Having trouble determining the difference between these two Garmin audio panels. They look pretty much the same and seem to have a similar set of features, but the 345 is a couple of hundred bucks more expensive. They both have music, bluetooth, intercom, etc. What am I missing?
GMA 245
GMA 345
Hello Ryan,
The GMA 345 has a marker beacon receiver, and carries a TSO certification, so it can be installed in certified aircraft.
The GMA 245 has no marker beacon, no TSO, but it does have more buttons/features related to music, and a CAN interface to integrate with G3X Touch.
For example, the GMA 245 dedicated "Radio Mutes Music" button allows you to rapidly turn this capability on/off at will. At times when you are not communicating with ATC and just monitoring the radio, you might choose to turn off Radio Mutes Music so music is never interrupted, and as soon as you start to use ATC, you can easily re-enable this feature with a touch of the button.
The dedicated "ICS Mutes Music" button gives you a lot of flexibility in how you listen to music. If you have a passenger (or pilot) who is irritated with having to talk over music, you can press this button to enable music muting anytime anyone speaks on the intercom, but at times when you just want to turn the music down lower and speak normally on the intercom with music in the background, you can quickly turn off intercom music muting.
Regardless of how you listen to music, both audio panels have a dedicated Music On/Off button which allows the pilot to quickly enable/disable music.
The GMA 245 works great both with/without G3X Touch, but the primary advantages of having G3X Touch configuration is to have optional on-screen controls and more flexibility for using individual music sources and volumes for pilot, copilot, and passengers. The RV-10 customers with back seats take advantage of this.
Despite what these two pictures might imply, they are both the same width and height.
Thanks,
Steve