a large and very high quality diamond, which measures around .62 carats.

I am hoping that one of the older Sovereign's will handle these problems a little better then my Explorer for the beaches (and possibly other places). Like I said, I hunt the dry sand mostly, but I do go in the wet sand sometimes. Gold and Platinum is my goal, but I want to dig for everything besides most iron when I hunt beaches. Multiple target ID tones is a MUST. Weight is a total non-issue, I don't have a problem swinging an Explorer all day, and I can take heavier machines than that with no problems (Besides, I have heard that the Sovereigns are lighter anyways). I do not want the Sovereign GT because it is too expensive. I want to get an older used Sovereign: Sovereign, Sovereign XS, Sovereign XS-2, Sovereign XS-2apro, or Sovereign Elite. Somewhere in the $300-$350 price range. I have seen those models sell for around that much on the used detector classified forums. I am going to sell one of my White's machines to get most of the money. I don't want to spend the money on a GT, The GT is the new guy and there seems to be a big price jump to get one of those.

So Which one of the pre-GT sovereigns would you recommend for me? I have heard that they are all very similar in performance and that the only real differences are in the features. So here's another question, which features of the pre-GT Sovereign's do you most prefer and are the most useful?

Now about the ID meter. I am just throwing that out there in case I find that I like using the new Sovereign more than my other machines for when I hunt at parks and lots. I love to use meters at any other place besides the beach. The places where I don't want to dig for everything. At parks and Lots, I want to dig for gold and platinum the most. But I also want to dig for dimes, quarters, silver coins, and silver jewelry and try to ignore zinc pennies, screwcaps, bottlecaps, and copper pennies if possible. It has to be a digital meter (The patriot meter is out of the question). So which one of the digital Sovereign ID meters will be the best for that type of ID'ing?

I also have some questions regarding the 180 and 550 meters. Should I get a 180 (Modded) meter over a 550, and why? Doesn't the 550 meter have more distinctions between different targets(more different target ID numbers)? If that is true, then why would a 180 meter be more accurate and better(I ask this because everyone seems to say to get a 180 meter)? I have heard that the Sunray DTI meters are the best digital meters. If that is true, then the one with the backlight sounds the most appealing to me.

And my last and probably most important question is: are all the different Sovereign coils (BBS Tornado, Coinsearch, Coiltek, Detech, etc.) and ID Meters (Minelab 550, 180 Modded, Sunray DTI, etc.) as equally and as fully compatible and functional with all of the different pre-GT Sovereign's?

Thanks for the help,
Justin

 

[adam in cal]

I think you do real well,judging form the post of your finds on antoher fourm.I think the sov. elite and the sov. xs are the best of the sov. units ........I think going beach hunting you probally want a waterproof coil ....I would go 10 inch tornado for the beach.the rescaled minelab meters are rock solid,but at the beach you have to cover the meter or it will get sand inside no matter how careful you are. I say elite or xs tornado and rescaled meter is a monster at the beach good luck .............Adam ( N>C>P> )

 

[berkeley bottle boy]

the tornado coils (elite) are a little lighter than the bbs (xs2). all of the coils and meters are compatible with all of the units. Someone posted on there a while back that they were using a GT 180 meter on an elite so thats backwards compatible too.

the sovereigns are heavier than the explorer by a bit though, the numbers I have indicate 3.8lbs for the explorer and ~5.6lbs for the sovereign (with the elite being ~5.3).

the best part of the Sovereign for me is flipping back and forth between disc and all metal to see what the sov thinks it is versus exactly where it is. if you're going to under the arm or hip mount this means you want a remote all metal/disc switch. its an easy mod and I'm amazed they didn't do it for the GT.

as for the meter, 550 has more numbers but most of those numbers don't tell you something specific -- that is to say if you sweep and get 548, 550, 549, 547 -- well its probably 550 which is clad or silver or a blob of melted lead or a false off of iron. So just because you have more numbers, doesn't mean that they're more meaningful if that makes sense. If you have the 180 meter then I guess numbers bounce around by 1-2 rather than 3-6 -- if you find this comforting?

The sunray is the only meter with a backlight (I think) but again its a pretty easy mod to stick an LED on there.

Heres a partial lineage of the Sovereigns:

XS - nonwaterproof coinsearch coil, RF shield, optional bargraph meter
XS2 - waterproof bbs coil, drop in battery, optional 550 meter
XS2a - same as XS2 but added single tone switch (useless)
Elite - tornado coil, frequency switch, new slip in battery back

So if you want newer and lighter, get an elite. Otherwise get an XS2 or XS2a. They all work about the same.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I have used all the different Sovereigns myself and find my favorites were the XS, the XS2 and now the GT. Being you don't want to go with the GT than the XS or the XS2. The XS I like because this is the Sovereign I started with and I like the battery pack that was a plug in one so you know you had a good connection. I also like the Coinsearch coil which I still have if I ever need it to use on my GT. The XS2 is the Sovereign I seem to dig the deeper coins with while using my coinsearch coil with.With the XS2 or the XS2a the battery door would slide open sometimes and give a bad connection on the battery, so it would cut in a out at times.
I also have a Explorer too I use plus a few others and I know what you mean about hearing some of those signals off of iron that sound like a coin signal. I get a little of this with my GT being it is so sensitive too, but over all the Sovereigns hate iron and you can tell the difference easy.
For small gold chains the Sovereign is no good for them at all as they see each link by itself and one of the drawback to this detector just like the Explorer.
Now one the Explorer can separate some of your coin targets better and you can reject coins and trash the Sovereign cannot. The Sovereign you can not disc or notch out the screw caps or the new zinc pennies. The copper pennies, clad, silver all reads the same on the Sovereign, the Explorer you can tell the difference in most cases. I like my tones on my Sovereign so much better too as they seem to be longer sounding and when you go over a target the tone will stay that until the next target it sees, but the audio will go lower once over the target. This make it easier for me to tell when I go over a target whether good or bad. Iron will null and come back with a growl for a threshold. The Sovereign too has a learning curve which most of it you will learn with use of it and some experience with it.
For meters if you decide on one which I recommend to help the learning curve is the Sun Ray if you can find one as it has a template of all the numbers and what they mean. Now you can hear a tone and look at what you are hearing in a digital number. The Minelab recaled meter to 180 numbers is also very good, but I feel the numbers lock on better, but not as sensitive to small changes for the deeper ID. If you want a lighted meter the Sun Ray DTI 3 or the Night Hawk meter have lights other then the Patriot which is not for me.
Coil wise will depend on how trashy the site is, if trashy then the 8 inch coil works good and if not real trashy the 10 inch coil just like your Explorer. My favorite 8 inch coil is the coinsearch, but it is not waterproof, so the 8 inch Sun Ray seem to me have a narrower hot band so it can see separate targets better, but also the signals don't seem so wide as they do for the coinsearch coil. Now for a 10 inch coil the Tornado used on the Elites and GT is a good coil, but for coverage and depth I still like my S12 of Sun Rays and feel it will work excellent for beach hunting if the trash is not super bad.
Now when you throw cost into this to get by with the least amount then this is what I would recommend. Maybe you can find it all in one sale, but a XS or a XS2 with a rescaled Minelab digital meter and the 10 inch BBS coil for around $350 can be found. If you can find the 10 inch Tornado coil would be better, but very few used one are showing upon the classified. If you can find a Sun Ray DTI 3 meter would be good too, but they are getting hard to find as they are not made anymore. To find a used S12 coil will cost you over $125 as I don't remember seeing one for less as new is around $200. Every once in a while you will see a nice setup on one of the classified for a very reasonable price,but you have to be fast to get them.

All the coils made for the Sovereigns are interchangeable with any of the Sovereigns. The meters the new Digisearch for the GT I was told will not work on the older Sovereigns,or the older Minelab digital Sovereign meter will work with the GT, but I know the Sun Rays will work on them all as that is what I have on my GT.

I hope that will help answer your questions. One more thing is the 180 number over the 550 many of us like on the meters. The 180 numbers on a good signal will only change a number or 2 while the 550 changes several numbers with some overlapping another target ID. On deep ones where the signals is weak the 180 will jump around too,but find that it seem to lock on to good numbers much better so you dig less trash.

Rick

 

[Beachcomber]

I use both the Explorer and the Sov GT for beach hunting. Both are excellent machines. Based on your post above you aren't using the best settings for the beach on your Explorer. To get rid of the narrow target sound change to Audio Mode 2 in the Advanced Mode. This will make the Explorer sound like a Sov. Also if you have fast turned on...turn it off. In the Main Audio Settings change from Conductive to Ferrous Tones. Otherwise rusty beach iron and quarters sound the same. Also if you are hunting with "very high sensitivity" in the wet sand you will get a lot of squeaks and squacks as you are overloading the detector. I have found that on the beaches I hunt the Explorer runs best with the sensitivity set to 20-24 in Manual. Depth on coins at this setting is in the 14" range and it has excellent sensitivity to both gold and Platinum. That being said you really can't go wrong with either machine. The Sov GT is almost the equal of the Explorer on gold and platinum but not quite. The only real downside to the Sov vs the Explorer is that the Explorer's Audio ID is head and shoulders above that of the Sov. You can easily tell the denomination of a coin just by the audio tone with the Explorer. You can't do that with the Sov. I would have thought that Minelab would have brought the Audio ID up to the level of that in the Explorer but for some reason they have left it with mediocre Audio ID. Maybe they will fix that in the Sov GT 2 Even so I do enjoy using my Sov GT! I wouldn't give up either machine! JMHO

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Propugnator]

Beachcomber, thanks for those great sounding settings on the Explorer. I never even considered changing the Audio Mode on my XS. Setting the Audio mode to 2 sounds fantastic if it widens the target sound, that was my biggest gripe. Audio mode is the ONLY thing I haven't tried, I think it is because when I first got my Explorer and was testing it out, I switched it to one of the different audio modes (maybe 3?) and it sounded really crazy so I never tried the other ones and I never went back. I have tinkered with everything else. The settings that I have been using were really high on sensitivity and threshold. I most always had it on BOTH FAST AND DEEP OFF. I liked conductive only because it seemed to give the lower (gold) conductors and smaller targets a wee bit wider target sound and I liked the tone on the lower (gold) conductors better with it. I sacrificed getting more iron and possibly less quarters for that. I even set the threshold tone to 1 to reduce some of the screeching making it somewhat easier to use. If Audio 2 works out good for widening the tones then I will definately try switching back to Ferrous (I have used Ferrous before). I do not go into the waves and I try to stay out of the water, but I do go over some wet sand. However I am primarily hunting over dry sand. I like to push any detector I own to the limits electronically(primarily for sensitivity and depth) but if I get 14" on coins with these settings on Sens 20-24, that is fantastic. I think even better than what I was getting with my settings even with the Sensitivity higher. I can't wait to try it out at the beach. I have taken my Explorer in four times to fix (the same) bad problem (the Explorer sounds cutting out sometimes when using any headphones). They have finally fixed that problem the last time. But what was great was that each of the four times that I sent it in, they seem to tweak (improve) my Explorer XS's electronics so when I get it back each time it seems a little more sensitive and deeper seeking then when I had it the last time (And no it is not just the factory reset). I don't know if I had a "hot" Explorer XS then but maybe I do now. But the best part is that I never had a warranty and they always repaired or replaced the parts and components of my Explorer for free, and sent the machine back to me free at their own expense. Minelab Rocks! However, with my Explorer XS, the ID meter still likes to ID dimes, copper pennies, many silver dimes, and even some zinc pennies in the SAME EXACT PIXEL, which I DON'T LIKE. I know it is that pixel because I have tested it at home time and time again with all sorts of different settings and disc patterns. I used the learn and edit functions extensively to break it down that far, they just all seem to like that one pixel, ugh! I like digital displays more than a square pixel graph, but I don't like the single digital display (0-32?) on the XS (it is too limited), so I use the graph. I would probably like the Dual Digital display on an EXII much more than the graph (but of course I don't have an EXII:|). Anyways, I am still going to get a Sovereign of some kind. The main reason is because I have a mid-range White's machine that I never use anymore collecting dust which I can and will sell. It doesn't like heavy mineralised soil, Surprise Surprise! . I will use that money to pay for one of the Sovereigns. The XS, XS2, XS2A, or Elite sound like winners. The Elite sounds like one I would like to get but they might be a little higher. I am just looking for a base unit. I would like to try to get a cheaper package with (any) of those Sovereigns, a Tornado 10" coil, and any Sunray DTI 180 meter, if I can find a package like that. And I don't care as much about the backlight as I let on because I use LED lights for night hunting and to also see the ID meter whenever I want to in those circumstances. I will likely get one of those larger and more expensive Sovereign coils later on (If I like the machine enough). I have noticed that the Sovereign (especially older Sovereign) packages have thinned out on the forums lately. I am of course going to make sure that I have sold the White's machine and have the money before I even consider contacting someone on the purchase of their used Sovereign. And the 5+ pounds of a Sovereign is definately no problem for a young man like me. Thanks for all the help everyone.

Justin