NEW Keysight HD3

[Neoname]

I have to tell you honestly, I consider the majority of users of this forum to be hobbyists with a corresponding budget for measuring equipment.
People like me who are prepared to spend around 4000...5000 on a device are probably in the absolute minority.
If a new release is reported here that is around 20000, then that is more of a nice to know but nothing that could get the community here in any way excited.
And if this announcement on the part of Keysight is like the R&S MXO once was, about subscribing for the latest news, and all you get is advertising spam, then the thing is completely dead for me.
If brands like Keysight, R&S and Tektronix can offer me something new that is in the price range of an upmarket siglent model and is just as good or even better equipped, then I will wake up again.
At the moment, I have the feeling that the “big ones” are leaving the mid-range market, which is not uninteresting for commercial customers, to the “Chinese”, so I'm addressing the “big ones”:
Wake me up when you have something for me too.

There are some higher end hobbyists that do exist, though I will accept that we are rare. I am a hobbyist with, among other things, an optioned R&S MXO4, LCX200 and NGP all bought new. The main reason is that R&S in the UK has no problem with my having a GLORIS account as a private individual, and I grew up using Hameg gear. My dealer was willing to get aggressive with prices as well. I used to have some Agilent/Keysight, right until I had a display failure and Keysight UK support refused point blank to deal with me unless I gave them the details of my company - which has nothing to do with my hobby. All my Keysight gear was sold on eBay within a month, I will never ever buy anything from Keysight again even if they changed their policies.

[Bud]

Any teasers on the color of the power cord? 

[J-R]

Happy hobbyist Keysight customer here.  I made a list of their gear I currently own that they still sell new.  Total cost to buy now would be just over $26k, but I only paid $5,800.  All of it has ethernet and is supported by the free version of PathWave BenchVue.  So there are ways to do this on the cheap.  Also, researching products, deciding what to buy and hunting for deals is part of the fun.

[Anthocyanina]

it looks like the prices really are beyond the majority's home lab budget. this was found on a site called mercateo, no idea who they are, so this might be as wrong as the 20mega points memory, but it looks like what one would expect if this is competing with the mxo4.

[nctnico]

I have to tell you honestly, I consider the majority of users of this forum to be hobbyists with a corresponding budget for measuring equipment.

If the audience on the forum is like my Youtube channel, then the majority are actually industry professionals. Next highest group is engineering student who will be professionals in a few years, and the smallest category are hobbyists with no presence in the industry.
Of course, if you are on a forum like this then you are also a hobbyist.

I agree and personally I don't like (understatement) the stance only hobby equipment should be promoted on this forum.

[EEVblog]

Any teasers on the color of the power cord? 

[EEVblog]

it looks like the prices really are beyond the majority's home lab budget. this was found on a site called mercateo, no idea who they are, so this might be as wrong as the 20mega points memory, but it looks like what one would expect if this is competing with the mxo4.

That shows 20Mpoint on a high end $22K 1GHz model, I'm 100% sure that's wrong.

[jusaca]

2-Channel versions? Really? Is there still a market for 2-Channel Scopes?

[EEVblog]

2-Channel versions? Really? Is there still a market for 2-Channel Scopes?

Education, and specific applications where you need the scope for the specs but not the channels. Not everyone buys a scope for general purpose use.

[jusaca]

I doubt that scopes with this price point will be used in educational settings?
And still, if there is just a hint of truth to the price table postet above, the price difference between 2-Ch entry and 4-Ch entry is something like 900€, or about 9% of the overall price for entry. I just can't imagine there to be a real market where you would buy 50% of the scope for 9% lower price...

[Martin72]

As Dave already wrote, it depends on the task.
We now only buy 4-channel scopes, but that doesn't mean that our 2-channel scopes have become obsolete, on the contrary.
Some tasks can only be solved with them because the equipment is different (e.g. specific math functions).

[mikeselectricstuff]

2-Channel versions? Really? Is there still a market for 2-Channel Scopes?

Education, and specific applications where you need the scope for the specs but not the channels. Not everyone buys a scope for general purpose use.

Some end up in production test rigs where they spend their entire life on a single setting

[jusaca]

Ok I get that. Would have assumed that long-running automated test rigs use special equipment without front panels or something. Still surprised, but I believe you

[pdenisowski]

Ok I get that. Would have assumed that long-running automated test rigs use special equipment without front panels or something. Still surprised, but I believe you

Manufacturing is one of the main applications of our new faceless oscilloscopes, the MXO5C (available in 4 and 8 channel versions).  You might be surprised at how many customers ask for something like this.

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/products/test-and-measurement/oscilloscopes/rs-mxo-5c-oscilloscope_334265.html

And most customers buying faceless scopes for manufacturing typically want higher, not lower, channel counts.

[tautech]

Ok I get that. Would have assumed that long-running automated test rigs use special equipment without front panels or something. Still surprised, but I believe you

Headless scopes are not that common but do exist.
Eg The SDS6000L range, 4&8ch versions of which if networked support up to 512 analog channels.

[coromonadalix]

Ok I get that. Would have assumed that long-running automated test rigs use special equipment without front panels or something. Still surprised, but I believe you

Manufacturing is one of the main applications of our new faceless oscilloscopes, the MXO5C (available in 4 and 8 channel versions).  You might be surprised at how many customers ask for something like this.

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/products/test-and-measurement/oscilloscopes/rs-mxo-5c-oscilloscope_334265.html

And most customers buying faceless scopes for manufacturing typically want higher, not lower, channel counts.

can you add an lcd screen who has a touch screen on it ?

[pdenisowski]

this might be as wrong as the 20mega points memory, but it looks like what one would expect if this is competing with the mxo4.

The MXO4 comes standard with 400 Mbps of memory per channel, so not much of a competition on that point (no pun intended)

[tszaboo]

I doubt that scopes with this price point will be used in educational settings?
And still, if there is just a hint of truth to the price table postet above, the price difference between 2-Ch entry and 4-Ch entry is something like 900€, or about 9% of the overall price for entry. I just can't imagine there to be a real market where you would buy 50% of the scope for 9% lower price...

They are. Companies completely bankroll university courses, and pay for the same equipment as the company is using. So the students have experience with it by the time they are graduated. I heard Bosch saying they need hundreds of engineers in their automotive field per year, they have millions of EURs of budget to make this happen.

[pdenisowski]

can you add an lcd screen who has a touch screen on it ?

Yep! You can connect an external display or touchscreen directly to the MXO5C

[MiroS]

You might be surprised at how many customers ask for something like this.

Me not - zero or are you  counting internal requests ?

[jc101]

Let's goooo!

Official link:
https://keysig.ht/OYqenL

Oh, marketing buzz zzzzz. I preferred the "cold dead fish, low on parasites" style of HP adverts.

I'd have to double check, but I think the dead fish and parasites are only available with an annual license upgrade.

Saldy this does appear to be the direction these days.  You buy the box, then need to either rent or take out another mortgage for a licence to use a feature. 

In one case I know about, you buy the instrument with the three roles it can do printed on the front of it, only to have one of those roles require you to pay an additional ~30% of the cost of the box to be able to use it.

[Zucca]

Plot twist!

According to my buddy working at Keysight, service manual including schematics would be released and available! Like the good old days!

I know I know... It will never^3 happen, but oh boy that would make me sooo happy.
I truly believe it would increase the sales in short and long term period.

Also I have currently no friends working at Keysight, the last ones were running the keysight ebay store.

PS: wondering how many of you believed for a split second on what I wrote above, my guess <1%

.... I slowly hide under my bench now, with a red face...

 

[Anthocyanina]

this might be as wrong as the 20mega points memory, but it looks like what one would expect if this is competing with the mxo4.

The MXO4 comes standard with 400 Mbps of memory per channel, so not much of a competition on that point (no pun intended)

it looks like the prices really are beyond the majority's home lab budget. this was found on a site called mercateo, no idea who they are, so this might be as wrong as the 20mega points memory, but it looks like what one would expect if this is competing with the mxo4.

That shows 20Mpoint on a high end $22K 1GHz model, I'm 100% sure that's wrong.

oh, it seems my comment was not clear. i meant that just as the 20M points bit shown in the batterfly link on google is wrong, since Dave says he's sure it's not 20M, the prices on the site i found them on might also be wrong, but that even if the prices are not correct on that site, the prices listed there do seem reasonable if they are pitting it against the mxo4

[KE5FX]

We can talk endlessly about the distinctions between hobbyist budgets and professional budgets, but the reality is that I see fewer scopes in the Keysight/R&S/Tek class every day in all walks of life.  Companies who would previously have purchased only the classic premium brands now have benches full of Siglent and Rigol hardware.  They are showing up in demo/webinar videos from major players.

Honestly I'm not sure I understand the role for a $20K-$50K oscilloscope, especially if Keysight is going to continue to be stingy with acquisition memory at that level of play.  There are markets for $100K-$1M scopes and there are markets for $1K-$5K scopes, but who is going to spend $30K at Keysight when they could get the same thing for $10K out of China? 

It was one thing when the Chinese scopes sucked, but then so did Japanese cars, at one time.

[Helix70]

We can talk endlessly about the distinctions between hobbyist budgets and professional budgets, but the reality is that I see fewer scopes in the Keysight/R&S/Tek class every day in all walks of life.  Companies who would previously have purchased only the classic premium brands now have benches full of Siglent and Rigol hardware.  They are showing up in demo/webinar videos from major players.

Honestly I'm not sure I understand the role for a $20K-$50K oscilloscope, especially if Keysight is going to continue to be stingy with acquisition memory at that level of play.  There are markets for $100K-$1M scopes and there are markets for $1K-$5K scopes, but who is going to spend $30K at Keysight when they could get the same thing for $10K out of China? 

It was one thing when the Chinese scopes sucked, but then so did Japanese cars, at one time.

I tend to agree. My home Siglent SDS2104X Plus does as much as my work MSOX3014T at a fraction of the cost. Don't get me wrong, I love my Keysight scope at work, it is more waveforms per second and feels snappier, and when we bought the Keysights they were only (!!) AUD7K, but my Siglent was AUD2K three years later. Gets harder and harder to justify.

Josh