Garmin EchoMap 73sv vs. 74sv

[Hannzo24]

I'm looking at the Garmin Echomap Chirp 74sv that bass pro has on sale.  Besides the map and transducer, is there any difference between the 74sv and 73sv? I would be using the 74sv on inland waters only.  It comes preloaded with Coastal maps, but they are also including the inland waters map card. 

[12poundbass]

I believe everything else is the same.

[RHuff]

I bought the unit. The dealers at Bass Pro in Kodak, TN told me that although the transducer is designed for deep water that it will work just as well in shallow as the transducer that comes with the 73sv. If I ever decided to fish deeper water in the 75+ foot range that I would get a better image on sonar that I would with the 73sv transducer. I got the Lakeview HD card along with a $25.00 Bass Pro gift card. Personally, I feel good about the purchase and cannot wait to install it onto my boat. 

[tander]

The 73 is inland and the 74 is for coastal as you might know. My friend done a lot of reseaching of these two and determine that the 74 would not work that great in inland lakes. I would call Garmin and ask them. Hope I am wrong but I don't think it is going to work that great for you. The people as BPS sometimes don't know any more than you or I, they are just shooting from the hip. Just my opinion.

[RHuff]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the only difference in the two units is the transducer..

[12poundbass]

8 hours ago, RHuff said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but the only difference in the two units is the transducer..

Transducer and the mapping on the 74 is coastal not inland.

[Sprocket]

It'll work fine.  I've got a 52 and a 51 tranducers and interchange them with a couple units.  I can hardly tell the difference between the two.  Sometimes I can't tell any difference.

 

SE Kansas grass grower

[Hannzo24]

1 hour ago, Sprocket said:

It'll work fine.  I've got a 52 and a 51 tranducers and interchange them with a couple units.  I can hardly tell the difference between the two.  Sometimes I can't tell any difference.

 

SE Kansas grass grower

So the head units will work with either transducer?  Interesting, I've thought about selling the large ocean transducer that came with the 74sv and buying the smaller one.

 

[Sprocket]

Right now I've got the 51 on the trolling motor.  It's a MinnKota Fortrex.  Some trolling motors don't have room for the bigger one without modifying the skeg on the motor.  Yes, they are both 12 pin transducers.

 

SE Kansas grass grower 

[RHuff]

7 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

Transducer and the mapping on the 74 is coastal not inland.

It came with Lakeview HD

[12poundbass]

1 hour ago, RHuff said:

It came with Lakeview HD

I've heard that. I've read on another site that has a Garmin thread the exact same thing @Sprocket is saying. There's hardly a difference between the transducers.

[Hannzo24]

20 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

I've heard that. I've read on another site that has a Garmin thread the exact same thing @Sprocket is saying. There's hardly a difference between the transducers.

I talked to Garmin and the only difference is that one transducer goes to 1800 feet and the other goes to 500 feet.

[MattC]

My dad just bought the Garmin Echomap 74SV yesterday from a local BPS store and practically stole it for the deal he got. Now after doing some research since I never really looked a lot at the Garmin offerings mainly just the Lowramce/Humminbird stuff so the Garmin's are completely new to me but we wanted to upgrade to something that'll make it a little easier to help locate fish this upcoming season compared to small hook 3 that came on boat, but now after seeing the 74SV is geared toward more coastal waters and not inland (since we only fish inland lakes) I believe I'm gonna have to break the bad news and tell him it's gotta go back and focus on getting the 73SV or going to something like the humminbird G2. We're completely new to this whole electronics thing and boat fishing we've always beat the banks and pond hoped so this learning curve is pretty big and figured a half way decent electronic setup would maybe help the learning curve. do you guys think the 74SV would still work well for lakes that are 50-70ft deep even though our fishing will be in the 30ft or less? just wanna make sure we get something that'll work and best image! 

 Thanks, Matt

[12poundbass]

Did you see the post above you? Did it come with the Lakeview HD card? 

[MattC]

^ indeed it didn't. guess the LakeVu card only was offered or came with the 94SV's according to the BPS flyer and after digging the Internet and Garmin's direct homepage for there marine fish finders the 74/94's are for coastal waters and the 73/93's are the inland waters versions? that's my understanding from there website and when you click on the "LakeVu" option for say a 7" or the 9" it changes to 73sv or 9sv and if ya click the "BlueChart G2" mapping which is the coastal mapping it changes them to 74sv or 94sv and you also see the transducers switch from 51/52 I believe which is the "8-pin" VS "12-pin"

[12poundbass]

Beyond my pay scale. Maybe @Sprocket will chime in and help out. If the map card works in the 9" I would think it would work in the 7" model and that would solve your problem. 

[MattC]

correct the map card will work in it but my worry is the transducer difference between the 2 meaning the LakeVu "bundle" version that you can buy VS the version we got which is the "BlueChart G2" which is the coastal version that comes with a difference transducer that's geared towards fishing deeper water and I'd like to get the best quality image possible and if the deeper water coastal version can't give me a better image similar to the "LakeVu" bundle version that comes with the other transducer geared towards your shallower water that you'd find in lakes then I'd like to return it and exchange for the 73sv (that's geared toward inland waters) since I don't see spending $300 on the other transducer for the shallower better quality image, if that makes sense?

[12poundbass]

Everything I've read says there's virtually no difference in image quality.

[Sprocket]

The 51 and 52 are both 12 pin transducers.  I have changed mine back forth between units.  You should be able to use the LakeVu HD card in a 94 or a 74.  I thought on BPS sale the 74 had the LakeVu card as a bonus in that sale.

 

SE Kansas grass grower

[RHuff]

I bought the 74sv at Bass Pro for the sale and it came with the Lakeview HD card. The unit itself for the 73 and 74 is the exact same thing and compatible with either transducer. 

[Jimmy Green]

The 93 is on sale at bass pro in spring classic sale for 599, nice upgrade for lil bit more

[Hannzo24]

Well I sold the large transducer on Ebay and bought the smaller one.  When all is said and done I'll be paying about 250 for the 74sv.  

[Roughwater]

Hi,

I'm new at this site. I previously thought aside from the transducer, the only difference between the Garmin ECHOMAP 73SV and 74SV models was the type of map they came with but after further research I believe that assumption was incorrect.   I had been looking hard for a 73SV Chirp but just couldn't find one at quite the price I was willing to pay.  I wanted the 73SV as I wanted the sideview and the Lakevu maps as I will mostly fish inland lakes.   Well, suddenly, just a couple days ago, I found a 74SV Chirp online with both the coastal and LakeVu maps at a really good price and to top it off it came with the GT51M-TM Transducer. This is a premium Transducer! ( The CHIRP DownVü/SideVü elements have a power rating of 500W per element (1,500W total) and operating frequencies of 260/455 kHz. The traditional CHIRP sonar has a power rating of 600W and operating frequencies of mid-band CHIRP 80-160 kHz. It also includes a built-in fast response temperature sensor).  This is a 400 dollar transducer if you were to purchase it alone. This transducer has 3 chirp elements. I mention that as from what I can best tell, the the CV52-hw transducer that comes with the stock 73 SV have only 2 side elements and no actual down element.  The 2 side elements are combined to produce the clearview/downview.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing as I suspect it works quite well in shallower lake water.  However I believe the older model 73SV has the GT52HW-TM—High Wide CHIRP, 250W and CHIRP ClearVü, 500W transducer.  Some of these older one's are still out there for sale.  For what it's worth I saw online some folks were up in arms that the GT transponder had been replaced with the CV version.

 

Primairly what I working up to is that I believe there is either a programming difference between the 73 and 74 or a hardware difference otherwise any transducers made for the 74SV would work with the 73SV and that is not the case.   I noticed the PS-30 Pantonix transducer will work with 73 or 74SV but the PS-22 Pantonix will NOT work with the 74SV.  The PS-21 Pantonix transducer will work with either of the chirp 73SV or Chirp74SV.  This info is per the Garmin outlet website, just go to the site and type in the appropriate transponder ID.  There are other transponders that work with the 73SV and not the 74SV and vise versa.  

 

This is the transponder that comes with the newer Garmin Echomap 73SV Chirp units (CV52HW-TM)

The 12-pin transducer features high wide band CHIRP traditional sonar (150-240 kHz) and has a power rating of 250 W. The CHIRP ClearVü and CHIRP SideVü (455/800 kHz) elements have a power rating of 350 W each (700 W total). It also includes a built-in fast response temperature sensor.  However note that the premium transponder for the 74SV that I mentioned above has double the power of the CV52HW-TM and has the downview element at 500 W with 600 w for the traditional view.  That said I am sure there are a lot of other factors to consider other than the power of the transducer.  The cone angle, the frequency etc has a lot to do with view on your finder. I suspect the newer 73SV models do just fine with the lower power output but at higher frequency of getting a great picture of lake.  It's clear that the 74SV will see the bottom of very deep water better than the 73SV but without a side by side comparison of the side view on your average lake I couldn't say which would have the better view?

 

I am definitely no expert, nor do I claim to know even half of what there is to know about these Echomap models.   There are likely other model transducers that come with these units so it's best to read all the fine print if you are thinking to purchase one so you know exactly what you are getting.  Be aware some of these units don't even come with a transducer.  Many of the newer 73SV/93SV plus models don't come with a transducer.  So if you see a unbelivable price on one it's best to read very close before pulling the trigger.  If you want the side view like me then you don't want the CV model for sure and if you want the option of Panoptix it's best to get the SV Chirp or Chirp plus model but I think some of the DV models are also Panoptix compatible.  But if you mainly want just downview and you could care less about the Panoptix option you could save a lot of money by getting the CV model or CV Chirp model.  If you really want WiFI then get one of the new Echomap plus models.  Please feel free to correct me if I wrote something that is incorrect as I am just learning myself as I go but am very open to learning more. 

 

If you have an interest in knowing more about Garmin 73SV and 74SV Transducers there is a wealth of info in this short read:

http://www.***.net/showthread.php?t=679230

missing data in link above is: ***

 

 

 

 

[Roughwater]

Here is some more info on Garmin Transducers:

The GT30 is chirp and 455/800 but don't have 2D.

The GT-40 is for fresh water and the 41 for Salt.  Both have non-Chirp 2D and sideview and downview.  The freshwater 2D is 77/200. The Salt water 2D is 50/200 fresh side and down is 455/800., Salt side and down 260/455.

The 50 and 51 are also for fresh and salt water, but they are also Chirp downview and sideview.

The 50 2D chirp is 85-165 and the 51 2D chirp is 80-160, fresh water sideview and down view is 455/800 and Salt side view and down view 260/455.

 

The 52 has 2D sideview, downview and all Chirp. 2D is 150-240 and sideview and downview is 455/800.

 

For freshwater the 40 and 51 should have the best overall side and down detail but the saltwater versions should provide wider/deeper coverage.

 

However the GT-52 looks to provide the best overall low range 2D Chirp for many situations but one size don't necessairly fit everyone's needs. 

 

For what it's worth none of the 260/455/800 chirps are exactly those freqs.  They are just called noted as such.  They are in those ranges but can vary from one transducer to the other.  

 

 

[Roughwater]

On 2/19/2018 at 8:59 AM, Hannzo24 said:

I'm looking at the Garmin Echomap Chirp 74sv that bass pro has on sale.  Besides the map and transducer, is there any difference between the 74sv and 73sv? I would be using the 74sv on inland waters only.  It comes preloaded with Coastal maps, but they are also including the inland waters map card. 

Hannzo24,

 

I am sorry I got carried away and got off subject on my previous response but in short, I do believe there is a difference beyond the map and transducer. I think there is also a difference either in the software, or firmware as there are some transducers that work for the 73 and not the 74 and vice versa. I suspect the 74 is set up to take better advantage of the lower frequencies for better depth and downview/traditional in salt water and the 73 makes better use of the higher frequencies which allow for clearer imaging at shallower freshwater depths especially for sideview/clearview.  Now if you were planning to hit the ocean and also inland lakes, I believe the best overall option would be the 74 especially if it comes with the CV51 or the GT51 transducer as they are powerful premium transducers. But I don't think these premium transducers are the only transducer option that comes packaged with the 74. I belive some come packaged with a lesser transducer.  If you were to have to buy either of these transducers (CV51 or GT51) they retail for around 500 dollars by themselves.   I don't think you can go wrong though with either especially if the Lakevu maps are included with the 74 and the combo comes with the GT51 or CV51 tansducer.  Just my 2 Cents.  Good luck with your purchase if you have not made it already.