Hello, I've been looking into purchasing an oscilloscope recently and thought I had decided on the new Rigol DS1074Z but now I'm questioning my reason.
I like the bigger screen, 14 horizontal divisions, dedicated knobs per channel, waveform record knob, and everything else about the DS2072 except the fact that it is only 2 channels.
For the most part I'm working with digital electronics, serial decoding, and general purpose analog circuits. I wanted the ability to display all the required signals for SPI on the scope at once
for debugging, which is why i was leaning towards the DS1074Z originally. Also, I've seen the insides of both scopes now and it seems like you get more scope for your dollar with the DS2072.
2072 has the AD Black Fin DSP in it vs. the Freescale version in the 1074. Seems to me like I'll be getting more of a scope for my money with the DS2072
My questions is to those of you who are like me and do mostly digital debugging of circuits, and general purpose analog (nothing high bandwidth). Do you find it important and useful to have a
4 channel scope over a 2 channel scope? Is it worth missing out on the goodies of the DS2072 for a 4 channel DS1074Z to be able to view all 4 channels of an SPI bus at once? Anything below $1000 for me is doable, I'm not worried about the extra $250 it would cost me to get the DS2072. If I got the DS2072 I would need to switch between MOSI and MISO or not show the CLK/CS when viewing a signal. I would love to get a DS4014, but that guy it out of my price range. Obviously the hack available is a big factor in this as well, tequipment.net no longer sells the DS2072, only the newer version DS2072A. I'm not sure of the differences but I've heard that hack is not yet available for the newer A version yet..? I'd like to hear your input? Anyone with one of these scopes care to share their experiences with them? I heard someone say on another thread that if you need 4 channels you could always buy another DS2072 down the road, but I'm not convinced that is a reasonable option...
Thanks,