Sept 2015, RD Testing: Stinger VIP, Cobra DSP, Radenso Pro SE, etc.

So as many of you know, I did another RD test last week with the help of many of you guys.

Radar Detectors:
Stinger VIP 3.3.08 HD 6.0.8: @Stinger (Test unit courtesy of Cliff at Stinger)
Escort Redline: @joehemi
V1 3.8945: @Vortex
Max 1.10: @CobawLT2010
Radenso Pro US7: @Hügel66 (Test unit courtesy of Radenso)
Radenso Pro SE US7: @Hügel66 (Development unit courtesy of Radenso)
Uniden LRD950 1.48: @BestRadarDetectors (Retail test unit, beta firmware)
RX65 M4: @kdo2milger
Cobra DSP9200BT: Retail unit from Amazon
Cobra SPX7800BT: @BestRadarDetectors (Retail test unit)

Radar Guns:
MPH Bee III (33.8)
Stalker II (34.7)
Decatur Genesis II (35.5)
Kustom Raptor RP-1 (K band)

The Stinger VIP was domination station. It clobbered everyone, on every band, practically every time. That thing is a monster. There were times when I got so much more range than any other detector that I had to stop the run, double back, and start farther away because it had alerted as soon I started a normal run. Amazing stuff.

The only thing that managed to outrange the Stinger at some point was the new Radenso Pro SE on K band. Pretty amazing considering how the Radenso Pro used to suck on K band. With the tweaks that Radenso has made since then plus the addition of the LNA in the Radenso Pro SE, this thing is now a top tier windshield mount radar detector as well. Fantastic…

The new Cobra DSP 9200 BT did a surprisingly good job as you can see. For the first time we may actually have a well performing Cobra on our hands. The new Cobra works best on Highway mode. Enabling City mode or CityMax definitely reduces K band detection range.

There was definitely some run-to-run variation that I can’t account for. Look at the 34.7 runs, for example. You’ll see a fantastic and a good set of runs for the Redline and a good and a terrible set of runs for the Max. When I got that lousy Max run I was like “crap, now everyone’s gonna think I’m picking on the Max.” :p That was one specifically chosen to change things up that we know is up to par. Either way, I’m not sure why I saw variations like that. Traffic was very minimal and the weather was good. The videos at the end of this post on will show the entirety of every run from both the perspective of the detector and the radar gun so you can see everything I saw. It’s because of this weirdness that you’ll see multiple runs of some detectors. Either way, due to the run-to-run variation, I can’t say that these results are iron clad as I would wish. They’re data points to consider when looking at multiple test results from multiple independent testers.

I had all the firmware update software loaded up on my laptop but I forgot my laptop at home so I couldn’t switch between 1.35 and 1.48 on the LRD950 on site. I had 1.48 already loaded (hooray!) so that’s what I ran. The range drop was minimal on the unit but I suspect that’s primarily a course limitation. If the signal appears suddenly and there’s no brief whiffs earlier on, all you’ll get is a momentary delay and the detector will alert, so no big range differences.

I also tested a Radenso Pro SE. This is the first one around and Michael asked me not to say anything until he was ready to announce it. This is running production hardware and firmware.

That’s the main gist of the test results. Here’s the video of the actual runs.

33.8:

34.7:

35.5:

K Band:

The 35.5 and K band runs feature the Radenso Pro SE. I haven’t had a chance to redo the 33.8 and 34.7 ones yet to add those in. The titles only show 9 detectors since I was originally putting this together before the SE was announced. I somehow messed up pressing the button on the radar gun camera during the K band runs so I don’t have footage of the Raptor RP-1. Oh well.

In these videos I’ve sped up my drive to the main detection zone as needed but I leave the entire encounter for you to see so you can see things like if a detector picks the signal up and drops it, the quality of the rampup, if traffic is interfering with the detection, which detectors gave me issues with suction cups not sticking, why I chose to rerun some detectors, and so forth. The runs are all shown in the order in which they were run. There’s a lot of cool stuff to glean from watching the actual encounters. 🙂

Again, a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who helped… @joehemi for again coming down and manning the radar car during the marathon of test runs, @jnez367 for helping put the result maps together for me, and everyone who sent in radar detectors for testing! This is possible thanks to the awesome community here and I really grateful for everyone’s help! 🙂

The original post on RDF is available here: https://www.rdforum.org/showthread.php?t=47170

For more information about the radar detectors tested, check out my complete radar detector buyer’s guide.