first time buyers oscilloscope analysis paralysis help!!!!!

[tv84]

my last response was tounge in cheek

I guess a part of me likes the new flashing modern thing, and the other hears the rational around a quality used one.
I am currently binge watching Daves many scope vids, which isnt helping me nail one down either!

FIRST decide what cash amount you want to spend THEN search for a scope!!!!

You won't succeed if you don't determine your budget first.

[tautech]

my last response was tounge in cheek

I guess a part of me likes the new flashing modern thing, and the other hears the rational around a quality used one.
I am currently binge watching Daves many scope vids, which isnt helping me nail one down either!

OK you don't know me from a bar of soap other than what I post here so once again I'll give you a little background.

Once not too long ago I yearned for a scope too and after several CRO's and the efforts to keep them going I got into buying buggered ones and fixing them up. Then after my first DSO (Tek TDS2012B) I was alerted to the magic of DSO's and after some time selling numerous CRO's and a few DSO's (another brand) I scored a sole agency of which I still represent today despite the overtures of many other brands.

Today I'll put the brand I represent against all comers on features, capability, reliability and the factory support I'm offered.

[scatterandfocus]

Nearly 5 years ago Dave said this:

If you want (or need) the fancy-shmancy math stuff, logic analyzing, protocol-sniffing you want a modern DSO/MDO, but prepare to spend some serious money as well.

The huge difference between DSO's and CRO's is the ability to capture a waveform. Everything else is a bonus.

Like Dave once said about analog scopes in a video: It's a must have in any decent lab! Pick one up!

I don't recall saying that.
People very often mis-interpret what I have said about analog scopes.
A CRO is a much better option for a beginner than a "toy" handheld DSO if you want a general purpose scope. But now that serious variable intensity displays can be had for sub $400, there is no contest, you only need a DSO. For all but the most extreme niche cases, a CRO will sit on your shelf and gather dust next to a DSO. The game has changed a lot in the last few years.
If I had to pick only one scope to have in my lab, the best analog scope ever made, or an old Rigol DS1052E, I'd pick the Rigol in a heart beat.

5 years later a DS1052E is considered seriously outdated.

Those that want to still live in the CRO past should !

You're right.  Dave did mention getting an analog scope within the context of many people asking him what he thought of the cheapest digital handheld scopes (the toys, as he put it).  Seeing those inexpensive handhelds is pretty tempting to beginners for getting a first scope to play around with.  Navigating  specifications, functions, and usability concerns of digital scopes is something of a nightmare for beginners, which probably has alot to do with beginners looking at those cheapo handhelds.  And for those of us interested primarily in audio, we don't need much in terms of bandwidth, channels, and functions.  We just need to see a decent display of a waveform when passing a repeating test signal through a device (need a signal generator too) and when passing a test signal through components using xy mode.  The lowest bandwidth bench dso's and cro's is more than enough for that use case.  And for audio, storage seems to be more of a nicety (for other use cases) than a requirement.

[Fungus]

You're right.  Dave did mention getting an analog scope

That video was a loooong time ago and Dave has changed his mind since then,  because DSOs have got much better/cheaper.

(...and all those CROs are now much older, harder to find, and more likely to die)

I can't find the link to where Dave changes his mind - anyone?

[scatterandfocus]

You're right.  Dave did mention getting an analog scope

That video was a loooong time ago and Dave has changed his mind since then,  because DSOs have got much better/cheaper.

(...and all those CROs are now much older, harder to find, and more likely to die)

I can't find the link to where Dave changes his mind - anyone?

The context of Dave recommending an analog scope was many people asking him about cheap toy scopes.  So his recommendation was centered around not buying one of those toy scopes if you have only a small amount of money for a first scope.  And within that context, his recommendation does seem to still make sense.

I was looking at those inexpensive toy scopes myself, which escalated into looking for a decent enough bench scope.  I do still want a digital scope at some point, but in addition to optionally running on battery power and having a nice to use interface design, I would like a scope that will be serviceable.  If I can help it, I don't want test gear that will end up in a landfill when some component fails.  Are any of the modern dso's serviceable?

[Mr. Scram]

The context of Dave recommending an analog scope was many people asking him about cheap toy scopes.  So his recommendation was centered around not buying one of those toy scopes if you have only a small amount of money for a first scope.  And within that context, his recommendation does seem to still make sense.

I was looking at those inexpensive toy scopes myself, which escalated into looking for a decent enough bench scope.  I do still want a digital scope at some point, but in addition to optionally running on battery power and having a nice to use interface design, I would like a scope that will be serviceable.  Are any of the modern dso's serviceable?

With serviceable you mean repairable? I don't think DSOs are less repairable than CROs. CROs can be stuffed full of ASICs and unobtainable parts.

[scatterandfocus]

The context of Dave recommending an analog scope was many people asking him about cheap toy scopes.  So his recommendation was centered around not buying one of those toy scopes if you have only a small amount of money for a first scope.  And within that context, his recommendation does seem to still make sense.

I was looking at those inexpensive toy scopes myself, which escalated into looking for a decent enough bench scope.  I do still want a digital scope at some point, but in addition to optionally running on battery power and having a nice to use interface design, I would like a scope that will be serviceable.  Are any of the modern dso's serviceable?

With serviceable you mean repairable? I don't think DSOs are less repairable than CROs. CROs can be stuffed full of ASICs and unobtainable parts.

Yes, repairable is a concern to me.  For cro's it seems to be very model dependent.  Some of them don't have unobtainable parts and do have service manuals with schematics.  Are there any modern dso's that have the same? 

[nctnico]

And for those of us interested primarily in audio, we don't need much in terms of bandwidth, channels, and functions.  We just need to see a decent display of a waveform when passing a repeating test signal through a device (need a signal generator too) and when passing a test signal through components using xy mode.  The lowest bandwidth bench dso's and cro's is more than enough for that use case.  And for audio, storage seems to be more of a nicety (for other use cases) than a requirement.

Well there are a few things that make a DSO handy for audio. For starters looking at really low frequency signals. An analog scope sucks at that. Also measuring signal levels and frequency are handy features to have.

[Mr. Scram]

Yes, repairable is a concern to me.  For cro's it seems to be very model dependent.  Some of them don't have unobtainable parts and do have service manuals with schematics.  Are there any modern dso's that have the same?

Not really but you don't really need to either. It's quite a paradigm shift when you're a CRO owner but these things don't tend to die in large numbers yet. I don't think Rigol and Siglent offer spare parts and repair services but Keysight certainly does.

[Johnny10]

I think you are forgetting something about oscilloscopes... there is an active second hand market, you can resell them quite easily.

I was once like you, always thinking, researching, anguishing, trying to find the best of class at a price I could afford.
One of my first scopes was the Rigol 1052z I used it for 2 years and sold it for 25 less than I paid. It was a great starter scope.

The experience of using that scope and also a few older CRO scopes gave me the confidence to make more informed purchases of equipment.

My advice would be to buy a well respected scope at a reasonable price and get some experience.

If you like this hobby your first scope won't be your last.


And something else to remember... just because someone has a financial interest in his recommendation doesn't mean he is wrong or trying to take advantage. We would all be screwed if we never took advice from our manufacturers and suppliers.

[BillB]

I think you are forgetting something about oscilloscopes... there is an active second hand market, you can resell them quite easily.

This is a very good point.  The used market for entry level DSO's is hot.  Any one of them that you buy, you could easily turn around and sell after a year or two at not much of a loss. 

[tautech]

I don't think Rigol and Siglent offer spare parts and repair services but Keysight certainly does.

Yes you don't think or for that matter even know !
FFS of course they do !

[bd139]

This is a very good point.  The used market for entry level DSO's is hot.  Any one of them that you buy, you could easily turn around and sell after a year or two at not much of a loss. 

Yep I've had three DS1054Z's. I went through periods where I didn't need its features so I turfed it on ebay and it was gone within 24 hours. TCO for a DS1054 on next day demand was about 80 quid for two years (£40 per scope loss) or £3.33 a month. Bargain. I've got the third one lurking still as it's earning its keep at the moment. People laugh at this but I run my shit Ferengi style.

I don't think Rigol and Siglent offer spare parts and repair services but Keysight certainly does.

Yes you don't think or for that matter even know !
FFS of course they do !

AFAIK Rigol just do RTB and the supplier sends a new crate out. That's what Telonic was suggesting when I was talking to them initially.

On keysight, they do indeed do spares but it's like Mercedes parts - expensive. Which is why I drive a Shitroen

[2N3055]

People laugh at this but I run my shit Ferengi style.

LOL!!

[Mr. Scram]

Yes you don't think or for that matter even know !
FFS of course they do !

Good. Where is the page to search and order parts? How long are oscilloscopes supported and repaired?

[bd139]

That is incidentally one reason I didn't buy a Siglent initially. Our local reseller never has any in stock and I'm not touching foreign sellers as I rather like the default CRA 2015 protection I have in the UK on purchases which makes the above point moot.

[borjam]

I guess a part of me likes the new flashing modern thing, and the other hears the rational around a quality used one.
I am currently binge watching Daves many scope vids, which isnt helping me nail one down either!

We are used to think "Chinese = crap el cheapo" but I'm afraid that's no longer the case.

Old equipment can be very high quality, but what do you know about its usage history? How many components about to fail will it contain?

Modern equipment will for sure avoid the typical uncertainty of "is it the aging instrument or my circuit?". And, come on, digital oscilloscopes are g r e a t. Claiming that analog oscilloscopes are better is like defending magnetic tape or vinyl against proper digital recording.

DSOs are different. Which means that you must learn to use them and exploit their strengths. The only clear disadvantage is XY mode.

I own both the DS1000Z and the SDS1202X-E and I can vouch for them. I wouldn't recommend you to get lessed models from either Rigol or Siglent because these two series are a tipping point. So, how would you choose one of them, given that their prices are very similar?

Easy: Do you want four channels? -> Rigol
Two channels, more bandwidth, better measurements, better noise floor(*), more modern? -> The Siglent

(*)If you are mostly working with digital circuits and you want to check signal timings and that kind of stuff, the four channel model will probably be better.

Both are in my opinion excellent value for money. It just depends on your needs.

As for support, they seem to be committed to providing firmware updates for some time. Both Siglent and Rigol issued firmware updates within the last six months. And the good thing is, they are competing. Even traditional manufacturers such as R&S, Keysight, etc, are releasing more affordable series.

[njkmonty]

Thank you!  That was a very helpful reply

[scatterandfocus]

Modern equipment will for sure avoid the typical uncertainty of "is it the aging instrument or my circuit?". And, come on, digital oscilloscopes are g r e a t. Claiming that analog oscilloscopes are better is like defending magnetic tape or vinyl against proper digital recording.

Whatever device it is that we are talking about, analog and digital can both have merits.

I can't say much about scopes, as I am a beginner with them, but I do like the smooth and lag-free display and all tactile interface (no menus).  I like that some of them were built to be repairable.  And I like that they can be had inexpensively.  Digital scopes have storage and advanced math functions, which are surely useful for some use cases and not so much for others.  And digital scopes consume much less power, are lightweight, and can interface with computers for doing other useful things.

On audio recording, the merits of digital are low noise, accuracy, convenience, and low cost.  But analog recording formats are still very much alive and in use in professional settings.  Tape imprints some widely recognized desirable sound qualities which haven't yet been satisfactorly reproduced with dsp, and same goes for vinyl.  Lots of professional engineers still record to tape and/or through other analog gear initially to get those analog sound qualities imprinted upon the recording and then either mix analog (because of sound qualities of analog gear) or bounce to digital for mixing.  Sometimes a mix of both.  Lots of music artists still demand analog recording for it's sound qualities.  Music is art, not a lab sample.  Lots of end listeners have turned back to vinyl because of it's sound qualities and even cassette, as well as for the physical packaging that includes artwork, photos, lyrics, liner notes about musicians and recording staff, and other information that we don't usually get with digital files.

I just want to leave the impression that things aren't so cut and dry as some people like to make them out to be.  Analog and digital shouldn't always be at odds with each other.   Doing that is looking at the world in a black and white way rather than looking at the whole spectrum and weighing the pros and cons for individual situations.  Just one example of enjoying merits of both analog and digital is in audio end listening.  Lots of people rip vinlyl to digital formats.  Doing so captures the desirable audio qualities of vinyl to a convenient format.

Personally, I would like to have a digital scope at some point, after I have more experience and better understand what my requirements are.  I would also like to have one that will be repairable, although that might never come around from the manufacturing world.  Although I have noticed that the datasheet for the Digilent Analog Discovery goes into explaining it's circuits (with schematics), and that looks attractive to me.

[bd139]

I guess a part of me likes the new flashing modern thing, and the other hears the rational around a quality used one.
I am currently binge watching Daves many scope vids, which isnt helping me nail one down either!

We are used to think "Chinese = crap el cheapo" but I'm afraid that's no longer the case.

Old equipment can be very high quality, but what do you know about its usage history? How many components about to fail will it contain?

Modern equipment will for sure avoid the typical uncertainty of "is it the aging instrument or my circuit?". And, come on, digital oscilloscopes are g r e a t. Claiming that analog oscilloscopes are better is like defending magnetic tape or vinyl against proper digital recording.

I’m on the fence with this. I sort of agree but would like to add a few things.

Firstly it’s still Chinese crap. There are some horrible UI choices, the manuals are still written in Engrish and there are dubious corners cut all over the place. The difference is that the otherwise excellent products from the West have declined in quality. What we have is a plateau where formerly good brands and formerly bad brands are both mediocre. Honesty I compare Keysight to siglent here and the only difference is the price. (Tautech that is a thinly veiled compliment )

As someone who fixes a lot of equipment, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The newer kit tends to have a lot of the latter. I spent a good few hours scratching my head over a trigger issue on my DS1054Z the other day which turned out to be the last user cal going wonky. Older kit, you tend to be able to run performance validation against. New stuff, not so much.

As for analogue scopes they are far far superior on a few use cases such as X-Y mode, ease of use, lack of aliasing, display quality, repairability, initial investment and predictable bandwidth roll off. Certainly having both is an advantage. I switch back and forth all the time.

[queennikki1972]

I went with the Siglent SDS1202X-E Oscilloscope myself, so I guess I will find out soon enough..

[tautech]

I guess a part of me likes the new flashing modern thing, and the other hears the rational around a quality used one.
I am currently binge watching Daves many scope vids, which isnt helping me nail one down either!

We are used to think "Chinese = crap el cheapo" but I'm afraid that's no longer the case.

Old equipment can be very high quality, but what do you know about its usage history? How many components about to fail will it contain?

Modern equipment will for sure avoid the typical uncertainty of "is it the aging instrument or my circuit?". And, come on, digital oscilloscopes are g r e a t. Claiming that analog oscilloscopes are better is like defending magnetic tape or vinyl against proper digital recording.

I’m on the fence with this. I sort of agree but would like to add a few things.

Firstly it’s still Chinese crap. There are some horrible UI choices, the manuals are still written in Engrish and there are dubious corners cut all over the place. The difference is that the otherwise excellent products from the West have declined in quality. What we have is a plateau where formerly good brands and formerly bad brands are both mediocre. Honesty I compare Keysight to Siglent here and the only difference is the price.

Here I disagree.
Those 2 brands are on a different path.
KS have hung their hat on an existing ASIC that they've introduced into their entry level DSO and given them enough capability to tempt entry level purchasers. That has enabled them to properly challenge DSO's with UI latency and win.
Siglent on the other hand has introduced some feature sets that other brands have only offered as options and at the same time tuned those features to challenge all comers.
The fight is all about market share.

As someone who fixes a lot of equipment, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The newer kit tends to have a lot of the latter. I spent a good few hours scratching my head over a trigger issue on my DS1054Z the other day which turned out to be the last user cal going wonky. Older kit, you tend to be able to run performance validation against. New stuff, not so much.

Nah on that too as any good service manual has a chapter on performance verification when examined against the datasheet specifies the performance spec the instrument must meet.

As for analogue scopes they are far far superior on a few use cases such as X-Y mode, ease of use, lack of aliasing, display quality, repairability, initial investment and predictable bandwidth roll off. Certainly having both is an advantage. I switch back and forth all the time.

Everyone has a different take on this as for basic scope use they are practically identical in that you have a graticule to take measurements from, X and Y controls and a trigger control.
Really they are not that different to use but with a DSO you see something and want to capture it, well you can.

[bd139]

I mostly agree. Some comments though.

At this point I sincerely hope Siglent win the market share battle. Rigol do not deserve it due to the crap they are throwing out (I am very very unimpressed by the MSO5000 after actually playing with one and seeing the total lack of progress, plus typically the things like the counter on the DG1022Z being a steamer that is just not going to be fixed) and neither do Keysight (too expensive, very little feature progress). That's not to say any of them are bad and none of them are useful but there are some seriously glaring product holes. The drive to throw new products on the market means we never get maturity these days and it's frustrating as hell.

On performance verification, I mean deep verification rather than superficial front end validation. A DSO is a much more complicated beast and a lot of the features are not well specified or demonstrated and are entirely in the software domain. For example the FFT and decode implementations have no baseline specification other than a feature tick box. If you look at the commercial software market this stuff is automatically regression tested to buggery. This is definitely not evident in Rigol's products at least and at the price point, getting any of that is unlikely. Keysight are on a winner there but you pay for it and there are some horrible issues I've observed in some of the videos on YouTube. I can't speak for Siglent here but they appear to be throwing stuff out quickly and reactive which is again better than both. Velocity towards maturity is a winner.

If you have one scope, a DSO is best. If you have two scopes, one of them being an analogue unit is a winner though.

I actually nearly bought a keysight the other day to replace my Rigol. After doing a lot more research I skipped this and looked at the Siglent. Then I discovered that some models have probe compensation issues and reminded myself that I'm going to stay with the known unknows, which was really the poorly contrived point I was trying to make

[rstofer]

is there anyone here who doesn't have a financial interest in their advice?

Yup! 

I bought the DS1054Z a couple of years ago and immediately unlocked the 100 MHz stuff.  Works well!  But I wanted 4 channels to decode SPI transactions so buying a two channel scope was out of the question.  Besides, I already had a Tek 485 350 MHz 2 channel scope.

Today, I would give the Siglent SDS1204X-E serious consideration.  Maybe even try to unlock the SDS1104X-E (details elsewhere).  What people say about the slow GUI on the Rigol is absolutely true.  I'm not convinced it makes a lot of difference but, prices being essentially equal, I would go for the newer Siglent with the more responsive GUI.

Audio people may actually care about FFT and, on the DS1054Z, it's kind of crude.  I can do much better with my Digilent Analog Discovery 2.  I have been told that Siglent has a really nice FFT.  I haven't gone looking for a video because I'm not really in the market.

I would never pick a 2 channel scope because my world is digital.  I spend absolutely no time thinking about audio.

[rstofer]

is it better to get the 50Mhz keysight  than a 200Mhz siglet?

Not if you ever want to look at square waves.  Without getting too far down in the weeds, consider that you need bandwidth on the order of 9 times that maximum square wave frequency.  A 50 MHz scope may display a 5 MHz square wave pretty well.  A 200 MHz might display a 20 MHz square wave.

If you don't have enough bandwidth to display a reasonable number of harmonics, the square wave will start looking sinusoidal.  One can debate 5th or 7th or 9th as being sufficient but any way you cut it, 200 >> 50.