Having had extensive use of both the Rigol MSO5000 & 7000 models you could say I have a soft spot for these model ranges, I find them easy to use, responsive, and nicely constructed (at their relevant price points), they (the) 5 and 7 thousand series scopes had some nice features and made decent daily user scopes for a wide range of measurement applications.
No they are not 12bit+ machines with ultra low noise floors, we have other scopes for these particular areas we need to look deeper into, but that is not so often these days. However they do offer a lot of real usable performance for the cost.
The 8000 particularly feels really good, greatly improved GUI (even over the 7000) , for myself the eye and jitter measurements are especially useful.That said having a decent 2Ghz + BW at this cost range is very appealing as well. Coupled with a 500Mp deep memory and 10G/s (single channel) shared between the rest.
To put this into perspective if we take the Tek and R&S models which have USEFUL eye and jitter at this BW you are looking at around the £30K mark for the RTB2000 (plus high res option another £1500) though I did not realize at first it is an 8 bit adc that is software enhanced to 16bit) with 2 Ghz BW and memory upgrades, I2S options plus power analysis with the correct probes you are looking at £40K. Now I am not suggesting for one moment that the MSO 8000 is a giant killer in relation to the big four offerings, its not. But what you do get is a very decently appointed scope with decent everyday usable features with seriously good BW and deep memory and a decent sample rate plus eye and jitter facility.
The Jitter/eye option on the Tek 5 series is £4K plus £1800 for the I2S/L/RJT suite, for the 6 series the same apps cost £6300 + £1800 for the audio app. That is the price of the basic MSO8000!
That said they are pretty decent scopes without question, my point is what do you exactly require for the applications you use daily? R&D is a different matter!
Last week the 8000 arrived although we have been busy, have managed to try a few bits and pieces on the scope see below, we have been pleasantly surprised, especially with the GUI and overall feel of the unit, I know the 7000 uses the same casework, but the 8000 is another level.
Will be trying out some multi domain analysis later in the week as well so will post this up to
Used a HP4433B vector signal generator with OXCO option fully warmed up along with scope, using 18Ghz T-flex 405 cables.
Outputting a 2Vpp sine wave (10.60dbm on the HP), scope set to averaging, Freq counter on, period and second freq counter in the measurement bar on lower left hand screen, along with cursor information box.
First up Bodnar rise time reference test a very respectable 168ps
500Mhz 2Vpp base line start point
Followed by the 1Ghz even at 1.5Ghz (still showing1.92v), then the -3db point on this scope (1.42V) on this scope of 2.216Ghz not bad for a 7200 euro scope. All options are available thanks to the man of a thousand coding scrips
Next I really wanted to see how far I could push this scope before decided enough was enough
Now 2.5ghz still a very usable 1.07v!
This surprised me a viable waveform at 3.2Ghz all be it @-11db seriously though 2.9Ghz is actually very usable! maybe not for precise measurement but its usable and more than visible!
Lastly an FFT plot using a 2.5Ghz signal at the same 2Vpp (from 500Mhz) you can see they are identifiable peaks up to 3.7Ghz
From the brief period I have spent with this new model, the MSO 8000 is shaping up to be a serious scope for sensible mid range pricing with some big ticket features.
One issue I found , the main frequency counter stops at 2.460Ghz, (it actually reads backwards at higher BW, though it is only supposed to have a 2Ghz BW!) the measurement/analyze section does not suffer the same fate.