Tom... question concerning CZ6a/CZ3d vs. Sovereign GT...

I know you use a converted CZ6a to CZ3d specs for a lot of your beach hunting. Have you used/tested/worked with a Sovereign GT? If so, I wondered what your opion was concerning the multitones of the GT vs. the three or four tones of a CZ6a/CZ3d?

When detecting for gold rings on the beach, do you find the 3 or 4 tones of the CZ's to be faster in deciding to dig or not compared to listening for the "correct" tone/tones from a GT that could be a gold ring? This would be beach hunting dry/wet sand and targeting gold rings only, not for general coin/relic hunting.

I ask as I am familar with the 4 tones of the 3d, and would dig only the foil and/or pull tab signals when beach detecting for gold rings, but am not familar with the multi tones of the GT. If used, did you find any information it gave in the sounds that helped ID rings better than just the two tones of "foil" and "pull tabs"?

Connor,

I dig all of the diamagnetic length audio tones. ((((How's that for an answer!)))).

Truthfully, I dig every single non-ferrous target in the wet sand....... regardless of 'tone'. I'll even dig a lot of the iron tones. Sooooo...... the Minelab Sov/GT tones are great........ as are the CZ's tones; yet, I employ: 'beep' = DIG! And............ for what it's worth............ both units are nearly identical performers in the wet salt. There is no 'magic audio delineation' between trash targets vs gold targets.

I just traded my Sovereign GT away. I will pick up another Sovereign this Winter. It is my favorite beach detector. The trade was just too good to pass up. Having used 4 different models of the Sovereign during my detecting career I have to say when it comes to performance I really see very little difference between the models. There are differences between the coils BBS vs Tornado. Straight shaft vs S Shaft. And probably the biggest difference is the battery canfiguration. But when it comes to actual wet sand hunting any Sovereign with a Tornado coil will get the job done. As Tom said the tones are very good on the Sovereign series. But some of my best finds have come from iffy tones. On the beach if it beeps you really need to dig it. I would say the best features of the Sovereign and Excal for that matter are it's ability to remain stable in wet salty sand and it's ability to distinguish rusty iron. Dig all the beeps and believe the null. If it nulls it is iron.

Tom's post is spot on but the multi tones of the Sov. require a learning period and well just not for everyone and CZ's are more user friendly.

Speaking from experience as used both on NJ shores.In my mind either handle the conditions well...

Although I have experimented with both can't find any audio variances between junk and gold rings which of course if I did would only use this method to cut down the odds only on land as on the beach and in the water if it beeps you dig as the odds go way up in this enviroment for finding a gold ring.

I will add on the digital CZ's with notch some notch out the coins for less digging and better chance of finding a gold ring but always the chance of missing a gold ring in Zinc or Nickle but theoretically you would get the majority of gold rings lost. Of course this is not possible with a analog CZ as the disc. is linear..

I can offer a little feedback at least on the Sovereign side of things. Owned various Minelabs as well as much of what is out there. Too me the Sovereign or Excalibur combines the best of both worlds- the long, rich, detailed, robust audio of the best of the old analog machines in traits, yet with the numerous tone alerts of a Minelab.

Even without using a meter, the distinct tone and "round" sound of a nickel is hard to miss on my GT. Stops me in my tracks every time I hear it. Foil is easy as it's a distinct lower tone. Pulltabs have a bit higher pitch than nickels. Coins copper penny on up also have a distinct higher pitch to them. Not really hard to get a handle on what pitch of a tone means what conductivity of a target.

More so than that as far as a learning curve is the other aspects of the audio. The long, detailed, target "traits" are what takes time to get a grasp of. I can often easily ID an odd shaped piece of trash versus something round like a ring or a button in the lower conductvity range, for instance, by if it sounds "round", warm, smooth, soft, robust, and of general "quality". Versus that of a lot of trash that can sound harsh, tinny, bangy, hollow, odd shaped (scratchy at the edges), sick, and so on.

A friend had found well over 100 gold rings over the years hunting in the water with an Excalibur, scooping every signal above iron regardless of how bad it sounded. He never passes a target up. So these rings were not biased in any way, such as a sample pool from people who dig only certain zones or such. What we found when we scanned and graphed them in on my Sovereign GT, an Etrac, and a M6, is that fully half of the rings read in the foil range, and that even the nickel and tab zones combined didn't equal it in numbers. In fact, more rings were found from just a hair below zinc penny up to the silver coin range than there were in the nickel zone for instance.

Reason being? That the old saying that most rings read in the nickel zone are due to machines with poor VDI resolution that take in a much wider window for the "nickel" zone", with a good bit of targets below in the foil range, and a good bit of targets above nickel in the tab range. These distinctions can't be seen on most machines, but they can on the Sovereign due to it's super high resolution of conductivity in the foil to copper penny range. Nickels, for instance, read around 143 to 146. Tabs, round or square, start at about 148 or 149 and go up to 169 99% of the time. Zinc pennies are either 173 or 176. For that reason, one of my favorite "odd" #s to dig is 170, 171, and 172. There is a lonely gap there between the highest tab and the lowest zinc, where I hardly ever see targets read, so I'll never pass one of those. Found a lot of nice goodies digging those #s at land sites.

Back to the thread topic- That out of that 120+ rings or so, only a small handful of them had a sick sound to them. These were rings with broken shanks or ones with a lot of fine spiderwebbing. Yes, dig it all on the beach, but if you are being picky at say a land site you can at least avoid some trash while probably still getting most rings by listening for the right audio qualities. Not a hard and fast rule though, of course.

One of the things I like about the BBS units, is that the audio is so long and robust that it grabs my attention on even the deepest of targets. Very hard to miss what something is saying to you when it's a long strongly pronounced word versus a short little quip.

If you are looking for finer stuff like thin gold chains or tiny gold earrings, then for sure look elsehwere, but in terms of even the thinnest of gold rings, the BBS units will bang them hard and deep just like an old silver coin, due to the nature of the ring being an intact metal loop which presents a large image to the detection field. So long as the ring is intact the Sovereign will see it at depths that will make your jaw drop and strongly tell you about it.

Terms of nulling stuff, yes...most of those will be iron. But, on one really badly mineralized beach I hunt, which contains microscopic iron, black sand, and minerals, even the top of the line legendary ability of discrimination on the BBS units is having issues there. At 5 or 6" or deeper a coin will null or choke out like an iron false or not even break thru the null at all. I had read blurbs over the years from some Excalibur guys that running in pin point mode with volume at full and sensitivity at full was giving them the depth of at least *some* PI units in really bad ground. I never put much thought in that one way or the other, because I was already more than happy with the depth of BBS in my bad soils/sands, but just the same one day a few weeks back I decided to start playing with PP mode on my GT, since I had wired a remote PP switch to the grip on it.

Well, let me tell you, this beach was dead until I did that, and then suddenly I had an apron full of coins. I was shocked to hear a target just fine in PP and then switch over to disc and only have it null or not sound off unless I wiggled right on top of it to break it a bit out of the null. Scoop them up and they were coins or other good targets that disc should have had no trouble hitting hard at 5 or 6" depths or more. I'd keep flipping back to disc to judge the response comparison before digging and it just blew my mind what disc was missing or nulling out. And I wasn't running sensitivity at max like they say you can in PP mode anywhere, but rather kept it at what was stable for disc when I switched back to it. I also was running volume at all the way down where as for sure PP gives more depth at full volume on the Sovereign/Excal, and yet PP was still seeing deeper for me.

One day about a week ago, I was hunting on land and decided to PP in PP mode, even though I usually just use disc for that. I had laid my machine down and noticed my digger was sounding off to PP mode even with the digger aimed at the coil to present somewhat smaller of an image to it, and from all the way down my detector shaft behind my arm cup. This was at full volume and with sensitivity not even maxed out, and was also while testing the 13" Ultimate coil. Sure, even a digger aimed at the coil is still a much larger target than a coin or a ring, but my air tests show PP is indeed deeper at full volume, and without even maxing out sensitivity, than disc. I'm wondering just how useful it would be for large civil war relic hunting or cache hunting for instance. Maybe a sleeper PI mode on my GT I never even knew I had, and I haven't even explorered the All Metal Fixed or Track modes yet either which are said to have their own unique abilities too.

Biggest perk about PP mode (just like the All Metal modes), is that the old pros are telling me it's got some very rich language all it's own to ID targets. I can already see that, because often I can ID iron without flipping to disc. It'll have fuzzy approach/exit aspects to the target edges, or it will only sound off one direction. From what I hear there are about 10 other distinct audio/target traits to both PP and All Metal as well. Can't wait to learn them. The audio response is also modulated, so you can easily judge target depth. If it's shallow enough sounding that disc should have no problem with it for that given site's minerals, I'll flip to disc and if it nulls then I move on. If it sounds deep enough to have issues in disc for the mineralization, I'll scoop out enough sand to see what the story is. Still nulling? Then I move on and leave the iron for the PI guys. :')

Based on how well PP does or doesn't do as I test it's limits, it might be the deciding factor in whether I decide to add a Blisstool to my lineup or not. I have much to explorer though, and much more research to do on the Blisstool, before I can arrive at any such conclusions. At the very least PP is a decent PI mode and maybe even better, but with some unique target traits ability to it's audio to avoid iron and some other junk much of the time perhaps. With PP, all metal fixed, track, and disc mode, I now feel like I've got 3 other machines locked up in this control box I never knew I had. Should have paid attention to some of the heavy hitter Excal guys a while back that kept yapping about PP mode being PI like in depth and performance in bad soils or sands. So far it looks like they weren't blowing smoke about that...

I can see the benifits of just digging any and all non-ferrous targets in the sand instead of spending time to figure out if it's something you want to dig or not. It might be different in soil/rocks/roots and such where it usually takes longer to retrieve a target. I might dig several targets in the sand in the time I would dig one target in dry land soil. I think the CZ platform is the way to go on beach hunts especially when you only get to travel to such locations only 2 or 3 times a year. Very little to remember except "beep, dig" :-)

I'm hoping to pick up a good CZ6a soon for a winter project. Maybe someone here has a good one they're not using?

Good choice of a unit and its weather resistant features are a plus if your talking about salt sand situations. Of course I have one but not going anywhere unless the time comes to give up this hobby. Having used all of the CZ models its certainly one of the best CZ's ever made even though it has a few years on it.

We ran a test on the beach down by Atlantic City NJ and the machines that were tested were

1) AT Pro
2) Hot Rodded Excal amped up
3) CZ21 bone stock

We tested dry sand and also wet salt sand .....AT Pro could not compete with either of the other machines ......Every scenario the CZ-21 beat every machine including the modded hot rodded Excal that Ole Beechnut brought with him from Maryland , buy quite a few inches .....
There are some unconventional settings on the CZ's that make them as deep as any pulse machine .......You can't go by the tones on ANY of the machines on deep gold ......None of them give you an honest tone once you get past 12 inches in the sand ....

I will put my CZ6a up against ANY SOVEREIGN in the wet salt sand for gold .....Honest , True , measurements with a gold ring on a string, buried in the wet salt sand !!... ......Winner takes the other guys detector !!....... Any takers ? ....Jim

(((( NICE!!! ))))

Quote
synthnut
I will put my CZ6a up against ANY SOVEREIGN in the wet salt sand for gold .....Honest , True, measurements with a gold ring on a string, buried in the wet salt sand !!... ......Winner takes the other guys detector !!....... Any takers ? ....Jim

I'm certain Critter will take you up on your offer. Nevertheless, I've got a C-note on your CZ...

I have never used a CZ. How does it do in the iron? You mention Atlantic City. I have hunted there. Iron is the name of the game there. Does the CZ give false positives on iron? I know the Sovereign will null.

Having used both units, they are both top notch beach hunters. I have learned that when hunting with a Sov or Excal, if you get a null, you have to re-sweep that area from all angles. There are times when that unit will sniff out a good target via a small tight repeatable 'peep' in the audio at a certain sweep angel.

In very heavy iron laden sites, the main factor that can possibly ( notice the word possibly) give the Sov an edge is the coil configuration. A smaller DD coil on it may be able to get in between iron targets and hit on a good one.

I am partial to the CZ for the simple fact I have used them for over 17 years and are just used to them and their audio. If a brand new beach hunter asked me what I suggest to use, a CZ or a Sov, I would tell them to try them both and use what they prefer.

The depth and gold sensitivity, to me, are practically identical. It's those other differences ( DD coil vs Concentric, auto vs manual ground balancing, multi tone vs 3-4 tones) that would sway a person one way or the other in my view.

I don't think critter would risk his Sovereign, that's his baby..... I wouldn't. I have used a cz on the wet salt beach using a 18" metal hand scoop, kept thinking to myself,"how many scoops do I have to pull to find this target..
Clad at a foot plus, AND,.. proper ID.....thats sweet in my book (not the clad).

synthnut Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> There are some unconventional settings on the CZ's> that make them as deep as any pulse machine

jim, would you mind letting me know what settings you might be talking about? i have a cz6a and cz20.
chuck.

Goodmore... Many folks concider the CZ's to be nail magnets :-) They have a habit of falsing on old rusty nails, giving the high tone of a coin. You will need to learn how to tell if the detector has really detected a good target (coin?) or if it is being fooled into thinking it has detected a good target. I think the concensus is you must circle around a good sounding target to see if it sounds good in more than just one direction... (which would be the direction you were walking in when you first heard the high tone). If you don't, you will dig a lot of rusty nails. The way I have come to visualize why this happens is thinking of the CZ's ability to detect objects is done so in a circular fashion instead of linear. Linear would put iron on one end of the scale and silver on the other, a good ways apart from each other with good seperation. ...but it doesn't. ...at least, not in the way I see it.

Imagine a clock with just an hour hand. ... from 6:00 up to about 7 or 8 o'clock, the detector is seeing iron. After 8 o'clock, it starts detecting foil... at 9 o'clock, it starts detecting nickels. From 10 o'clock up to about 1 o'clock, it's picking up aluminum pull tabs (beaver tail and square) and maybe some zinc pennies. It begins detecting coins at about 2 o'clock up to around 6 o'clock... and ...the bigger and better conductor the coin is, the closer to 6 o'clock it gets.

As you can see, on the immediate left hand side of 6 o'clock is iron, rusty nails and such things. On the immediate right hand side of 6 o'clock is very good targets such as coins. The falsing comes from when the undesirable left hand targets bleed over into the desirable right hand target area. They're very close to each other to the detector, and some detectors are better than others at seperating the two. The CZ's can usually differenate between the two "IF" you will move around a target and give the detector a chance to see if it can confidently pick out if there's iron there or not. It can't always do that from just one direction, thus you give it more directions to test the target out.

I hope that's not too confusing, and hope it's not entirely wrong :-) It's the way I look at many detectors that will false on iron, and the CZ's are one of them. Maybe others here can give a better example, and maybe a more true one if my ideal is not exactly right.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2012 08:13AM by connortn.

Thank You very much. I know exactly what you are talking about. I have the Deus and it is a wonderful dirt machine. But iron wrap around is something I have to contend with. Sweeping from different directions is the way to tell iron. Bent nails and round rusty washers are always harder to rule out, but as I learn from experience I am getting better. But when I'm not sure I will dig. It might be that half dollar Tom.

I remember Surf Digger (a Jersey Beach Hunter) mentioned in one of his videos one time that the CZ can false more than the Excal & Sovereign. It does sound like it is manageable. Unlike dirt hunting where digging some iron might bring out a nice relic I don't want to dig iron at all on a beach. And as some of the posters on this thread know Jersey beaches can have their iron. In my beach hunting I feel like digging iron is costing me time. Digging deep iron is not only time consuming it is a big fatigue factor. But gaining a few inches on a discriminating machine does fascinate me. Especially a stock machine. I'm not in favor of giant coils either.

If I might add to your clock scenario connor. I'm just going to brain storm here a little.

Say the imaginary clock is laying flat on the ground with the target being at the center,......and.... your not always approaching the target with the 6 closest, and the 12 furthest. The target (center of clock) isn't always in front of you, it may be at the left or right side of your swing. I think the size of the imaginary clock would depend on the coil size.

Lets say the ideal swing is from 3, then to center (target) then to 6. Or any of the numbers that are opposite on the clock. The swing is not always crossing the opposite clock numbers, it may arc from let's say 2 to 5, missing the center, or 9 to 6 etc. Let's say the cz will id this certain target best if the swing is from 1 to c, to 7. On a different target, maybe 5 to c, to 11.

Now if there is a co-located trash target there, that changes the perfect swing for the detector to id. So, as far as the cz, you have to walk around the clock to find the magic numbers for it to id correctly. With my cz (and I'm sure most) they love deep iron nails and pieces. To determine, and get the best id (by sound), I have to cross the center of the clock at certain numbers on the clock. If I get grunts on a couple number combinations, it's most always iron.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2012 12:47PM by ozzie.

After reading all the above posts and using both a Sov. and CZ on NJ shores both work well in this enviroment and a matter of personal choice.

Of course the CZ coil for coil is deeper but then again may be one of the deepest coil for coil on the planet no matter what unit you are using.

As far as telling the falsing coin signals from a high coin signal it doesn't come overnight but from the get go an experienced CZ user will know one from the other and not be fooled very often.

PS:Hmmm....don't see anyone taking up Synthnut on his offer and nothing against a Sov as its a fine unit with an experienced nut behind the wheel and found some nice targets with one just not at the depth of a CZ6A....

The CZ falsing will occur but it's not like it takes hardly any time to figure it out. I'd rather work a false than wait for a null to recover. Pick your poison...

I've hit a mid-19th century church site with my Tom (;/@&$#}+ calibrated CZ that is littered with nails of all types. Hit a nail, hear a high tone chirp, change angle slightly, hear a grunt and move on. This takes all of two seconds and then you're on your way. I've never recovered a good target with a consistent grunt tone associated with it at a specific angle. A properly calibrated machine is necessary so you hear the correct tonal quality and elongation common to a coin target. Tom's land video shows this process in real time.

Yes, you have to learn the machine but I do believe this can happen overnight if first taught in a "trash dense" setting. It's really that easy.

The process is akin to filtering the F75 static from real targets when running too high a sensitivity except the filtering on a CZ takes place around a target rather than around an EMI affected environment.

-----

I'm sure Critter will take up the challenge; he just has not read the post. He's very confident with his Sov...

Most experienced CZ users know one of the key things to do when running in discriminate mode is to run in 0 versus 1-6. Running where you listen to all targets and have the low tone ring out as opposed to suppressing via running 1-6, makes a world of difference in the ability to distinguish iron target falses.

When I first got my CZ6a, I ran in discriminate setting 1 a lot, and was fooled a lot by deeper iron wrap. Since I could not hear the low tone, I would assume the high tone hit was a good one when it was iron wrap. Learning to run in 0 mode along with sweeping at multiple angles helps a lot....as well as learning what the all metal mode tells you when checking in that mode. There is a lot of information the CZ gives you when checking a target in all metal.

There are different sounds ( be it long, short, harsh, mellow, etc.) that the all metal ( auto-tune in CZ parlance), gives you and it is very beneficial to check iffy targets in all metal.

The quicker. louder, harsher 'whoo-whoo' sound of a target in all metal as opposed to a mellow, short 'wha' is a clear indication of an elongated target versus a small rounder one. As the targets get deeper, it is harder to tell, but sizing and listening for those differences in all metal does help.

Sad thing is, unless you dig it up, ya never really know !

Therover is surely an experienced CZ user and tough to explain audio and its variances and hands on experience is where its at...

If your lucky enough to hunt with an experienced CZ guy and he is a patient mentor a couple of trips together will put you on the right track and shorten the learning period..

If I ever pick up a CZ (and I just might in the Spring) I will look up one of you experienced hunters for some help.

I will not devulge my settings on my CZ for extreme depth ....... I would never be able to find any more CZ's if I did .....Right now they are very reasonable to buy ....I have spent FAR MORE time on Minelab machines than I have CZ's ....... If you work with a Minelab machine that has a meter to ID targets and it gives you both Ferrous and Conductive numbers , you will find that the tone might fool you into thinking that you are hitting Silver because of the high tone that you will get from iron falsing nearbly ......However the Ferrous content AND the Conductive numbers are different than any Silver .....Not only that , but without a meter , you can go over your target at many different angles and most of the time , if it's an iron false , you will not get a repeatable tone when checking the target ..... From what I have found , it's harder to go back to the same area and get the same iron false ......A GOOD target will be much more repeatable, whereby a false will not be in most cases .....

Again , when setting up various machines , they all have sweet spots for the depths you are hunting .......I am a beach hunter now much more than a land hunter .....I've dug my share of old Wine caps that mimiced Silver to a "T" and I have dug down a good 10" to find them in hard dirt .....No more of that for me ......A Sand Scoop is much easier ..... Saltwater eats away much of the trash so targets are few and far between, easier to dig , and not as much trash to deal wtih ....... Here's what I can tell you .....Take a target that you would like to find more of ....I take a medium size gold ring on a string .......I start at 8 inches down , and continue in 2 inch intervals going deeper and deeper .....I continue to set my machine up and constantly adjusting it and checking my target ....... You will find with most machines that you will NOT GET AN ACCURATE ID past about 10 inches or so .....You will get a repeatable tone , but it will NOT be an accurate tone or number if you have a meter after about 10 inches or so ..... I know that Critter will be here to tell me that he get's accurate numbers and tones down to a 12 or 14 inch depth with his Soveriegn ......... I'm thinking that he owns a one in a million Sovereign ..... Nobody else get's this knd of performance so I can understand why he will never part with his Soverign .....

We FROZE OUR BUTTS OFF in the Winter doing depth tests with various size gold rings and I can tell you that you could hear a large mans gold ring down deeper than 14 inches in the wet salt sand ( MEASURED !! ) like it was only down about 8 inches or so .....Very solid yet a softer tone , and VERY repeatable ......The tone was not accurate at all ..... I don't know about you , but anything that I am digging in sand , that brings me down deeper than 12 inches or so , I don't really care what the tone is .....I'm digging it !!......The closer you get to the target , the more accurate the tone will become anyway .........Happy Hunting !!......Jim

I have not been in touch with Ole Beechnut , but you can talk to him as he was there for our depth tests .....So was EZrider .......

Synthnut, You will not divulge your extreme depth settings for the cz? Not many adjustments to get to that. Are you going into the head to tweak it?,... im puzzled

Synthnut, which coil was on the Excalibur when compared to the CZ? That can make all the difference. IMO when it comes to top of the line detectors, in particular the Minelab BBS and FBS units, to see any real edge in depth or unmasking between them all comes down to coil choice IMHO. I've seen it with my own eyes and ears on numerous hunts. Why do you think they put an 11" coil on the SE and Etrac? Think improved depth and separation compared to prior Explorer models. Largely that is what I feel, anyway...

And of the Excalibur? Many say it's not as deep nor as sensitive as the GT using the same exact coil. Reason being the Excalibur is based on an older pre-Elite Sovereign model. Many feel the XS models were the best of that pre-elite batch of machines, with the Elite being a tad deeper, and further so the GT.

And what kind of minerals are we talking here, and in salt soaked sand or not? One of the perks to the BBS units is no need to play with a ground balancing function. IE: You can work your way in and out of wet sand and not have a mal-adjusted ground balance for the changing ground conditions cause you depth or stability problems. Balancing in one spot and moving to another WILL cost you depth. The BBS units are not Auto ground tracking in disc. It's very different than machines with either a pre-set balance, or ones with auto ground tracking, both of which are a trade off in depth and performance.

The CZ line are fine machines for sure. If the Minelabs weren't available that would probably be my choice in a detector. Different strokes for different folks. I prefer the numerous tone alerts of a Minelab for one thing. All depends on the hunter's preferences, because I have no doubt the CZ can do just as well if not better in the hands of the right person who knows how to get the most out of it.

Let's hope the long running rumor of Fisher aquiring the rights to BBS technology is true. I'd love to see what they could do with it, especially since Minelab has for the most part abandoned the technology, with only the Excalbur using it now, and we all know the Excal has a few issues (failing POTs, heavy and unfriendly shaft configuration, no ability to change coils or headphones without voiding the warranty, etc).

Synthnut, one more thing...You said the Excalibur was amped up? I'm assuming it's the audio amp some are using. If that's the case it only shows benefits in pin point mode from what I hear. I also saw some testing done where I believe they said that audio amplifier showed no benefit on the GT, as the PP mode on the GT appears to already do it's own amping of the audio by way of volume being turned all the way up, where as on the Excalibur amping the audio will boost the threshold response in PP mode to notice targets even deeper than you could hear without it.

This jives with my own testing, because my tests do show that at full volume PP mode on the GT appears to get about 4" more depth on a clad dime than with the volume all the way down, even though I seem to hear things just fine with it like that. My tests also show that volume lowest or highest has no effect on depth in discrimination, so long of course that you have good enough hearing to hear stuff at lowest volume at fringe depth, which I can. The only benefit to full volume in disc that I saw was it was easier to hear the "meat" and "qualities" better of the target in disc at full volume.

There is another form of "amplifier" out there for the Sovereigns, which connects between the control box and the coil and uses it's own lipo battery to boost the output voltage to the TX winding in the coil. Some say it gives them much better depth, while many said by the time they adjusted the sensitivity control on the Sovereign to run stable the depth was no better or worse than without the amp. I suspect that has something to do with the mineralization of the soil. Adjusting the power and strength of the detection field generated by the TX coil can be problematic, which is good reason why it's a fixed thing on most detectors. Most detectors change the gain on the RX (received) signal via the sensitivity control, as that has more promise in showing gains in depth in most soils.

The coil on the Excal was the 10 inch Tornado .....The coil on the CZ was the stock 10 inch coil ...... The CZ used was a newer CZ-21 ......... I have compared my CZ-6a to this very CZ-21 and it's just as deep with a stock 8 inch coil

The amp on the Excal was an audio amp , and it was one of Doc's ......While some think that the circuit on the Excal and the Sovereigns are the same , you can amp up an Excal with good results , but there is something ( I have it somewhere in my notes ) about the Soveriegn circuit that does NOT allow an audio amp to work properly ....I've tried and failed with the Soveriegn circuit .....

These tests allowed us to adjust the machines in many different ways ......Believe me , after seeing how well the Excal did with the audio amp , we were all quite shocked to hear tones coming out of the CZ when the final depths were being recorded a good 3-4 inches deeper than the Excal

With all this CZ talk, instead of starting a new thread I thought I would ask the question here. Tom would know best but jump in if anyone has an idea...

It is said that the older CZ's are just not profitable and take a lot of work to tune (both when new and then later down the line). Would it be possible to have a newly designed CZ unit tuned either by:

a - The user - via user accessable controls and instructions. Yes, an analogue unit.
b - via a chip, if the CZ could truly be digital only or perhaps a mix. Maybe you coud wave a predefined coin(s) in front of the unit to get it to automatically do this and slowly move it away while sweeping and the chip would find and tune to the furthest signal. It would be sort of like a variation on ground balance, in a sense. Be creative here as I am just throwing out some ideas.

Albert

Tom had stated awhile ago the analog 3D is, compared to digital machines, very expensive to manufacturer, and labor intensive. Theres 2 dozen different adjustments that need to be set perfect for it to be properly calibrated.

I think the 3D is one of the best machines ever made. Unless metal detectors stop working on radio waves, the 3D will always be a sought after machine. I don't think a digital machine could ever reproduce its tones. If there was one thing that could be improved I wish it was its falsing on rusty nails.

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Aaron
If there was one thing that could be improved I wish it was its falsing on rusty nails.

Next time, try running your ground balance at zero.