Last updated 2013

The query we at Radartest get most frequently: What's the best radar detector? Tough question: The first step in formulating a response is to define the term "best". And before we start, are we talking dash-mount, cordless or remote models? Okay, let's focus on dash-mounted (a.k.a. "windshield-mounted") models.

The term "best" to some folks means the most expensive; to others, the highest in sensitivity, the longest in range. To the practical-minded it means best value for the money. But let's assume that bucks are no object and we're talking here about the qualities that really separate class leaders from the also-rans: sensitivity, selectivity, features and utility.

For the technically challenged, sensitivity equals detection range, the more the better. Selectivity is the detector's ability to ignore non-police radar signals and remain quiet. Pumping up sensitivity often leads to a drop in selectivity. This generally creates a detector that can hear radar coming from the next county, but one that can't keep its mouth shut when no radar is around. Only superior signal processing can get a handle on this issue.

And let's don't forget POP-mode protection to counter another headache for the lead-footed, plus instant-on Ka-band, whose special capabilities make it yet another threat. Engaging POP mode puts the detector on a hair trigger, ready to alert instantly to the faintest whiff of radar. Here again, the detector's signal processing had better be world-class--or the detector will false-alarm uncontrollably.

Which are the front runners, the models blessed with high performance yet able to keep a lid on false alarms? To find out, we gathered up front-running contenders priced over $300 (MSRP) and logged several thousand miles with each in a mix of driving environments. These ranged from the New York, Boston, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles metropolitan areas to wide-open desert interstates. Then my team and I ran them through an extended battery of performance tests. That done, I'm back with an answer to that thorny question: What's the world's best radar detector?

There were four candidates: the BEL (Beltronics) Pro 500 ($399.95 MSRP) and BEL STi Magnum ($499.95), and from Escort the Passport 9500ix and Redline, also retail-priced at $499.95. Here are the results, listed alphabetically. (Or skip directly to my Top Picks)

The Beltronics (BEL) Pro 500 is the flagship dash-mount GPS-enabled model in BEL's Professional Series of premium detectors. It's a clone of the Passport 9500ix from sister company Escort, with identical performance and nearly identical features. The two share a platform and accessories, even their class-leading Defender camera database that protects against red light and speed cameras.

In features, there few differences. The Escort 9500ix has AutoLearn that steps in to lock out a nuisance signal if the driver repeatedly drives past without bothering to triple-tap the SmartCord mute button and eliminate it. (This places total faith in the detector's ability to identify false alarms, a task some would rather handle themselves.) Unlike the Escort Passport 9500ix, the BEL Pro 500's audio can be adjusted remotely by pressing the mute button on its Smart Cord power plug.

The BEL Pro 500's matte-black housing sharply minimizes its reflection in the windshield and keeps the detector inconspicuous. A large red text display dominates the front of the case and is adjustable from full bright to all-dark mode in four steps. Auto dimming is a user-selectable menu option and regulates display brightness automatically.

Six buttons atop the case control the unit. Separate buttons handle power, audio volume, mode (sensitivity), display brightness and GPS on/off. A Mrk (Mark) button allows the user to mark and lock out a nuisance signal; a button on the Smart Cord power cord accomplishes the same task.

After months of sampling this BEL's behavior in a variety of driving environments I found this to be the quietest BEL radar detector I've seen, thanks to GPS. That's a significant achievement, for until well into the Nineties, high-end BEL models often delivered stellar sensitivity but with a plentiful number of false alarms to boot. With the arrival of the BEL (Beltronics) Pro 500 those days clearly are past.

I also tested against the VG-2 radar detector detector to verify that, like all high-end detectors today, this one's immune to the ancient VG-2. It's not, however, undetectable by the Spectre RDD (called Stalcar outside the States), the latest version of which can detect everything save for two Beltronics (BEL) models, the STi Magnum and the exquisite STiR Plus, and two Escort models, the Escort Passport 9500ci and the hotrod Escort Redline. Our Spectre Mk IV spotted the Pro 500 at 72 feet, making it not quite undetectable.

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Coiled SmartCord Beltronics Pro 500 Performance Tips

Cobra boasts of immunity to the Spectre Mark I, but neglects to mention that this version of the RDD was discontinued in 2002 and has since disappeared from U.S. roads. (For passenger-car drivers, none of this matters unless you're driving in Virginia; in the other 49 states detectors are legal.)

In radar sensitivity the BEL Pro 500 was equal to or better in every test than its genomic twin, the Escort Passport 9500ix. For that matter, it performed better than some high-end non-GPS models, just as it did in another recent test of high-performance detectors.

The Pro 500 breaks new ground for BEL, delivering superior performance, a solid array of features, protection from red light and speed cameras--and freedom from pesky false alarms. Available for substantially less than the Escort 9500ix, it's the least expensive, highest-performing GPS-enabled radar detector we've seen.

Heft the BEL STi Magnum and it feels uncommonly heavy. Much of the weight is due to its twin radar antennas, big die-cast metal assemblies. Tap the case with a fingernail and its magnesium construction is evident. The STi Magnum was tailored expressly for those who drive in areas where radar detectors are banned, including drivers of large commercial vehicles. Both groups are at risk from radar detector detectors--primarily the Spectre (Stalcar) RDD--used by police to ferret out illicit detectors. The BEL STi Magnum was the world's first undetectable model; recently it was joined by the Escort RedLine, its electronic twin (Escort owns BEL) and equally immune to the RDD.

A high-intensity red text display is adjustable in four steps from all-dark to maximum brightness; it also auto-adjusts. Visual alerts depict the radar band--X, K or Ka--accompanied by a bargraph that shows signal strength, or proximity to the radar gun. With experience, a driver can use this to tell if the radar gun is an imminent threat or only a potential problem far up the road ahead.

The BEL STi Magnum's front-mounted controls are easily reached regardless of how the detector is mounted. They're also backlit in red, same as an aircraft cockpit, and remain easy to locate at night. For discreet nighttime operation, the display can be darkened save for a tiny pulsing dot. Visual alerts now are conveyed via the Smart Cord power plug LED and its audio mute can likewise be controlled by the plug's mute button. There's also an audio jack to link the BEL STi Magnum to a powered external speaker, useful in overcoming high cockpit noise levels.

The BEL STi Magnum is plug-and-play but it also offers several user-selectable options. One is voice alerts. These make threat identification nearly idiot-proof and speed the process of getting acquainted. Those who prefer alert tones can opt out with a few seconds' worth of button-pressing.

Another unique feature is selectable band defeat to deactivate any radar band, particularly the rarely-used X band, and further heighten the STi Magnum's resistance to false alarms. Like most BEL and Escort models, the STi Magnum is compatible with Escort Live, the innovative system that links detector to smartphone app and Internet for real-time warnings broadcast by nearby drivers.

On the open road, the BEL STi Magnum has good resistance to non-police radar signals, many of them generated by older Cobra radar detectors in passing vehicles. It also has Tech mode (Escort calls it Spec mode), a handy feature that will tell the driver whether a Ka-band radar alert is police radar or another radar detector. Knowing the difference means not having to stand on the brakes in reaction to every alert.

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Coiled SmartCord Performance Tips

Until the Escort Redline's arrival, the BEL STi Magnum was our all-time champ in radar-detection range: 11.25 miles under perfect conditions at our unlimited-range test site.

Tested at our shorter-range Radar-Around-the-Curve site, its performance closely mirrored that of the Redline, no shock since the two share an electronic platform and are identical under the skin.

Narrowly trailing the Redline, it scored second-best on all three radar frequencies and tied with the BEL Pro 500 on the fourth. It was slightly behind the Redline again in the Ka-band photo radar test and uttered one fewer false alarm in town than the Escort.

With its unique metal case, Escort Redline lineage and similar performance, the BEL STi Magnum shares the honor of best undetectable high-performance radar detector.

Strictly speaking, the Escort Passport 9500ix can't claim the title as the world's first GPS-enabled radar detector—a lame, long-forgotten attempt by an Asian manufacturer preceded it—but the Escort 9500ix is certainly the first to succeed, and spectacularly so. In its short time on Earth, this high performance radar detector has become the acknowledged segment benchmark.

Part of its success is due to the intuitive, ergonomically-correct layout of its controls. Six top-mounted buttons arrayed in two three-button rows handle everything. These are backlit, allowing for fumble-proof operation at night. Another nice touch is the large, front-mounted combination volume/mute button.

The Escort 9500ix comes in a classy, hard-sided presentation case but it's huge, way too big to travel. If you want to protect the detector and accessories, move it among vehicles or take it on an aircraft, the solution is the Escort Passport 9500ix Pro Pack, available for an extra ten bucks.

With GPS and an integral database of red light and speed camera locations, the Escort Passport 9500ix gives advance warning of these and other threats, including user-reported enforcement hotspots. It's smart enough to stay quiet if the camera is on a cross street, posing no threat. It also identifies the type of camera—red light or speed. Good to know, since red light cameras often are used to issue speeding tickets as well.

The ability of the Escort Passport 9500ix (and BEL (Beltronics) Pro 500) to mark and lock out nuisance signals, coupled with speed-variable radar sensitivity, creates a supernaturally quiet radar detector and gives this GPS-enabled radar detector a significant competitive advantage. We've quantified that value previously, once in an urban false alarm test, the other in a freeway-trip false alarm test, and can only say that the difference must be experienced to be appreciated.

In the Urban False Alarm test it was no contest: the BEL Pro 500 and Escort Passport 9500ix both alerted to a single stray K-band signal, one that hadn't been previously locked out. In contrast, the BEL STi Magnum barked 11 false alarms and the Escort Redline 13. Had we run another lap of the course, the BEL STi Magnum and Escort Redline could be counted on to alert in the same locations; both GPS models would have stayed silent.

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Coiled SmartCord Escort 9500ix Performance Tips

After testing these GPS models against their non-GPS siblings, the performance gap doesn't seem large enough to induce any sleepless nights. Check out the numbers and decide for yourself.

At our Radar-Around-the-Curve test, a worst-case scenario for any radar detector, the Escort 9500ix and BEL Pro 500 turned in nearly identical scores, no big surprise given their sibling status.

The BEL STi Magnum and particularly the Escort Redline were both superior on K band. The gap widened further on Ka band.

Worth noting, however, is that the BEL/Escort GPS twins exhibited substantially better overall radar range than shown by the competing Cobra XRS-9970G GPS model in a separate shootout.

This stark contrast in behavior is the most compelling virtue of the Escort 9500ix and its stablemate BEL Pro 500. Given that the pair is being compared to two well-known overachievers, the modest gap in radar detection range is unlikely to deter those who want a tomb-silent, high-performance radar detector that also protects against red light and speed cameras.

The Escort Redline is a non-GPS model and its mission statement is entirely different from that of the GPS radar detectors tested. Aside from spotting radar, those are equally concerned about eliminating false alarms and warning of red light and speed cameras.

The Escort Redline is focused entirely on long-range performance and targets the sophisticated road warrior. To illustrate that mission, note the dark housing, the lack of brightwork and minimal graphics on top. This means it won't blind the driver from reflections cast onto the windshield during sunny days. The red display is inset into the case where it's shielded from the sun. To make visual alerts even more dramatic, a trio of bright red LEDs in the lower front case also lights up during radar and laser encounters.

Controls are minimalist: three flush-mounted switches for power, operating mode, audio volume and manual-muting (auto-muting is standard). A menu of user preferences allows it to be tailored to one's liking. One is called Spec Display and shows a radar signal's digital frequency. This offers a significant advantage as Ka-band signals often are non-police radar, But conventional detectors can't tell the difference and merely display a generic Ka-band alert.

But Spec Display reports the frequency numerically, letting the driver know at a glance whether it's alerting to a passing Cobra radar detector--or a motorcycle officer hiding behind a bridge abutment up ahead, readying his Kustom Signals Talon II radar.

The Redline's significant weight--10.2 ounces, without power cord and second only to the BEL STi Magnum's 10.5 ounces--is double that of most competing models. The reason lies in its densely packed innards, which includes twin forward-facing antenna assemblies.

This is a key part of its class-leading performance. By using one antenna for X-band detection, the other can be devoted to K- and Ka-band duty. This significantly reduces the digital signal processor's workload and heightens sensitivity. Net result: phenomenal radar detection range.

True, the Escort Redline can't match the GPS-enabled detectors in rejecting non-police radar signals; like any high-performance model it will faithfully alert to the neighborhood Safeway's automatic door opener on every passage. Instead, its strong suit is radar detection range, a task at which it outpaces every windshield-mount detector we've tested. It swept the field in every test and proved particularly adept at spotting the K- and Ka-band radar used by 95 percent of the nation's traffic cops.

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Escort Redline Performance Tips

The Redline's significant weight--10.2 ounces, without power cord and second only to the BEL STi Magnum's 10.5 ounces--is double that of most competing models. The reason lies in its densely packed innards, which includes twin forward-facing antenna assemblies.

This is a key part of its class-leading performance. By using one antenna for X-band detection, the other can be devoted to K- and Ka-band duty. This significantly reduces the digital signal processor's workload and heightens sensitivity. Net result: phenomenal radar detection range.

For those shopping for the best-performing windshield-mount radar detector and who don't demand zero false alarms, the Escort Redline is unquestionably the clear choice.

[Editor note: Still unconvinced or simply confused about which model best suits your needs? Let our exclusive computerized Detector Selector assist you.]