Ice sonar wattage

[Vitreus]

Can anyone tell me the significance of wattage with regards to ice flashers? I'm looking to get a new flasher. I'm trying to decide between the Marcum-LX7, Humminbird ICE 55, and Vexilar FLX-28. The wattages are 600, 300, and 50 watts RMS, respectively. With regards to accuracy of the instrument, it seems to have no influence, since the Vexilar has the best target separation (1/4"). The Marcum has 1/2" target separation and the Humminbird a disappointing 2.5".

[brian6715]

Oh boy.....

Personally the wattage would be the last thing I would worry about. I would go with whichever flasher offered the most features and performance, unless price is a concern. If you do this, it's a no brainer, although most sponsored people on the internet would argue differently.

[fish_eat_sleep]

Flip a coin for option 1 and 2. with that result flip another coin with the first result and option 3. its easy as 1 2 3. A fish is a fish and if you can't tell the superior one visually without reading the box i doubt a fish could either. point is all are so high tech just pick the most colorful one or best price. Good luck.

[servocam]

Some of us had a long discussion on this a few years ago (I'll see if I can dig it up). Not all transducers are created equal and some need more power than others...It comes down to a game of specmenship. One put it, so now they all do. The "Mine is bigger than yours" game.

Go check them each out and see how you like the operation of the device. I have read threads and threads of "which sonar" and there does not appear to be a dominant winner. Set your budget, what type of use, go check them all out at the store or ice fishing show, read the reviews (pros/cons) then decide from there.

[Lusid]

Please provide us with what your max budget is.

[fishwater]

Can anyone tell me the significance of wattage with regards to ice flashers? I'm looking to get a new flasher. I'm trying to decide between the Marcum-LX7, Humminbird ICE 55, and Vexilar FLX-28. The wattages are 600, 300, and 50 watts RMS, respectively. With regards to accuracy of the instrument, it seems to have no influence, since the Vexilar has the best target separation (1/4"). The Marcum has 1/2" target separation and the Humminbird a disappointing 2.5".

Wattage is a double edged sword. Higher wattage gives a stronger signal which in theory allows a higher degree of precision in measurement. Higher wattage also throws more errant signals around; it'll be bouncing of weeds, plankton, essentially anything possible, giving a higher degree of noise that'll likely need to be filtered out via signal processing. Vex takes the low and easy path, marcum takes the blunt force filter as needed path.

The Vexilar fl28 specifies a target ID of 1/4", which is very different from target separation. Vexilar is saying that when in the 10' range, each light segment represents a distance of 1/4". That is how they've used the term previously with earlier units.

If you really want the best unit for you, try them all. Buy one of each, sell the ones you don't like. You'd loose a few hundred $ at most if you did your shopping and could make a decision before the end of January on which units to sell.

[Esox_Magnum]

Fish is right, most Vex units are 2.68" seperaton, HB is around2.5" VX-1 around 2.5" Lx 3,5,6 are 3/4" LX 7/9 is 1/2"... Vex needs a low power mode to see better in shallow weedy waters the rest do not need this as their gain will truley zero out....I used Vex's for many years and other brands before they came out but now run a LX-7 and couldnt be happier...