Yet another sounder question

[rtp1984]

Hi all.

I am looking at a new sounder for offshore work up to 100m of water.

I all ready have a plotter that suits our needs, so a combo is not necessary, but not discounted. I would like to keep it under the $1000 mark, but if I need to spend a bit more, it will be considered. I would also like to buy from Australia, just for ease of any warranty problems.

I have been looking along the lines of the elite 7 HDI. Any experiences?
Is it worth the extra to go too a furuno 627?

Any other suggestions? I don't really have a brand preference, but have a b&w lorance, and it has been good.

Thanks in advance
Rob.

[DaveNkelly]

Im looking as well and the more you read the worse it gets.lol

from what Ive read you can get a garmin baby chirp for about $1000 from the states not sure here.
they are meant to me great but only up to 100m

Im far from an expert... < very very far> but its probably the option I would go if I was happy with 100m max,

all as I keep reading about the lawrance gear is it breaks down allot, but Ive never owned one..

Dave

[Still_Dreamin]

That boating camping fishing place has hd7 for $999. Sale started yesterday

[Aussie123]

Have a look at the new Raymarine Dragonfly.
It is a combo sounder/GPS and has a 5.7 inch screen.
Comes standard with a chirp transducer for down scan imaging and a full Australian gold navionics chart.
You can get these for $850

[Moonlighter]

I will make a comment here about Lowrance and reliability issues.

First up, on the record, I am a long-term Lowrance user. I just find their menu systems and user interface more intuitive than the others, especially Furuno, which I think is some kind of Japanese/English translation. But that's just me!

I would add that in my opinion, the new HDS touch series has set an even higher benchmark for user-friendliness. Even my mate who is a technology troglodite was able to quickly get his head around it and was "driving it" before I had time to walk him thru how his new HDS12 touch worked. Believe me, that says something!

FACT:
The fact is that Lowrance "owns" a far larger share of the recreational sounder/gps market than any other brand. Not by just a bit, but by a long shot. I saw US figures and it suggested they outsold the #2 player in the market by a factor of at least 2:1.

So, it seems that I am not the only one that finds them easy to use and good value......

What that fact about market share also tells me is that, even with a similar failure/problem rate as the other manufacturers, the actual number of people experiencing problems with Lowrance gear will be significantly more. In other words: many more people using their gear, so likely that more units with problems will arise.

So thats the first thing you need to realise. I really doubt that the failue rate of units from the Lowrance stable, and that includes Lowrance HDS and Elite series and Simrad, is any greater than any other manufacturer.

Secondly, when you do have a problem, it is how the manufacturer backs up their product with support that is important.

My own experience has been pretty good over the past 30 years that Ive used their gear. I do know and have read some accounts of major problems experienced by a couple of Ausfishers, but to be honest, the evidence points pretty strongly to poor electrical wiring in their boats and crappy installation work as the culprit there, not the Lowrance gear itself.

More recently, the HDS series - i have 2 HDS5's on my boat, one a GPS and the other a sounder. Had them both for over 3 years.

They have never failed. None of the legendary water intrusion problems that "everyone" supposedly had, no losing bottom that "everyone" also had, no "blue screen of death" etc. I know 5 other close friends who also have HDS5s or 7s and none of them had any of these problems either.

You have to wonder how many of those problems were installation or user related, too.

With help from other Ausfishers, I did discover a software problem for them relating to fuel flow calculations from NMEA 2000 networks and they did resolve that with subsequent software updates. Took me a while to convince them, but a facebook post on their site and contact with a Lowrance Pro-staff memberin the USA psoon got them focussed on sorting that one out!

I will say that, in recent years, they do seem to be falling into the same mode as our good friend Bill Gates, who, in his ever present haste to get the latest version of Windows into the market, releases it too early every time and then lets us users find the bugs for him so he can then fix them in version 2.1 etc.

Lowrance seems to be doing this a bit too much lately as well IMO, with too many bugs in new releases that simply shouldn't be there. Bad form, really. But again, it seems that not everyone has problems. And their help-desk people can sometimes be hard o pin down and may not always be as helpful as they should be. But are they any worse than the others? Doubt it.

So my advice to potential Lowrance purchasers (or any marine electronics purchasers) would be the same as I always give to anyone buying any new technology product:

don't buy new versions when they first come out - wait 6 months for some other suckers (oops, i mean valuable customers) to find the bugs and give Lowrance time to sort them out with software version 2.1.

Then you should be fine.

Finally, i see lots of people complaining that their 4 or 5 year old unit failed out of warranty.

Crikey, these days any modern electronics item is pretty well cactus and past its use-by date after that length of time.

I am about to replace my 4 year old home pc, it is too slow and starting to get unreliable. I will pay a similar amount for a new one as I would for a new HDS7.

Am I complaining? No. You just accept that after 4 years, hard drives, graphics cards etc are at the stage in their life that they start to fail with greater certainty.

Same applies to marine electronics. If you get more than 5 year's life out of them, youve done brilliantly!

Cheers

ML

[Casey Ison]

585/587 furuno mate awesome sounder. probably a few hundred over your budget but I would definitely consider if I was you.

cheers!

[Jakers 69]

Just upgraded my HDS 5 and HDS5M, witch never gave me any problems in 3 years to a Simrad NNS7 & HDS9 Touch, link to Wifi.
Use IPad for extra screen.
You can get a package deal from Simrad( NSS7, WIFI, CMap,and 50-200 Trans ) for $1300 from most dealers.
Not bad at all.

[honda900]

Stop and ask yourself what commercial operators use and why?

PS, if you want to see a video of a Lowrance units with bottom holding issues I have a number of them, Generally the owners ignore what they see and assume the device is working properly, but they do have some good points by the same token.

At the present time Lowrance has more units on the market than they can deal with which is why they are in their current software release predicament, their release and marketing strategy wasn't thought out properly.

Regards
HOnda.

[rtp1984]

Thanks for the replies.

I think the 585 furunos might be a bit out reach, although I have fished in a boat with one, and I was very impressed. Is the 627 the next step down? How does it compare?

What has been the verdict on the dragonfly's? I heard heaps about them kn the lead up to there release, but not much since. How do they go in the 60m+ depths?

I have heard very little about the simrad stuff. A quick google gave me the impression that the nss7 was a plotter first with a sounder added on. Is this unfair? How do they stack up?

Our boat is a fairly wet centre console, and the sounder will probably get it fair share of weather, should this be a consideration at all?

Thanks
Rob

[rtp1984]

Honda,

What do commercial operators use?

[chocolatemoose]

australia is a holden ford polarised country. i dont feel what commercial operators use being a factor. because.. they are commercial. there is a reason why companies manufacture recreational stuff and commercial stuff.

i find the "usage" of the dragonflies to be annoying. but i've only used them in a shop. tbh mate i dont think you can go wrong with the major brands. they cant afford to make a crap product now days.

[fishing111]

Good read ML, but i for one expect better longevity out of my gear than 4 years. If i was out every day i would cop that quite readily, however who goes fishing everyday. I'd be lucky to use my boat twice a month, and i mean lucky! When my boats not in use its tucked away in an enclosed shed away from the elements. If my gear was exposed to the elements and left outside then 4-5 years would be a fair call in my opinion.

[Toddy_again]

Is that Lowrance or Navico you are talking about with the 2-1 sales?

Have you got a link for those figures?

Toddy

I will make a comment here about Lowrance and reliability issues.

First up, on the record, I am a long-term Lowrance user. I just find their menu systems and user interface more intuitive than the others, especially Furuno, which I think is some kind of Japanese/English translation. But that's just me!

I would add that in my opinion, the new HDS touch series has set an even higher benchmark for user-friendliness. Even my mate who is a technology troglodite was able to quickly get his head around it and was "driving it" before I had time to walk him thru how his new HDS12 touch worked. Believe me, that says something!

FACT:
The fact is that Lowrance "owns" a far larger share of the recreational sounder/gps market than any other brand. Not by just a bit, but by a long shot. I saw US figures and it suggested they outsold the #2 player in the market by a factor of at least 2:1.

So, it seems that I am not the only one that finds them easy to use and good value......

What that fact about market share also tells me is that, even with a similar failure/problem rate as the other manufacturers, the actual number of people experiencing problems with Lowrance gear will be significantly more. In other words: many more people using their gear, so likely that more units with problems will arise.

So thats the first thing you need to realise. I really doubt that the failue rate of units from the Lowrance stable, and that includes Lowrance HDS and Elite series and Simrad, is any greater than any other manufacturer.

Secondly, when you do have a problem, it is how the manufacturer backs up their product with support that is important.

My own experience has been pretty good over the past 30 years that Ive used their gear. I do know and have read some accounts of major problems experienced by a couple of Ausfishers, but to be honest, the evidence points pretty strongly to poor electrical wiring in their boats and crappy installation work as the culprit there, not the Lowrance gear itself.

More recently, the HDS series - i have 2 HDS5's on my boat, one a GPS and the other a sounder. Had them both for over 3 years.

They have never failed. None of the legendary water intrusion problems that "everyone" supposedly had, no losing bottom that "everyone" also had, no "blue screen of death" etc. I know 5 other close friends who also have HDS5s or 7s and none of them had any of these problems either.

You have to wonder how many of those problems were installation or user related, too.

With help from other Ausfishers, I did discover a software problem for them relating to fuel flow calculations from NMEA 2000 networks and they did resolve that with subsequent software updates. Took me a while to convince them, but a facebook post on their site and contact with a Lowrance Pro-staff memberin the USA psoon got them focussed on sorting that one out!

I will say that, in recent years, they do seem to be falling into the same mode as our good friend Bill Gates, who, in his ever present haste to get the latest version of Windows into the market, releases it too early every time and then lets us users find the bugs for him so he can then fix them in version 2.1 etc.

Lowrance seems to be doing this a bit too much lately as well IMO, with too many bugs in new releases that simply shouldn't be there. Bad form, really. But again, it seems that not everyone has problems. And their help-desk people can sometimes be hard o pin down and may not always be as helpful as they should be. But are they any worse than the others? Doubt it.

So my advice to potential Lowrance purchasers (or any marine electronics purchasers) would be the same as I always give to anyone buying any new technology product:

don't buy new versions when they first come out - wait 6 months for some other suckers (oops, i mean valuable customers) to find the bugs and give Lowrance time to sort them out with software version 2.1.

Then you should be fine.

Finally, i see lots of people complaining that their 4 or 5 year old unit failed out of warranty.

Crikey, these days any modern electronics item is pretty well cactus and past its use-by date after that length of time.

I am about to replace my 4 year old home pc, it is too slow and starting to get unreliable. I will pay a similar amount for a new one as I would for a new HDS7.

Am I complaining? No. You just accept that after 4 years, hard drives, graphics cards etc are at the stage in their life that they start to fail with greater certainty.

Same applies to marine electronics. If you get more than 5 year's life out of them, youve done brilliantly!

Cheers

ML

[juggernaut]

Honda,

What do commercial operators use?

As an accountant for crayfishermen here in wa and also in tas, I only see furuno used.....and they certainly don't consider themselves lucky if there gear only lasts 5 years even with there boats constantly moored and used on a commercial basis.

Then again I also expect and achieve more than 4 years reliable service out of the computers used in my practice which run 24/7, but change the hard drives out every 2 years.

[whiteman]

My boat has the 627 and the Garmin 750. Used to have an HDS7 for an interim period. The Furuno is a street ahead of those other units in clarity and functionality particularly when working in 40+ meters. People complain that the new Furuno range works the same as the old one (the screen resolution is MUCH better and works with sunnies and the tranny seems to be much better tuned) but the simple dial to set stuff works in all seas. There are probably better units for shallow water creek fishing where you want side view structure scan but my boat is set up for offshore. My tiny creek tinny still uses the Lowrance 135 - can't kill this thing!