Rigol DHO804 Test and Compare Thread

[rpro]

Fist of all Interval trigger on Siglent supports two channels, it is equal to Rigol Delay trig.

Was the interval trigger working across 2 channels a feature added subsequent to the release of the 8/2021 manual? The siglentna.com manual description seems to convey that this trigger is defined on the same channel, referring to "the pulse time" of  "the [same?] input signal"... https://siglentna.com/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2021/08/SDS1000X-ESDS1000X-U_UserManual_EN05B.pdf . Page 82. Thanks.

[2N3055]

Second in DHO800 datasheet I count 15 triggers including serial ones. 12 analog triggers and 3 serial ones.
Siglent SDS1104X-E has 9 analog triggers and 5 serial ones (because it supports 3 more serial protocols). 14 total.

If you need CAN and LIN it is Siglent that has advantage..

Try looking in the DHO900 datasheet. 

Sure, I can look at DS70000 datasheet too.

He's comparing DHO800  to SDS1104X-E.

[2N3055]

Fist of all Interval trigger on Siglent supports two channels, it is equal to Rigol Delay trig.

Was the interval trigger working across 2 channels a feature added subsequent to the release of the 8/2021 manual? The siglentna.com manual description seems to convey that this trigger is defined on the same channel, referring to "the pulse time" of  "the [same?] input signal"... https://siglentna.com/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2021/08/SDS1000X-ESDS1000X-U_UserManual_EN05B.pdf . Page 82. Thanks.

No you are correct, my mistake. Sorry. I confused it with Delay trigger settings my scope has.

[tautech]

Second in DHO800 datasheet I count 15 triggers including serial ones. 12 analog triggers and 3 serial ones.
Siglent SDS1104X-E has 9 analog triggers and 5 serial ones (because it supports 3 more serial protocols). 14 total.

If you need CAN and LIN it is Siglent that has advantage..

Try looking in the DHO900 datasheet. 

Sure, I can look at DS70000 datasheet too.

He's comparing DHO800  to SDS1104X-E.

7 Mpts with all channels active.
500 MSa/s with all channels active
MSO capability.
AWG capability.

Is it a fair comparison ?

[Performa01]

7 Mpts with all channels active.
500 MSa/s with all channels active
MSO capability.
AWG capability.

To be more precise:

• 7 Mpts and 500 MSa/s with 4 analog + 16 digital channels active.
• 14 Mpts and 1 GSa/s with 2 analog + 16 digital channels active.

[ebastler]

So you Siglent salesmen have nothing to worry about. Sit back and relax.

[2N3055]

So you Siglent salesmen have nothing to worry about. Sit back and relax.

Only Tautech is making money selling Siglent... And does not hide it...

[ebastler]

Some other affiliations are less obvious, I guess.

[2N3055]

Some other affiliations are less obvious, I guess.

I don't understand.

Topic introduced comparison between DHO800 and SDS1104X-E. I personally extricated myself from other DHOxxx/x topics, because I cannot contribute there to the current direction there ...

Despite all overhype DHO800 is extremely limited scope in it's capabilities. It seems it has rather low noise and 12 bit ADC, which despite thousands of stupid posts of hacking the PSU (because people want it to be portable or because Rigol screwed up such a basic thing as PSU) nobody really measured and characterized to see if that performance is really that good, or there are some hidden tricks there, which was hinted by some when tested.
It also have very decent list of triggers, I commended them for that, repeatedly.
FFT is half made and nobody can even prove it works well. Which means FFT is unusable in current state, unless you just want to gave something cool jumping on the screen, for visual effects.
Also not a SINGLE word about much hyped FastAcq. Is it simply a trick to hide fact it does not have real segmented mode that you can use for anything, like measurements or decoding.. Does anybody who bought these scopes actually plan to use them, or they just mean to twiddle PSU-s and hack them eternally?

OTOH SDS1104X-E is fully functional scope that was proven to work really well, it has 3 decode protocols more (no hacking necessary), better sampling rates with more channels, good front end, good FFT, fully functional segmented and history mode that work with full support of measurements.. Despite it being 8bit and no touch scope, it is much more advanced scope in ACTUAL measurement capabilities. It is not cutting edge, but very solid proven stable platform.

If I had to buy today inexpensive scope that I needed to do actual work and I could trust, and I had to choose between those two, I would choose SDS1104X-E today. For many reasons.

That is situation today. Cool facts, no Siglent propaganda. In fact there is huge hype about these DHO800 scopes that is simply not true and if anybody is misrepresenting facts that is Rigol fanbase..

It is in Rigols hands whether that changes.. They should step up and close the gap... Until then, my opinion and statement stay, substantiated with facts. Anybody that claims I'm wrong should present evidence to the contrary. In a format of actual measurement that they managed to do on DHO800 that cannot be done on SDS1104X-E.  Because I can demonstrate dozens type of work I know DHO800 cannot do and I use it all the time.

I don't care for ad hominem attacks. If anything they usually start when I proved my point and other side has no case and then the try to shut me up. It is usually a good sign I'm right...

Best,

Siniša

[Performa01]

This is a test and compare thread. Martin72 has just started his tests, yet this thread already has more than 400 replies - most of them off topic or just noise.

Not everyone pointing out facts that are less favourable for Rigol is a "Siglent salesman".

[ebastler]

Some other affiliations are less obvious, I guess.

I don't understand.

I was not talking about you, and certainly don't mean to attack you. While it does come across that you generally like Siglent products, you tend to take a balanced and factual approach. Thanks for that!

By the way, I agree that the SDS1104X-E is a great scope in its class. If I had not bought a DS1054Z several years before the 1104X-E came out, I would probably own one of those today.

Not everyone pointing out facts that are less favourable for Rigol is a "Siglent salesman".

What is your link to Siglent? It does seem to go beyond "generally liking their products".

[Martin72]

Is it a fair comparison ?

DHO814 costs 499€(exc.VAT), SDS1104X-E 429€ (exc.VAT) so I think the comparison is logical.
Whether the SDS now has awg, LA and bodeplot and the DHO does not is irrelevant for the time being, as I am primarily comparing measurement situations.
If there are differences, this may be due to discrepancies in the hardware equipment according to the data sheet or the software still has errors.
But I haven't got that far yet.
And next week I will be able to take a DS1054Z home with me, which is also one of the kombatants.
SDS1104X-E and DS1054Z (mostly hacked to 100Mhz) might be the most popular entry level scopes on the market at the moment, now a new generation is here and that's why I'm interested.

[Fungus]

DHO814 costs 499€(exc.VAT), SDS1104X-E 429€ (exc.VAT) so I think the comparison is logical.

Not really because the 399€ DHO804 will outsell the DHO814 by an order of magnitude, see below.

SDS1104X-E and DS1054Z (mostly hacked to 100Mhz) might be the most popular entry level scopes on the market at the moment, now a new generation is here and that's why I'm interested.

Is the DS1054Z the only one that's allowed to be hacked?

People also hack their Siglents and a lot of people will hack their DHOs.

A DHO804 costs 100€ less than the Siglent and can be switched to Siglent-beating memory/bandwidth in under two minutes over Ethernet. An awful lot of hobbyists will do that (just like they did with the DS1054Z).

The only fly in the ointment is the Rigol's 1.25Ghz sample rate but I don't think that will deter people. Hackers gonna hack.

Besides, we only have 150Mhz probes so that will help to mitigate the problem.

Testing the DHO804 probes is definitely something that could usefully be tested by somebody who owns a better signal generator than me.

(Much more useful than going through all the trigger modes and making a list IMHO. Such a list will only feed the Rigol/Siglent wars...)

[Fungus]

OTOH SDS1104X-E is fully functional scope that was proven to work really well

It's also big and ugly, not touch screen, won't run off a powerbank, twiddly knob user interface... and 100 Euros more expensive.

FFT is half made and nobody can even prove it works well. Which means FFT is unusable in current state, unless you just want to gave something cool jumping on the screen, for visual effects.

Dave had no problems using it in his review video. It outperformed the Siglent in terms of noise floor and completely destroyed it in terms of update rate.

He also found some weird distortions/anomolies/bugs on the Siglent FFT which nobody has explained yet.

See Dave's video at the 32 minute mark:
https://youtu.be/S8jrpCoZyx8?t=1920

Also check out the Rigol's pulse response which follows on from the FFT. Better than the Siglent.

Also not a SINGLE word about much hyped FastAcq. Is it simply a trick to hide fact it does not have real segmented mode that you can use for anything, like measurements or decoding.. Does anybody who bought these scopes actually plan to use them, or they just mean to twiddle PSU-s and hack them eternally?

It has real segmented mode with faster waveform capture rate than the Siglent.

[2N3055]

Some other affiliations are less obvious, I guess.

I don't understand.

I was not talking about you, and certainly don't mean to attack you. While it does come across that you generally like Siglent products, you tend to take a balanced and factual approach. Thanks for that!

By the way, I agree that the SDS1104X-E is a great scope in its class. If I had not bought a DS1054Z several years before the 1104X-E came out, I would probably own one of those today.

I wasn't feeling being called out personally and even less attacked by you. We always had good, honest and respectful discussions.
I was simply asking for clarification in general.

Thank you for kind words. I try, all we do is always colored by our cognitive biases, so one has to be carefull.
But if science taught us something is that there are methods to ensure (more?) realistic results..

In case of instruments like oscilloscopes there are ways to look at things to ensure more balanced approach.

1. I don't look at "datasheet checklists" as direct comparisons. Nominaly same function can have such a different implementation so they could have vastly different capabilities.
2. So instead of questions like  "Does it have this trigger" right way to ask that question is "Can it trigger on this kind of event and how"
3 If it has "Feature XYZ" what can you actually do with it? So instead list of "Features" we should think in terms "It can do these types of measurements". Example: It is not about "Does this scope have BODE plot function" we should ask "Can we measure BODE plots with it and how and what we can measure"
4. This kind of thinking creates clarity. For instance if you need statistics one scope has statistics and other don't you have clear choice of one of them being inadequate. If both have the statistics, than you go into detail and look into quality of implementation.  But if one is better but other one is already adequate, then you decide on scope based on some other metric.
5. Basically you compare actual real word usage scenarios not datasheet checklists. Those are made by marketing in most companies and are there to paint it in good light. I do find Siglent's datasheets better written and more factual than Rigols though. Siglents manual for scopes are same quality as KEysight or R&S. Not that Rigol datasheets lie or misrepresent, but level of detail and how is written is different. It probably shows target market focus. Rigol is more oriented to hobby market and has a bit more consumer market approach in marketing. That is my impression.


Etc etc..

It is all about measure 3 time, cut once...

Best,
Siniša

[Fungus]

4. This kind of thinking creates clarity. For instance if you need statistics one scope has statistics and other don't you have clear choice of one of them being inadequate. If both have the statistics, than you go into detail and look into quality of implementation.

You also have to look at how fast/easy it is to use the feature. The Rigol's statistics shine in this area.

They're also better implemented (they use a sliding window and are always available - just unfold the stats area on the measurement of interest, no need to menu-dive and enable a special "stats" mode).

So it's horses for courses. You might be able to sit down and prove mathematically that the Siglent is somehow "best" but which is going to be nicer and more useful to most people?

eg. How do you assign weights to things like the way the statistics work? When you have little niceties like that all over the place then it starts to add up to something valuable.

The Rigol's windowing abilities, too. How will you factor that into the big equation?

etc., etc.

TLDR; Defining "better" isn't as easy as you seem to think.

[2N3055]

OTOH SDS1104X-E is fully functional scope that was proven to work really well

It's also big and ugly, not touch screen, won't run off a powerbank, twiddly knob user interface... and 100 Euros more expensive.

FFT is half made and nobody can even prove it works well. Which means FFT is unusable in current state, unless you just want to gave something cool jumping on the screen, for visual effects.

Dave had no problems using it in his review video. It outperformed the Siglent in terms of noise floor and completely destroyed it in terms of update rate.

He also found some weird distortions/anomolies/bugs on the Siglent FFT which nobody has explained yet.

See Dave's video at the 32 minute mark:
https://youtu.be/S8jrpCoZyx8?t=1920

Also check out the Rigol's pulse response which follows on from the FFT. Better than the Siglent.

Also not a SINGLE word about much hyped FastAcq. Is it simply a trick to hide fact it does not have real segmented mode that you can use for anything, like measurements or decoding.. Does anybody who bought these scopes actually plan to use them, or they just mean to twiddle PSU-s and hack them eternally?

It has real segmented mode with faster waveform capture rate than the Siglent.

LOL.

Big and ugly... I'm not buying a girlfriend. And maybe I like them big and robust looking .. ??  Many people HATE touchscreen scopes.
Shitty type C connector and running of external (crappy) PSU is large put off.. That is my personal counter opinion. Who are you to judge me.
But comparison here would be: I'm buying a truck. Do I care first and foremost can it carry cargo I plan to transport, or I choose one with cool paint job? And I have limited money so I have to compromise on something...

Dave didn't show much. He twiddled knobs on some scopes without any plan (courtesy of unscripted videos). It was shown, many times , that FFT in its current state is this weird frequency related screen visualisation. It is fast but it shows questionable amplitudes and RBW info. At this moment it has same merit as spectrum analyser visualisation plugin on WinAmp. Yeah it reacts to signal and it is frequency and amplitude related but not a reliable instrument it should be.
Do us a favour. Prove me wrong. Make full characterization FFT and make sure it work really well. Post results, so we can put it to rest.

With segmented mode same as FFT. I asked dozens of times, pretty please, can someone try and make segmented capture and do measurements and decoding from that. Again, pretty please, would you be so kind and try it. I'm not even saying it cannot. But datasheet and manual does not claim it can, and there is no mention of anything like that in manual. Nobody tried it so far as I know.

To explain: many years ago, I bought DS1000Z that had Record mode (Segmented in Rigol parlance). Since I've seen many online screens how people were decoding from segments from DS2000A, I failed to check that DS1000Z has Record mode that you cannot do ANYTHING with, except replaying from screen to screen manually and look at waveforms. If I knew that that would be a big minus.

Please, could you test it and demonstrate it to all of us. If it cannot, than segmented mode is bulls**t marketing screen show with very limited usage.  If it does, that is GREAT news for you and other DHOxxx users and you get additional satisfaction that you proved me wrong...

Again, words like pretty, cool, like don't win an argument as to what can instrument be useful for.  Operational word here USEFULL.

Hard cold facts, testing, and measuring actual performance is the key here. Unless you need film prop for movie scene. In which case go for it, it does look cool I agree.

[Fungus]

Big and ugly... I'm not buying a girlfriend. And maybe I like them big and robust looking .. ??  Many people HATE touchscreen scopes.
Shitty type C connector and running of external (crappy) PSU is large put off.. That is my personal counter opinion. Who are you to judge me.

This is good from somebody who claims to be 100% fact based.

Do us a favour. Prove me wrong.

Is it "us", or is it "me".

Get one of these yourself if you're so interested in it.

Why are you interested anyway? Surely you already found your holy grail, one that does everything you need.

[2N3055]

4. This kind of thinking creates clarity. For instance if you need statistics one scope has statistics and other don't you have clear choice of one of them being inadequate. If both have the statistics, than you go into detail and look into quality of implementation.

You also have to look at how fast/easy it is to use the feature. The Rigol's statistics shine in this area.

They're also better implemented (they use a sliding window and are always available - just unfold the stats area on the measurement of interest, no need to menu-dive and enable a special "stats" mode).

So it's horses for courses. You might be able to sit down and prove mathematically that the Siglent is somehow "best" but which is going to be nicer and more useful to most people?

eg. How do you assign weights to things like the way the statistics work? When you have little niceties like that all over the place then it starts to add up to something valuable.

The Rigol's windowing abilities, too. How will you factor that into the big equation?

etc., etc.

TLDR; Defining "better" isn't as easy as you seem to think.

You still speak EXCLUSIVELLY about graphic representation. Did you do verification that this scope calculates RMS properly. DS1000Z didn't...
It used highly decimated data that made RMS very inaccurate for complex waveforms. Does DHO800 use full memory or decimated data? If decimated how big buffer is (if implemented properly it can work quite OK). Can you choose decimated/full data.

To get back to truck analogy, drivers seat, position etc is VERY IMPORTANT for a professional drivers. I don't disagree with you on that. Scope's ergonomics is not unimportant, and given two equally capable scopes for same price I will also pick out one with better ergonomics.

But that is only after we verify my truck is capable of carrying 10 ton load I need. Coolest looking best cabin comfort truck with 5 ton capability is not on table at all.. An in inexpensive segment I might need to make a compromise and get a 10 ton truck that has less comfort... It will do the job though.

But if I only occasionally drive some furniture for friends and drive few friends to a day trip to some waterfalls 50km from home, I can buy a van, and make it a darn cool one... And if someone needs to transport 5 tons of something, you simply refuse it..

[2N3055]

Big and ugly... I'm not buying a girlfriend. And maybe I like them big and robust looking .. ??  Many people HATE touchscreen scopes.
Shitty type C connector and running of external (crappy) PSU is large put off.. That is my personal counter opinion. Who are you to judge me.

This is good from somebody who claims to be 100% fact based.

Do us a favour. Prove me wrong.

Is it "us", or is it "me".

Get one of these yourself if you're so interested in it.

Why are you interested anyway? Surely you already found your holy grail, one that does everything you need.

Ad hominem..

I was proving how whiny and unsubstantiated your arguments  sound. That was sarcastic reenactment of your statement. I guess it was too subtle. Not.

To US. Not to be confused with USA.
Us, the many Internet users who are reading this. You and I are not trading private mails here. Other people can see it too..

You are constantly saying I'm wrong about facts. I'm saying I'm not. So prove me wrong.
You (and anybody else who feels like it, thank you very much for your effort if you choose to contribute) can test and report.
Or stop refuting my information on basis of emotion. Facts please. Thank you for your effort, it is much appreciated.

[rpro]

Also not a SINGLE word about much hyped FastAcq. Is it simply a trick to hide fact it does not have real segmented mode

It has fully segmented memory with recording and playback, as real as in any other DSO. (A trivial DSO capability these days).  Check the manual, pgs. 187-197.

[Fungus]

But that is only after we verify my truck is capable of...

Seems to me like you could keep on moving those goalposts forever.

Also not a SINGLE word about much hyped FastAcq. Is it simply a trick to hide fact it does not have real segmented mode

It has fully segmented memory with recording and playback, as real as in any other DSO. (A trivial DSO capability these days).  Check the manual, pgs. 187-197.

Case in point: He's already moved that one.

[Performa01]

What is your link to Siglent? It does seem to go beyond "generally liking their products".

Most folks watching this forum got it by now. But it doesn't matter anyway - the only valid question would be: have I posted wrong facts anywhere? Or in this thread particularly?
Isn't it funny speculating about a possible link to Siglent instead of discussing the thread topic and the few facts about Siglent scopes that I'm throwing in?

[2N3055]

Also not a SINGLE word about much hyped FastAcq. Is it simply a trick to hide fact it does not have real segmented mode

It has fully segmented memory with recording and playback, as real as in any other DSO. (A trivial DSO capability these days).  Check the manual, pgs. 187-197.

Did you read it? Carefully?

In Playback mode you can animate frames visually. In navigate mode you can navigate bx Time OR Search Event (Edge or Pulse)  OR Frame segment number.
Frame segment mode is ONLY available in UltraAcq mode and in that mode ONLY Frame segment is available.

So Normal recording mode only allows manual animation in Playback mode.
UltraAck mode only suports Frame segment, visually only same as Playback mode. In UltraAcq no measurement or any kind of analysis is not available (it is disabled)

To cut on the fluff explaning this, here is simple and practical task:
Can you do this:

1. Capture 10 different I2C packets, with timebase made such that you capture each packet into each owns Frame/segment. Stop the scope.
2. Decode those 10 different packets while moving from segment to segment...

This is very common thing to do and, to most Keysight users primary reason to use segments.

Thanks!!

[2N3055]

But that is only after we verify my truck is capable of...

Seems to me like you could keep on moving those goalposts forever.

Also not a SINGLE word about much hyped FastAcq. Is it simply a trick to hide fact it does not have real segmented mode

It has fully segmented memory with recording and playback, as real as in any other DSO. (A trivial DSO capability these days).  Check the manual, pgs. 187-197.

Case in point: He's already moved that one.

Ad hominem.
You are trolling in comparison thread sabotaging the comparison...

Be useful, do the test I asked for and report.