Purchase advice - RIGOL MSO5074

[GMG]

Hi everyone, good evening, I have read in this forum many topics about RIGOL MSO5000 and how to upgrade it, but I don't know too much about other possible alternatives. SIGLENT for example?
As start point my possible choose will be RIGOL MSO5074 with the ability to upgrade it to MSO5354. I can have MSO5074 at 865.00€ included VAT and shipment. Now I would like to know from people who know a lot more than me if there are better alternatives to my 1st choose. What you suggest?
The main field should be the analysis of digital circuits and the ability to read as accurately as possible, the current consumption by shunt resistor.

[Martin72]

Hi,

For the appx 900 bucks you want to spend for, there is IMHO no alternative to the rigol I´ve owned over a year.
The strengths lies in the features the 5000 got for it´s money.
9" touchscreen, hdmi output, 2 channel awg, 100Mpts memory, 8Gsa/s...this is a lot for the money.
On the first sight and also on the second, when you couldn´t spend more.

The pros of this scope:
- Lots of features for the money
- 8GSa/s is still unbeaten in this priceclass - And above
- Lots of mathfunctions, including digital filters
- 2-channel awg up to 25Mhz
- Hardware itself is powerful
- Lots of triggerfunctions
- Even with the 70Mhz entry model you get 350Mhz probes

The cons of this scope are(my opinion):
- Relative slow touchscreen response
- Partly confusing UI in general/"comic style"
- Still having some remarkable bugs in the software, after over 3yrs on the market
- Support/firmware update policy are weak
- Frontend is too noisy for low voltage level measurement - This could be important for your purpose of measuring the voltage of a shunt resistor

If these con-points are not too important for you, you´ll get a scope with very good pricevalue.

But if you can spend more/ save a little time your money until you can afford it, I´ll recommend the scope I got today, the siglent sds2k+.
The pros:

- 10" screen, brighter and clearer than the rigol
- Fast response touchscreen
- Clearer UI, "professional style" looks like the one from lecroy scopes, very good to handle, free choosable channel-colours
- Integrated 50ohm terminations
- Math with freestyle formular editor
- Software in general is more mature in comparison, firmware updates always got not only bugfixes, also feature enhancement
- Very low noise frontend in comparison
- 10bit mode (software, but works really good)
- "Easier" to hack, hack remains after firmware update

The cons:

- No dedicated video output
- 2GSa/s instead of 8 GSa/s
- One channel awg with very rudimental features
- 2 Mathchannels instead of 4 the rigol got
- Logic probes are expensive
- The probes of the 100Mhz model are cheap ones

The cons doesn´t worry much - for me.
For it´s money, it´s the best you can get - like the rigol in it´s priceclass

The SDS2104X, hackable to 500Mhz, cost appx 1400€ incl. VAT.
Working with pro scopes on work, for me it´s the best affordable scope in the range up to 3000€.

When you couldn´t spend more than 900 bucks, get the rigol mso 5074.

Martin

[GMG]

Thank you very much Martin, I will think about your interesting review

[pope]

But if you can spend more/ save a little time your money until you can afford it, I´ll recommend the scope I got today, the siglent sds2k+.

Do you mean the "sds2000x plus"? If so, I had the impression that you already owned one.

[Martin72]

Hm?
I got indeed the sds2k+, therefore the scope I own today...

[pope]

Hm?
I got indeed the sds2k+, therefore the scope I own today...

OK never mind...

By "I got today" I understood that you actually got it (bought it) today.

[Martin72]

Hm....You´re right, "actually" would fit better. 

[cesare]

Hi everyone, good evening, I have read in this forum many topics about RIGOL MSO5000 and how to upgrade it, but I don't know too much about other possible alternatives. SIGLENT for example?
As start point my possible choose will be RIGOL MSO5074 with the ability to upgrade it to MSO5354. I can have MSO5074 at 865.00€ included VAT and shipment. Now I would like to know from people who know a lot more than me if there are better alternatives to my 1st choose. What you suggest?
The main field should be the analysis of digital circuits and the ability to read as accurately as possible, the current consumption by shunt resistor.

I've recently been working through the same thought process, and purchased the SDS2104X Plus with the digital probes - there's a special offer on at the moment with the probes and software at a reduced price that worked out well for me.

My interest is mainly digital side, FPGA programming, protocol decoding, that sort of thing, but the analog inputs have been put to use to trace out some dodgy audio equipment, so it's been put to good use.

My thought process when choosing between the two was that the older slower Rigol user interface was going to really annoy me, whilst the Siglent is being actively developed, and is based on the more modern platform.

[Fungus]

Hi everyone, good evening, I have read in this forum many topics about RIGOL MSO5000 and how to upgrade it, but I don't know too much about other possible alternatives. SIGLENT for example?
As start point my possible choose will be RIGOL MSO5074 with the ability to upgrade it to MSO5354. I can have MSO5074 at 865.00€ included VAT and shipment. Now I would like to know from people who know a lot more than me if there are better alternatives to my 1st choose. What you suggest?

At that price there's nothing better.

What would be the absolute maximum amount of money you would spend?

The main field should be the analysis of digital circuits and the ability to read as accurately as possible, the current consumption by shunt resistor.

By measuring voltage drop? Get a $2 op-amp and amplify the voltage. Measure that.

(similar to Daves uCurrent which is always out of stock)

[GMG]

Usually I have to analyze signals in a 5 second time interval around a trigger. The idea of using an opamp to amplify a small signal sounds great to me. The decoding of signals interests me as an idea to see quickly if a certain line is data, then I would use a 16-channel Saleae Logic Analyzer whose performances are clearly superior to those of RIGOL and the software is the best around for me.

[dreamcat4]

hi there. this is a bit of a difficult decision for me. and still haven't decided what to do. guess i was just hoping that keysight would eventually release a successor to the dsox1204g. but it never happened. but am still considering that one too

but can i just ask, would both the siglent and the rigol have the following as a con? (against the keysight i mean, not necessarily against each other)

[nctnico]

AFAIK Rigol doesn't have the limiting Siglent / Lecroy memory handling. But still, if you have the money then the R&S RTB2004 will give you best of both worlds (with real 10 bit ADC resolution on top).

[2N3055]

AFAIK Rigol doesn't have the limiting Siglent / Lecroy memory handling. But still, if you have the money then the R&S RTB2004 will give you best of both worlds (with real 10 bit ADC resolution on top).

Sure it does. R&S RTB2000 does too. On Rigol it is on by default. Most people happily use Rigols in that mode all the time. But you keep forgetting that for some reason.
And also Keysight works like that in Run mode, and longer timebases. On shorter timebases in Single mode it captures a bit more than on the screen.
It will also decode only what was captured on screen.

[nctnico]

AFAIK Rigol doesn't have the limiting Siglent / Lecroy memory handling. But still, if you have the money then the R&S RTB2004 will give you best of both worlds (with real 10 bit ADC resolution on top).

Sure it does. R&S RTB2000 does too. On Rigol it is on by default.

But the big difference compared to Siglent/Lecroy is that you can turn it off and set a memory length by yourself.

[2N3055]

AFAIK Rigol doesn't have the limiting Siglent / Lecroy memory handling. But still, if you have the money then the R&S RTB2004 will give you best of both worlds (with real 10 bit ADC resolution on top).

Sure it does. R&S RTB2000 does too. On Rigol it is on by default.

But the big difference compared to Siglent/Lecroy is that you can turn it off and set a memory length by yourself.

Yes they can, but most people don't do it. Keysight has only automatic memory management and everybody thought that was grand idea compared to Tektronix manual management because it makes scope easier to operate. One less parameter to keep in mind to prevent aliasing.

I'm just curious, when Siglent implements manual sample control, what will be your next biggest problem with it? We could then make a poll to see how many people will even notice it was there.. 

[dreamcat4]

Keysight has only automatic memory management and everybody thought that was grand idea compared to Tektronix manual management because it makes scope easier to operate. One less parameter to keep in mind to prevent aliasing.

this sounds better to me. yeah so overall i would prefer the keysight method. but since somebody here has now brought up the rhode & schwartz was also just wondering what R&S does.


another point of interest i think is WHY other scopes are not doing this the way keysight does it. because i would assume on of there 3 basic reasons?

* the specific system for memory storage and retrieval in the hardware itself, it isn't capable, unless it is otherwise implemented specifically in the way keysight has done it
* keysight holds a patent either for the hardware configuration above ^^, or otherwise for the way this mechanism works on the user side (UI / user interface feature)
* the other manufacturers just find it a lot more challenging to implement, or don't see the point? or don't want to put the extra effort into developing this feature?

Or maybe there was some other reason IDK. it just would be nice to find out if it's a possibility at all for any of the other brands in the future. and if so which brand(s) would be more likely to introduce it

[2N3055]

Keysight has only automatic memory management and everybody thought that was grand idea compared to Tektronix manual management because it makes scope easier to operate. One less parameter to keep in mind to prevent aliasing.

this sounds better to me. yeah so overall i would prefer the keysight method. but since somebody here has now brought up the rhode & schwartz was also just wondering what R&S does.


another point of interest i think is WHY other scopes are not doing this the way keysight does it. because i would assume on of there 3 basic reasons?

* the specific system for memory storage and retrieval in the hardware itself, it isn't capable, unless it is otherwise implemented specifically in the way keysight has done it
* keysight holds a patent either for the hardware configuration above ^^, or otherwise for the way this mechanism works on the user side (UI / user interface feature)
* the other manufacturers just find it a lot more challenging to implement, or don't see the point? or don't want to put the extra effort into developing this feature?

Or maybe there was some other reason IDK. it just would be nice to find out if it's a possibility at all for any of the other brands in the future. and if so which brand(s) would be more likely to introduce it

Mostly all do it, actually. They all have AUTO memory mode. And it is on by default on all the scopes. But many do also have a choice of manual control.
I do agree with Nico manual control and giving choice to the user is generally in principle good idea.
But for most uses and most of users they will never use anything else than AUTO memory mode.
 
Keysight added manual memory/acquisition control to 3000T just recently, after scope was on market 5 years or so.. And most of the users that use it every day as they daily driver don't even know that option is there. And then they ask what is it for... They chose to call it Digitizer mode, and using it in interactive mode is very clumsy and non intuitive. It is useful for people running scope under software control to achieve some specific digitizer settings because you need it for some analysis you're going to run on the date afterwards.

[dreamcat4]

Mostly all do it, actually. They all have AUTO memory mode. And it is on by default on all the scopes. But many do also have a choice of manual control.
I do agree with Nico manual control and giving choice to the user is generally in principle good idea.
But for most uses and most of users they will never use anything else than AUTO memory mode.

it is a good idea to have these choice available. and it is a good idea to have the default choice be the one which most users typically are using all of the time

i like what you are saying here, and it would be great for myself being able to choose from a wider variety of cope brands. very happy.

but then if this is true and everything is fine for this feature... then why the video from Dave complaining about this feature? (as was previously linked above, at the begging of my enquiry)

[2N3055]

Mostly all do it, actually. They all have AUTO memory mode. And it is on by default on all the scopes. But many do also have a choice of manual control.
I do agree with Nico manual control and giving choice to the user is generally in principle good idea.
But for most uses and most of users they will never use anything else than AUTO memory mode.

it is a good idea to have these choice available. and it is a good idea to have the default choice be the one which most users typically are using all of the time

i like what you are saying here, and it would be great for myself being able to choose from a wider variety of cope brands. very happy.

but then if this is true and everything is fine for this feature... then why the video from Dave complaining about this feature? (as was previously linked above, at the begging of my enquiry)

Dave produces videos for living. And it helps with views to have clickbait title.
Also, I said many times before, there are few things in that video that are not quite correct.

Dave makes videos mostly on impulse and rather quick. He doesn't have time to plan and research every single little thing.
I understand his predicament. So sometimes there are things in his videos that are more of opinion than carefully researched analysis of all the details. But that is his style and he is honest about it and I respect that.
But his opinion is not ultimate truth and he doesn't have to be right all the time.
As I said, he speaks his mind and says things that are based on his preferences.
Which is OK. But that is only one side of the coin in most cases.

What I respect about him, is that he (with his videos) and with providing us with this great site (where he and moderators are doing great job of keeping it great place) serves as a catalyst, where something like this usually sparks great discussion in which many times we all learn a great deal on many topics.. That is his greatest contribution to us.
An I'm grateful for that.  Thanks mate!

[nctnico]

Keysight has only automatic memory management and everybody thought that was grand idea compared to Tektronix manual management because it makes scope easier to operate. One less parameter to keep in mind to prevent aliasing.

this sounds better to me. yeah so overall i would prefer the keysight method. but since somebody here has now brought up the rhode & schwartz was also just wondering what R&S does.

On R&S you can simply choose how the memory should work. A fixed length (selectable from several options) or automatic.

The real problem is that every DSO implementation has it's strengths and weaknesses and what most people do or don't isn't relevant at all. In the end it is about what you need a DSO for. Maybe you can elaborate a bit more on what kind of projects you plan to work on. Need decoding? Math? FFT? That will highly influence what kind (and brand) of DSO is most suitable for your purposes.

I don't know if you have found this thread already but it could be worth watching the videos (even though the Rigol MSO5000 isn't included):
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/functional-comparison-of-rs-rtb2000-siglent-sds2000x-and-keysight-dsox1000/

It shows many differences between how DSOs operate and how that translates to strong and weak points for certain purposes.

[dreamcat4]

thanks.

i suppose looking at the summary list of pros and cons here between rigol and siglent...

then i would overall be happier with the siglent. it does come at the cost of giving up the 8ms/s, however on balance i think the slower responsiveness of the touchscreen would be far more annoying to me, and also the firmware in general being better on the siglent

and i dont thing i would miss the 2nd awg on the rigol as much as the better probes it comes with. however since both can be externally replaced then those are things which can be rectified externally. wheras the worse user interface of the rigol seemingly cannot (or will not) be improved any further. given how long the mso5000 series has been out now

so that really has to be the personal decision here (for my own needs). however i would also be happy to hear for what applications the 8gs/s matters. just more out of curiosity than expecting to need it myself

anyhow thanks for these responses. and shall be going through the other thread you linked to. will very helpful appreciated

[nctnico]

In general I don't even care about the probes that get delivered with an oscilloscope. Usually they are not the best quality (even if you spend US $10k for the oscilloscope). The manufacturer really likes you to buy the more fancy & expensive models. I'm finding myself reverting back to Testec probes instead of the probes that come with an oscilloscope. So yes, probes are easily replaced by something that you like better.

[Martin72]

Hi,

then i would overall be happier with the siglent.

You will.

it does come at the cost of giving up the 8ms/s, however on balance i think the slower responsiveness of the touchscreen would be far more annoying to me, and also the firmware in general being better on the siglent

I can only speak for myself, but since the day I´ve changed to the siglent, my needs didn´t miss the 8GSa/s, it makes no difference to me.
What I sometimes miss are the 4 match-channels the rigol got.
But still all four math-channels got the same trace-colour, where at the second firmware update the siglent allows you to choose the colours free....That´s a difference.
And underline the statement of being the first "pro" scope for less, very less money in comparision.
Sure, 1400 bucks for the entry 4-ch model seems to be a lot of money for private usage, but to be honest, for this price I couldn´t buy an OPTION for our lecroy scopes at work.

and i dont thing i would miss the 2nd awg on the rigol as much as the better probes it comes with.

To be honest again, me I could live without any in-built awg on a scope, it´s a toy thing and couldn´t replace a "serious" external awg in every case.
So forget the internal awg thing.
The probe thing...Mhhmm..
Sure you can say forget of the cheap probes which comes with the scope.
But even when I would buy the meanwhile not so expensive anymore 350Mhz autosense probes from siglent separately, it will cost me additional 320 bucks for 4 pcs.
Nevertheless and apart from all, the siglent sds2k+ series is the actual best bang for buck without any doubts.