The V1 has a slight edge in on-axis sensitivity on K band compared to the STi. Yet the GX65 should have a very slight edge in on-axis sensitivity on K band compared to the STi. On the other hand, either the STi or the V1 due to their horn designs have a slight edge in off-axis K band sensitivity (more than 15 degrees off-axis).
If you drive on fairly winding roads (rural areas where K band still is very common) then I would get either the STi or the V1, but under more average highway driving conditions I found that my 9500i sometimes would very slightly outperform my STi by a few seconds. I've now done enough driving with DJ's V1 to realize that, although its K band sensitivity is slightly better than my STi or 9500i, the difference in initial K band alert times ranges from virtually the same to up to around 10 seconds for really distant K band sources.
In other words, the K band performance of all three of these RD models is so good that that they are all in the "exceptionally good" sensitivity class.
As far as Ka band, even after all of my driving with DJ's V1 I have had only ONE Ka band encounter, and that was 34.7 I/O from a Brazelton city cop while I was on my way to yesterday's Atlanta Jammerfest. I had the volume on DJ's V1, my STi and my 9500ci set to the max, and the I/O alerts from all three RDs when the cop (targeting me) nearly made me wet my pants!
Yesterday after we finished with the lidar tests, we did have some fun doing some runs against my X and K band transmitters and then against my Stalker ATR 34.7 Ka radar gun. The lidar test course was perfect for this since the straight part of this test course was down in a ravine and was approached from around a 90 degree curve which was lined with a metal guard rail. Thus all of the radar gun signals shot down the 1600 foot straight part of the test course in the ravine were reflected a bit around the curve by the metal guard rail. It made for a really neat test setup:
Cat4's and DJ's V1 began to alert with a few feet of each other to Ka band about 100 feet before entering the curve. My STi began to alert to Ka band about 3 seconds later or 50 feet before entering the curve. Cat4's and my 9500ci's began to alert to Ka band just a couple of seconds before our high windshield mounted V1's did.
As far as K band was concerned, our 9500ci's alerted first by maybe 5 seconds. Yet my STi began to alert to K band only a few seconds after DJ's V1 began to alert.
Note that my STi was recently sent in and was flashed with the new firmware code which also includes the new audio ramp-up fix. The new firmware contains other new detection/filtering algorithms compared to its earlier firmware, and the result seems to be that the STi's real world performance now is just a hair behind the V1 such that nearly half the time it alerts at virtually the same time as DJ's V1 yet the rest of the time its initial alerts trail DJ's V1 by only a few seconds. I've driven with my reflashed STi long enough now to know that my STi before being flashed with the latest code wasn't quite this good. So, in other words, an STi with the latest firmware code now has performance which is so good that it takes quite a bit of testing to realize that the V1 is ever so slightly better and that both products now definitely perform within a 3dB window of one another. 6dB is rather obvious when comparing radar detectors, but under 3dB gets to be really hard to test and requires a good bit of driving and testing to see any marginal differences under real world conditions.
We also shot the Stalker ATR polarized horn radar gun "gangsta style" (gun turned 90 degrees sideways on its axis such that its handle grip was horizontal). Everyone noted that they only began to detect the Stalker as they were rounding the curve. Cat4's 9500ci and V1 began to alert at virtually the same time. My 9500ci, DJ's V1 and my STi also began to alert at virtually the same time as well. And the Stalker had our speeds only 5 to 10 seconds after our RDs began to alert.
Conclusions?
-- A fairly recently produced STi (anything after Feb of 2008) which also is flashed with the latest firmware code definitely performs within a 3dB confidence window of the V1 such that it is rather difficult to discern real world performance differences.
-- The "tweaked" M4 antennas used within the 9500i, 9500ix and GX65 in general will have very slightly greater on-axis K band sensitivity compared to the STi. The difference is only 1dB to 2dB from the tests which I have done, but its there. Yet the STi due to its horn design has very slightly better off-axis K band sensitivity.
-- A fairly recent STi which has been flashed with the latest firmware code now seems to have the same Ka band performance as the tweaked M4 antenna platforms, and is within a 3dB confidence window of the V1.
-- The V1 with its rear antenna still does a better job at picking up radar from the rear, but with either the STi or one of the "tweaked" M4 antennas you will still know about radar approaching from the rear once the rear radar source has closed the range to approximately 60% of the range at which the V1 began to alert at.
Thus it boils down to picking the RD which has the features which you want versus deciding whether or not you either want or need the V1's arrows or its rear antenna for maximum rear range.
Thats about the best I can describe all of my observations based on my personal test results.
Re: what has more sensitivity?
Originally Posted by texasspeed
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Re: what has more sensitivity?
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