Rigol: DHO1000 vs. MSO5000, what should I get?

[seppeltronics]

Hello,

I think about getting a new 4 Channel Scope, currently consider the DHO1000 or MSO5000 series. What do you think is the one to get for embedded, and a little bit of analog?

- DHO 1204
- MSO 5204

Weather I should Hack it, not sure, I have no experience in Hackability.

My current scope is very low on memory, just 18k, older Rigol DS1104B.

Thanks a lot. Best Regards, Seppeltronics

P.S. LA, I use sigrok with cheap LA's. Having that integrated in the scope is nice, but not a Must.

[egonotto]

Hello,

You have to decide quickly, because the DHO1000 is significantly cheaper until 31.12.2023. The hack of the DHO1000 is really very easy and you can easily delete the generated files to remove the hacked licenses again.

Perhaps a DHO1074 and a Digital Discovery are more useful than an MSO5000.

A DHO1074 plus an MSO5074 is cheaper until 31.12.2023 than an MSO5204.

Best regards
egonotto

[seppeltronics]

Hello,

in the company I worked before, I got an Rigol MSO7104, noisy frontend, but damn fast acquisition, damn deep memory, for digital/embedded that is ideal. It's like an american muscle car, not that refined, but lot's of horsepower!

My friends from the central R&D had a R&S RTB2004 100Mhz, very nice analog frontend, nice resolution, but when it started to trigger, it had a wired characteristic, having issues "getting up the Waveform-Rate". Not on the Rigol, it was instant. The "Eventlist", that is way ahead of the Rigol. It's more the Porsche type of scope, more refined, but less powerful. What was really "low end" was the plastic case and the front cover, the sturdy Rigol vs. the flimsy R&S  .

With the Rigol DHO1000, I have no experience, I'd like to have a good resolution, but high sampling-speed comes in handy as well,...not to forget the integrated LA,... .

Did Rigol sell a lot of DHO1k/4k? The DHO1k seems like a good deal, in comparison to R&S and others?

Best Regards, Seppel

[Fungus]

I think about getting a new 4 Channel Scope, currently consider the DHO1000 or MSO5000 series. What do you think is the one to get for embedded, and a little bit of analog?

For mostly digital, the 5000 is a beast. Much higher bandwidth and sample rate, plus you have MSO option and signal generator.

[seppeltronics]

For mostly digital, the 5000 is a beast. Much higher bandwidth and sample rate, plus you have MSO option and signal generator.
[/quote]

Back in 2018 I did a list, the R&S RTB2k and Rigol MSO7k were the top two, the MSO5k was not on the market back then. On that base my colleague ordered the RTB2k and I wordered the MSO7k.

[tszaboo]

I've been thinking about this as well. I don't like the MSO5000, because it's noisy front end, and no 50 Ohm termination. Otherwise it looks like great value.
I don't like the DHO1000 because there is no AWG, LA, and 50 Ohm on it, and it's a little bit slow for my liking.

[seppeltronics]

I've been thinking about this as well. I don't like the MSO5000, because it's noisy front end, and no 50 Ohm termination. Otherwise it looks like great value.
I don't like the DHO1000 because there is no AWG, LA, and 50 Ohm on it, and it's a little bit slow for my liking.

What would you recommend as alternative?

[Fungus]

I don't like the MSO5000, because it's noisy front end, and no 50 Ohm termination.

That's for analog stuff though, and OP said "a little bit of analog".

For digital stuff you're mainly interested in bandwidth, timing and shapes. Noise has very little effect on that, 350Mhz and 8GS/sec does.

[tszaboo]

I've been thinking about this as well. I don't like the MSO5000, because it's noisy front end, and no 50 Ohm termination. Otherwise it looks like great value.
I don't like the DHO1000 because there is no AWG, LA, and 50 Ohm on it, and it's a little bit slow for my liking.

What would you recommend as alternative?

I recommend dragging the DUT to the office, where there is a much better oscilloscope to measure stuff.
At least that's what I'm doing.

I don't like the MSO5000, because it's noisy front end, and no 50 Ohm termination.

That's for analog stuff though, and OP said "a little bit of analog".

Yes, and my sentence is starting with "I don't like"

[seppeltronics]

Calm down guys, I guess a MSO 5000 and DHO814 would be a good combination. 

Regarding that MSO7k, I still work for that corporation, but switched to another business-unit, work from remote,... I got on with life. I do not have access to the labs currently, that is in discussion,... it's a large company, things take a while. What I save in fuel over a year, that is an MSO5000 or more, why bother wasting time?

[Martin72]

I guess a MSO 5000 and DHO814 would be a good combination.

But then you are in a price range where you can also afford the SDS2000Xplus.
Its only disadvantage, depending on how you want to look at it, is that it doesn't have 12-bit resolution.
Instead it has 10 bit (software, up to 100Mhz) and is incomparably more sophisticated and "professional".
In contrast to the MSO5000, it can be hacked permanently, including 500Mhz bandwidth.

[seppeltronics]

The only downside of the SDS2000Xplus Series is the 1GSps, and that 8Bit-ADC, which is sufficient to 100..150MHz, to be honest. 500MHz at 1GSps, all it does is adding noise . Other than that, I'd agree, seems to be a very nice Scope, featuring SENT and Manchester Decoding in addition.

I really wonder why Rigol did not improve the Software, add more features to the MSO5000 Series over the years, a lot of the development these days is "digital", where these scopes are with no competition in that price-range.

[Antonio90]

It's 2x2GS/s. Effectively half the samplerate of the Rigol (with more than 1 channel enabled).

Thats quite comfortably enough for 350 MHz, and 2GS/s is still useful at 500MHz. It also has an (allegedly quite good) 10bit mode.

But yes, that is the problem with Rigol. They sell exceedengly good hardware for the price, and make up for it with really slow development that sometimes doesn't reach the destination at all. I guess you can't have it all. Up to now Siglent has been the alternative, with much more polished software, but the price is higher and the hardware weaker.

[tszaboo]

It's 2x2GS/s. Effectively half the samplerate of the Rigol (with more than 1 channel enabled).

Thats quite comfortably enough for 350 MHz, and 2GS/s is still useful at 500MHz. It also has an (allegedly quite good) 10bit mode.

But yes, that is the problem with Rigol. They sell exceedengly good hardware for the price, and make up for it with really slow development that sometimes doesn't reach the destination at all. I guess you can't have it all. Up to now Siglent has been the alternative, with much more polished software, but the price is higher and the hardware weaker.

I wouldn't say the hardware is weaker. When you see the teardown of these Siglents (2000x and HD) there is like half a dozen FPGAs in them, doing specific things, from three different supplier. Its going to make software cheaper to write (because you carry the already written software from the bigger units), but then, the similarly specced scope will be 50% more expensive to pay for these.
Tje MSO5000 is a very good price performance scope, and I can totally see why people buy it. What I don't like is that there is a huge gap between this and the next tier. This gap is not really there in reality, since the MSO5034 MSO5024 and others fill it...

[Antonio90]

Yes, I was thinking about that price gap, but in the 500-1000 range. Up to now there wasn't any scope above the DS1054 and the SDS1000 ranges, but below the MSO5000 and SDS2000X plus.
I guess we hobbyist perceive the gap because most of us buy the basic, software-limited ones and "unlock" them.
Then, 70MHz is a rather low bandwith for a $1000 scope, and my guess is that there is very few people spending that kind of money for 70MHz nowadays.

[seppeltronics]

SDS2000X Plus: 4 channels @ 8Bit, 1 GSa/s, 100 Mpts 1.188,81€ incl. VAT
Rigol MSO5000: 4 channels @ 8Bit, 2 GSa/s, 25 Mpts(50 as an option) 1.426,81€ incl. VAT
Rigol DHO 804: 4 channels @12Bit, 312,5 MS/s, 6.25 Mpts , 474,81€ incl. VAT

My conclusions:

If you'd like to have one Scope, the Siglent is the one to get.
If you like to have a digital specialist and an analog specialist that is even portable(USB-C Powerbank), get the MSO5104+DHO804.
If you are a youtuber like Dave, get all the scopes on the Market

[Martin72]

Hi,

If you like to have a digital specialist

What makes the MSO5000 a digital specialist?

[ebastler]

Hi,

If you like to have a digital specialist

What makes the MSO5000 a digital specialist?

The fact that it is not very useful for analog work? 

[Martin72]

You can see it that way, right.