Miatadan_roy:

There may or may not be an easy answer for you. My initial take was the same as plllog's based on my initial assumptions about what I might consider "high performance."

But, I'm not sure that my preferences would be yours. It leads me to ask what you have in mind as YOUR measures of "high performance" and "some perform better than others?" Some questions that may help get you some more specific answers:

What is your planned budget?. Budgets are a great way filter choices

Also, are you looking for a full range/stove/oven (amazing how many different words people use for this!) or just a cooktops? (IOW, are you looking at oven performance was well as top burners?)

If you are looking at a stove, are you looking for a freestanding range (controls on backsplash) or slide-in (no backsplash and all controls down front)? A budget for slide-ins is going to be different (higher) than for freestanding ranges.

Consider the vagaries of what folks might mean by "performance." For example, one way to measure "high performance" is how quickly you can bring a big pot to boil on a top burner. Induction burners can do this quickly but perceptions on this have been skewed a bit because the bigger induction burners usually have been far more powerful than many coil and radiant burners -- people were comparing 10" and 11" diameter induction burners rated for 3700 watts (on boost) to 8" coil and radiant ribbon burners rated at 2500 watts of less.

Now, however, some of the radiant ranges have burners that can be dialed from 7" to 9" to 11" diameter heating. GE, I think, has some with burners that go up to 3600 watts.

Do you have access to Consumer Reports online? Their stove and cooktop ratings have a "speed to boil" column. IIRC, the smoothop stoves with "highest" ratings for "speed to boil" all had a burner rated above 3000 watts.

But, when you start comparing stoves in that price range (assuming you are looking for a stove), a lot of these higher-performing radiants are in the same price range as some induction stoves. I've seen the least expensive induction ranges from Samsung and Frigidaire/Kenmore sale-priced down around $1200 which is about the same price range that I recall for the least expensive of the high-power radiants. (Of course, the way the appliance market is moving these days, there might be some higher-powered ranges down below $1k now.)

Having said all of that, there are a lot of other potential measures (and preferences) that can be lumped into "high performance." One measure might be how quickly a burner responds to lowered heat. My experience is that it has been easier to lower heat with a coil burner because, when you temporarily pull a pot off the coil, the excess heat radiates more quickly than with the radiant smoothtops that I've used. Another measure might be how evenly the heat spreads across the bottom for lower temperature cooking (simmering, melting chocolate, etc.) None of this even considers oven performance (assusming you are looking at ranges rather than cooktops.)

So, you see the complexities? That's why it can help if you can be a bit more specific about what you have in mind for what you want.

Is there a difference between radiant, ribbon and electric halogen elements?

The short answer is both ribbon and halogen are forms of radiant burners and, while there are differences, they do not matter to you as a cook, and, as Weed says, there probably are not any halogen radiant ranges available in the North America anyway.

The long answer is this.

"Radiant" is a category. Elements under the smoothop heat up and radiate heat, some of which heats the glass (conducting heat to the pan) but mostly heats the pan by radiating through the glasstop. Coil burners also work with conductive and radiant heat, too, but, with the pot sitting directly on the burner, do more by conduction.

"Ribbon" elements are much like a coil burner under glass. They are are the predominant form of radiant smoothtops and about the only form now available in North American . The "ribbons" are thinner than bare coils so they heat up faster. However, how fast an element heats itself does not really have much effect on how fast it heats the pot to boiling. Heat still has to radiate to and through the glass and then radiate into the pot which really slows down the process.

Halogen burners work pretty much the same way except that they use an element which reacts faster than the "ribbons." The people who say that halogen burners are faster are talking about the elements hearing up which, as with radiant ribbons, does not make much difference for the pot. The halogen element still has radiate into and through the glass and then heat the pan. In my somewhat limited experience with halogen, they were not appreciably different from ribbon burners.

All this may be academic. As Weed says, there don't seem to be any on offer anymore in the North American market. The only ones I've seen in the last decade or so are portable countertop units (a fancy name for a hotplate.)