Well, this is a trade-off in basically all kinds of instruments.
With input attenuation, you benefit:
- Higher input voltage range and better protection
- Lower loading effect or VSWR
- Lower distortion caused by the input circuits for the same input signal
- Possibly more bandwidth
And you sacrifice:
- Sensitivity or resolution
- Noise floor or SNR
- More likely to pick up interference for a high Z input instrument
In this case, 10mV/div with 10X has the same
displayed noise floor as 1mV/div with 1X, and 10X probe is more likely to pick up interference. So the trace looks fat and fluffy.
If you are dealing with small signal, you would not want the input attenuation in most case!
If you really concern about the capacitance loading with 1X probe, try to insert a small series resistor, typically tens of Ω, between the DUT and the probe tip. This would help isolating the capacitance loading, but at the cost of lowering bandwidth.
There are some specialized active probes with little to no attenuation for this kind of work, but they are out of most hobbyists' budget.
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