Radar Detectors

Cobra ESD 9550 Radar Detector Technical Details:esd 9550 Key FeaturesDetection Mode:City / Highway modesDetection...

See no evil hear no evil Cobra ESD 9550 Radar Detector I was looking for a new Radar Detector for our new VW Beetle GLX 1.8 turbo. The Beetle does not have a compass fit...

The Cobra 9550 is a feature-packed radar detector that can detect X, K, Super Wideband Ka, Laser, Safety Alert, and Strobe Alert signals. It also includes a nifty electronic compass that shows you the direction you’re heading when you’re not receiving any other signal.

My experience with the 9550 has been good, but after driving for 40,000 miles and 9 months with it, it has shown several of it’s quirks.

The worst, of which, is the poorly lit amber display. (Please read the update at the bottom about the amber display). Early models of the 9550 featured an amber backlit LCD display mounted behind a smoked plastic lens. The LCD display was bright enough to see well in the evenings and night, but the glossy smoked plastic lens would quickly wash-out in normal sunlight. Later models have been redesigned with a brighter green display. As a matter of fact, I just sent my 9550 back to Cobra for warranty replacement with the newer display model.

Another quirk is the mute/auto-mute button. When you’re receiving no signal, you can press the Mute button once to turn on and off the “Auto Mute” feature. When you’re receiving a signal, you can press the Mute button once to silence the alert. However, if you’re receiving an alert and reach up to Mute it, if the signal stops just milliseconds before you hit the Mute button, you end up turning auto-mute on or off accidentally. Other earlier Cobra radar detector models required that you hold down the Mute button for a few seconds to change the auto-mute mode. I wish this detector did the same.

This detector is very sensitive in the X-Band, and I routinely pick up police X-band radar at well over a mile. However, this sensitivity also picks up non-police X-Band sources just as well. The Highway/City mode does not decrease sensitivity of X-Band reception; rather, it simply mutes the alert until it hits a mid-point in the 5-step signal strength indicator.

This detector is fairly sensitive to the K-Band, and I have detected K-Band police radar stations at about 1 mile. The detector seems to be especially sensitive to emission leakage from other radar detectors in the K-Band. At least once a day, I get a false K-Band alert from a passing car.

Ka-band performance is strange. Where I live, police regularly set up automated speed alert stations on roads (the kind that have a huge display that tells you how fast you’re going). These stations use low-power Ka to measure speed. When approaching these stations, the detector fails to go off at all until I’m within 100 feet of it. After I have already passed the station, the signal strength meter continues to climb until it reaches the peak ‘5′ position. A few seconds later (and I’m already hundreds of feet away from the station), it slowly starts to fall back to zero. It’s almost as if the detector has a built-in alert curve that it just follows. I have also witnessed this behavior when a police cruiser approaches me with Ka radar going.

Fortunately for me (unfortunately for this review), I have not had the “opportunity” to be measured by Laser, so I cannot attest to it’s range. I have been behind a vehicle that was targeted (and pulled over) by a Georgia State Patrolman who was using laser, and the 9550 never even had a clue it was there. Granted, you almost have to be the target for a laser detector to alert you, so I’m not going to discredit the detector for that.

The compass is fairly accurate, though it has no adjustment for true vs. magnetic north. This means that as you drive across the country, the compass will drift a little.

Overall, I’m fairly pleased with the detector. The times when I was truly a target for X, K, and (to a lesser extent) Ka radar, it has alerted me with plenty of time to react. The display is horribly inadequate, but I am in hopes that the newer, brighter display will be better.

UPDATE — After calling Cobra customer service about the dim display, the service representative gladly offered to replace the unit… I didn’t even have to ask or beg that they replace it! She gave me an RMA number, and I mailed it the same day.

It arrived at their Chicago address on a Monday, and I called on Tuesday to check the status. They confirmed that the detector was being sent that day. Sure enough, two days later, I received a brand new, fully packaged ESD-9550 detector via UPS. I opened it up, plugged it in, and was greeted by the brightest green LED display I think I have ever seen. What a relief!

Cobra’s customer service is top notch.

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