New Furuno fishfinders, DSP and stylin

Furuno fcv_585_620_group_2

Furuno has two new fishfinders, the FCV585 and FCV620, that seem interesting. For one thing, better seen in a big picture, they are styled more sleekly than normal Furuno gear. More important perhaps, they incorporate Digital Signal Processing (here’s Chuck Husick on DSP) for cleaner, easier to understand imagery. DSP also improves automatic control, but the Furuno press release proudly notes that the units retain the company’s “long-standing and highly revered direct access knobs”.  I do not know if Furuno’s DSP is equivalent to  Raymarine’s HD (High Definition Fish Imaging), but I do know that the latter has earned the respect of some fishermen. I also know that it’s darn hard to directly compare fishfinders (can’t run them at the same time, can’t fake fish), and guys will be yakking about the relative merits of these machines for years to come.



Ben Ellison

Ben Ellison

Panbo editor, publisher & chief bottlewasher from 4/2005 until 8/2018, and now pleased to have Ben Stein as a very able publisher, webmaster, and editing colleague. Please don't regard him as an "expert"; he's getting quite old and thinks that "fadiddling fumble-putz" is a more accurate description.

8 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:

    Nice looking and controls one can actually understand. Furuno has a bad habit of putting great electronic in ugly boxes with bad controls. Maybe they will build a plotter that doesn’t take a year of study to use it.

  2. John says:

    They have a plotter that doesnt take a year of stufy to use it, its called a GP3500 and its a nice piece of kit

  3. Anonymous says:

    how can we interface the Furuno hardware with Raymarine? I would like to use the Raymarine wireless auto pilot with my furuno navpilot

  4. Anonymous says:

    Guys, this DSP stuff ia a bunch of marketing snobbery. Many FF are DSP, heck the Northstar 490 was one of the first, but made no big deal out of it. Pure marketing hype.

  5. Anonymous says:

    Maybe the reason Northstar did not hype their 490 is the fact that 99% of industry professionals knew it was a POS. I have used the new FCV620 and it has amazing performance.

  6. Anonymous says:

    Only if you don’t know how to use manual mode to tweak it to your hearts content.

  7. Anonymous says:

    You can keep telling tourself whatever makes you feel good, but the Northstar sounder was/is crap when compared to what is on the market from Furuno, Simrad, or even Raymarine.

  8. Anonymous says:

    No one said that Furuno didn’t/doesn’t make the best on the market. The point is, as stated, that DSP is marketing BS. RISC, CISC, DSP, it doesn’t matter about the silicon, what matters is the algorithm.
    Get a clue.

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