GB,
Be careful...'best' can mean different things to different people.
Without a doubt, the Valentine One is a terrific radar detector with great pedigree (
Valentine Research).
But in today's market there are a lot of great radar detectors, each which behave a little differently.
To be entirely candid, I can't say for sure which is the absolute "best" because they each have different design and performance objectives that, IMO, go beyond merely detecting a radar (or laser) signal at the earliest possible moment (which at certain times may not always be optimal).
Try driving, say with a stock-setting
V1 (versus a stock-setting Escort Passport 9500i) around town and then on an open and remote stretch of roadway, and these philosophical difference will become more apparent.
Beltronics and (particularly
Escort, I believe) try to take their highly sensitive radar detectors to the another level: filtering out
unnecessary alerts. This philosophy is extended to their
default settings behaviors.
To even attempt this while at the same time balancing alert quickness is an extremely daunting task, indeed and I applaud both companies for their different approaches to achieving [or even seeking to achieve] a
fine balance. Valentine, to be sure, also does signal processing and post signal processing and takes a different approach to identifying certain Ka-falses (with its "Junk"
alerting feature).
Whichever approaches are adopted by each manufacturer, advanced filtering is a Herculean task, without a doubt.
When a radar detector's
sensitivity approaches/exceeds -120dbm (a jaw-dropping number), the "easy" thing for a manufacturer to do is to simply alert to the signal.
Performing additional processing in an attempt to "intelligently" alert while minimizing alerting latencies is a much, much harder accomplishment.
That I believe is one philosophical distinction between these radar detectors which ultimately serve to reduce driver fatigue and the potential for alert signal disregard as a consequence.
When I drive with other windshield-mount radar detectors such as the
Bel Vector 955 (V955),
Beltronics (BEL) RX-65 Pro,
Escort 8500 X50,
Escort Passport 9500i,
Beltronics STi Driver,
Whistler Pro 78,
Whistler XTR 690 (especially around ever increasing and more densely populated roadways, I appreciate each of these engineering achievements for what they are and how they each do what they do. 10/11 mile theoretical alert range would be somewhat of a handicap, in my opinion.
I feel well protected by any of them and that includes certain high-end models from
Whistler, as well.
The same will also hold true for the new "big dogs," on the block, that will be making their ways into the vehicles of only the most fortunate [well-heeled] drivers, the
Beltronics STi Remote and the
Escort Passport 9500ci (which takes
intelligent filtering of
police radar to an even
higher level).
The one area that is
not as subjective, in my opinion, is with the
police laser reception performance of the
Valentine One. It still has no equal and is in a class all by itself.
In the final analysis, we have many different flavors of ice-cream, for a
reason.
I used to prefer vanilla, but lately (in my later years) I have been tending towards chocolate.
My wife (Veil Gal) prefers rocky-road (which I don't particularly care for, especially when I am behind the wheel ).
Which one do
you think is
best?
Peace.
Veil Guy
