You must have watched a different video than I did.
You seem to think that blending two side beams is as good as using a dedicated down element, even when its obviously not as good. From a technical point of view, it cant be as good unless the down element sucks big time or the software sucks big time. Trying to defend Garmin on that basis just makes me wonder if you work for Garmin or a distributor or? You certainly sound like a company shill or someone who stands to loose money when Garmin looks bad.
But just for grins, lets ignore the evidence and say there is no significant difference in performance between the two. Lets just pretend for a second that all the CV transducers are just as good as the GT transducers.
That doesnt change the fact that Garmin lied to their customers about what they were getting. Then they denied it. Then when they were caught, they said too bad for you if you believed us and got screwed we are not going to make it right. You should not have trusted us to begin with.
Here are just a couple of quotes from Garmin customer support to customers who got screwed. I could post a bunch more if you want, but these give the idea pretty well.
Got off the phone with them 20 minutes ago. Their official stance is that they will never exchange transducers per memo's handed down this morning. I asked to speak to a supervisor, he left for 5 minutes, came back, and said that I could talk to him, but they absolutely will not exchange transducers.
The guy was unapologetic and told me that "we've done nothing wrong." When I told him that they lied about the performance of the product he actually told me "no company tells the truth about their products." When I said to him they didn't tell anyone they removed the down element he said, "well we never said it was in there in the first place."
and
I could also post a dozen or more quotes where customer support said there was NO DIFFERENCE between the CV and GT transducers, but I wont bother. I think the point has been made.I am a small installing dealer and nothing was said to us about the transducer differences. I have one 93CV unit out in the field and this person is not happy with Garmin. Fortunately he is a very good customer of mine and knows I would never mislead him intentionally.
So this morning, I called Garmin to see what they can do for me, the dealer, so I can take care of this customer. Basically they told me the same thing that they have been telling their end-users. They offered no help, explained the transducer was working as designed, and offered me a GT52 transducer at a price higher than what I can buy it wholesale for. My customer has already gotten rid of his panoptix and simply wants to sell this machine. So here I am, a well respected electronics dealer/installer that isn't big enough to absorb returns on the scale that some dealers are about to see. I am fortunate that this is the only unit that doesn't have a transducer with a down imaging element that I have sold. My only option at this point is to list this unit and hope I can recoup some of my cost.
Anyway you look at it this is a piss-poor reaction to a Garmin dealer of 5 plus years. I have always been leery of Garmin's marketing strategies, such as their lack of Navionics mapping, so I never push their products. In hindsight I'm glad I didn't.
Do you really want to be defending a company that treats it customers that way? By their own words they have made it clear they deliberately lie to their customers and dont give a crap about them.
The actual performance of the transducers doesnt matter in comparison.