I need a new oscilloscope - 300€?

[Whoops]

RIGOL DS1054Z

 

[rock soderstrom]

I have already looked at this scope as well. It costs between 375 and 400€. Unfortunately only 8bit, but I'm not sure how much that would limit me in daily use . I find it quite sexy,

Have you had any personal experience with it?

Here is the best offer I found, with all options installed.
You can also see the specs there.

https://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Rigol-DS1054Z.html

 

[rock soderstrom]

A small interim conclusion to the thread from my side. I have been using WaveForms with my Steinberg UR22 mkIi interface for quite some time. I have tinkered two probes to it, with switchable 1:10 attenuation, so you can already do a lot.

Nevertheless, it does not replace a real scope, what bothers me most is the constant "calibrating" and the local inflexibility.

I will certainly buy another dedicated oscilloscope, such as the Rigol mentioned above or similar. Simply because of the local flexibility and ease of use.

I can borrow one from this class next week for testing....

Nevertheless, I will expand my Waveforms/ REW workstation and continue to use it in parallel. Best of both worlds.

 

[neil.johnson]

If you want an oscilloscope, the Rigol that Whoops posted. They're good solid scopes, bought about 5-6 of them for the office. Scopes are fundamentally time analysis devices - the vertical resolution is nice and together with the wideband attenuators on the frontend you can get your waveform on the screen, but it's the horizontal axis that dominates the functionality.

If you want to analyse audio (very different job) then no scope will be as good as a good quality audio interface. But that runs at a much slower sample rate so no use trying to hunt down an errant opamp oscillating into the MHz.

Beyond that you're into dedicated audio analyser territory (AP, etc) which typically use notch filters to remove the fundamental to get better analysis of the noise and distortion products.

Spectrum analysers, again a very different beast, especially the RF ones.

Neil

 

[calaverasgrande]

Bought the Rigol DS1054z last year.
It's a pretty great scope for me, as my previous scopes were old analog dual channel units.
It has a lot of easy to access math functions I find useful. Lots of buttons, I like that.
4 Channels is great, but I have yet to actually plug in 4 sources. Only done 3 sources once.
I basically bought it because it is a popular choice, so I wouldn't have trouble finding forum posts if I run into trouble.
Haven't run into trouble yet.
Downside, yeah it's only 8bit depth. And the sample rate goes down as you ask it to display more signals.
Also, it's a 5 year old design. So there are newer scopes with bigger displays.
Though this is a plus for me. I don't like gear with touch screens. I want dedicated buttons as much as possible.
So in that regard this is better than some newer scopes.
As far as price.
Shop around. I got mine for $340 USD last year. Should be possible to find an open box or something for as cheap or better.

 

[Whoops]

Unfortunately only 8bit, but I'm not sure how much that would limit me in daily use . I find it quite sexy,

Have you had any personal experience with it?

Yes I have one and I really like it and think it's great.

I don't think you will have any limitations in your daily work.

This is probably the best Osciloscope around in that price range

 

[jacomart]

An interesting product from Italy

Cheers
JM

 

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Love this scope...https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J1MQC3G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Had it for a year and still impressed.

 

[dirtyhanfri]

I bought an QA401 about one year ago and I'm happy with it, 24bit ADC, nice automated measurements, good enough software... Price is a bit over 300€ but still cheaper than a good audio interface.

I'm not very experienced but I think it's good enough for my needs

For digital signals and such I use a cheap Bitcsope plugged into my laptop. Years ago I tried to use it with a Rpi with touchscreen, the idea and performance were good, but the user interface is highly mouse dependant so I never got used to it.

 

[mobyd]

Lots of love for the Rigol and I can understand why. They, like all digiscopes, are great for showing what happened. For showing what is happening right now, it is hard to go past a good analog scope. My journey with Tek has been a bit spotty. Had a 2445 and 2645, wonderful instruments, but regrettably, like their owner, these things are getting old and eventually the issues got too annoying so I had to pension them off. Back to the Rigol. Had a Tek THS720 from new but eventually its LCD display developed a cataract which eventually grew to obscure over 25% of the screen. Back to the Rigol. Bought a second hand cheap Tek TAS250 to tide me over until I could find a replacement 24*5 (the Rigol still annoys me). Ooops, the Y beamshift controls were jumpy - no problem, replace the pots. Big problem - every plastic part I touched (pot shaft extenders etc) turned to dust. Back to the bloody Rigol.

 

[swpaskett]

I second Mobyd. If you can find a good Tek 24x5, grab it. These scopes are probably the best Tek ever built. There are other good scopes out there, I suppose, but I haven't met them. None of my current scopes can compete with the 24x5, but I bought each of them at a time when I (thought) I needed something only they did.
Current scopes:
Hantek - lots of features. Like the Swiss Army knife, it does everything, but nothing well. I hate the sprinkling of dots on the screen.
BK Precision 60MHz - trusty analog scope; basic 2 chan dual timebase. A good scope at $60 used from a school that shut down its electronics program (a shame). Replaced something else I choose to forget that went up in flames. Bandwidth a bit less than I wish, but the price was right.

 

[Yash]

I like my Siglent. The team also does quite a good job giving us free firmware updates with really large upgrades in functionality and value.

I just upgraded it again this month and got a Datalogger now. I had already bought a couple of quad-channel DAQ boards for an instrumentation build and wanted to script the scope to get Datalogger functionality, but now I can use the scope as is for that.

I also hacked it to double the bandwidth.

I also have a script running on my laptop so that I can have a dummy Siglent Waveform Generator giving signals to the scope. This allows me to use the scope's internal Bode Plot II (yes, they upgraded that too for free!) with an external signal generator of my choice and not only the allowed Siglent ones.

Someone on YT showed a very interesting newish Rigol sold as 2-channel and 70Mhz and he firmare upgraded it to 4-channel and 300Mhz (no joke, the 4 channels are there in hardware, just not active by default). That's more expensive than your budget but it's good to be aware.

I do not like the Rigol interfaces/UI though.

With my Siglent, I now have a 200Mhz DSO, with internal digital protocols decoding ability, Bode Plot functionality, Data Logger, and FFT on 4-Channels, web interface for realtime viewing and control. That last firmware upgrade also gave me Labels functionality which wasn't there at launch.

I'd say while a DSO is really good for many things, at one point, you'll still want an analogue scope as well for detecting some things that the DSO can't do well. I am still looking for mine in second-hand listings. I'd probably like a Tektronix one.

The only faults I can find for my Siglent are the following:

1. No independent controls for the 4-channels. Still very usable, and if I really want, I can look at the extensive documentation and script it with my own hardware controls if need be.

2. The snappable feet aren't too strong on extension: they snap back easily and the scope then drops an inch or so. I worry about damaging the clocks/crystals this way with time.

3. SMPS... What to do? This is a very compact DSO... I would have to design a Linear PSU for it all if I wanted a really super clean measurement system. The alternative would be to use my DIY AC Filter Box with it to tame some leakage currents.

It is a little box which makes me happy though.

 

[Yash]

As for lower frequency audio measurements and plots, there are a few ways you can build yourself an excellent little system for little money, rivaling or even exceeding some well-known commercial solutions of old.

You already know the soundcard route, so here the key is to find either an affordable soundcard with very good specs (resolution, Freq range and noise floor), or one with OK specs but which is hackable to improve it. For instance there's a thread on diyaudio with someone investigating and improving the A/D section floor on a Behringer sound card and gets it down to -140dB or so.

Note that when I am talking of Freq range here, it's about the Nyquist one. You will probably find some soundcards which advertise 96KHz and expect half that usable from Nyquist but actually find the A/D does even less than that in practice.

Now pair this with ARTA, RightMark or the superb R.E.W. and you've got a major measurement system at your fiingertips.

An external really clean Linear PSU for the soundcard rather than having it USB-Bus powered (unless it's really well-isolated) is better here.

There's also a contraption you can build so that you can additionally analyse full power amplifiers as well. Of course here, the key is to have a proper load as well as a proper divider so as not to overload or damage the soundcard inputs.

The other necessary things are Sine and Square from a Signal generator. There's a very clean 1K Sine generator from Akitika in kit form you can buy and build.

 

[warpie]

I like my Siglent. The team also does quite a good job giving us free firmware updates with really large upgrades in functionality and value.

I just upgraded it again this month and got a Datalogger now. I had already bought a couple of quad-channel DAQ boards for an instrumentation build and wanted to script the scope to get Datalogger functionality, but now I can use the scope as is for that.

I also hacked it to double the bandwidth.

I also have a script running on my laptop so that I can have a dummy Siglent Waveform Generator giving signals to the scope. This allows me to use the scope's internal Bode Plot II (yes, they upgraded that too for free!) with an external signal generator of my choice and not only the allowed Siglent ones.

Someone on YT showed a very interesting newish Rigol sold as 2-channel and 70Mhz and he firmare upgraded it to 4-channel and 300Mhz (no joke, the 4 channels are there in hardware, just not active by default). That's more expensive than your budget but it's good to be aware.

I do not like the Rigol interfaces/UI though.

With my Siglent, I now have a 200Mhz DSO, with internal digital protocols decoding ability, Bode Plot functionality, Data Logger, and FFT on 4-Channels, web interface for realtime viewing and control. That last firmware upgrade also gave me Labels functionality which wasn't there at launch.

I'd say while a DSO is really good for many things, at one point, you'll still want an analogue scope as well for detecting some things that the DSO can't do well. I am still looking for mine in second-hand listings. I'd probably like a Tektronix one.

The only faults I can find for my Siglent are the following:

1. No independent controls for the 4-channels. Still very usable, and if I really want, I can look at the extensive documentation and script it with my own hardware controls if need be.

2. The snappable feet aren't too strong on extension: they snap back easily and the scope then drops an inch or so. I worry about damaging the clocks/crystals this way with time.

3. SMPS... What to do? This is a very compact DSO... I would have to design a Linear PSU for it all if I wanted a really super clean measurement system. The alternative would be to use my DIY AC Filter Box with it to tame some leakage currents.

It is a little box which makes me happy though.

I'm about to pull the trigger on the sds1104x-e. Is this the one you have?

I don't know how well the bode plot behaves in the audio range though. I would expect it to be pretty low resolution anywhere up to 10-15kHz. Is it the case?

Also, what puts me off is that people complain about the fan noise but oh well...

I'm also thinking on getting a siglent AWG but I still can't decide whether I should go for the sdG1032X (14-bit) or the sdg2042x (16-bit). The 16-bit one is almost twice the price of the 14-bit.

I do have a couple of old analog function gernerators so I'm not even sure if I need an AWG...

Also, I should probably mention that I already have an old Tektronix 2-channel 60MHz scope on my bench.

 

[Yash]

I'm about to pull the trigger on the sds1104x-e. Is this the one you have?

Yep, but it's now double bandwidth.

Not too sure about the low freq range of Bode Plot II. I only did limited testing with Bode Plot v1.0 and my CV Sequencer driving my Modular's audio VCO over 7 octaves or so. I did get a plot in the end.

 

[Zim]

I'm about to pull the trigger on the sds1104x-e. Is this the one you have?

I don't know how well the bode plot behaves in the audio range though. I would expect it to be pretty low resolution anywhere up to 10-15kHz. Is it the case?

Also, what puts me off is that people complain about the fan noise but oh well...

I'm also thinking on getting a siglent AWG but I still can't decide whether I should go for the sdG1032X (14-bit) or the sdg2042x (16-bit). The 16-bit one is almost twice the price of the 14-bit.

I do have a couple of old analog function gernerators so I'm not even sure if I need an AWG...

Also, I should probably mention that I already have an old Tektronix 2-channel 60MHz scope on my bench.

I’m close to pulling the trigger also, but had been planning to get the sds 1202x-e. Any particular reason I should consider the 1104 instead - I’m just a rookie enjoying building a few mics and some outboard.

Rather thought I‘d be unlikely to need 4 channels and would be fine with the 1202 for the price but, like I say, just a rookie so don’t know what I’d be missing

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I’m close to pulling the trigger also, but had been planning to get the sds 1202x-e. Any particular reason I should consider the 1104 instead - I’m just a rookie enjoying building a few mics and some outboard.

Rather thought I‘d be unlikely to need 4 channels and would be fine with the 1202 for the price but, like I say, just a rookie so don’t know what I’d be missing

You may as well ask yourself if you need 200MHz bandwidth. Shooting for less BW may buy you a built-in waveform generatot, if available.
In my whole carrier, the only time I needed a piece of test equipment that went further than 100MHz was when I dealt with wireless mics. However, in VHF and UHF applications, you almost never look at the carrier, you look at IF (typically 10.7MHz). I bought a spectrum analyzer. I never felt the need for more than 20MHz BW.
IMO the ability to plot Bodes without any other addition is a real plus.

 

[warpie]

I’m close to pulling the trigger also, but had been planning to get the sds 1202x-e. Any particular reason I should consider the 1104 instead - I’m just a rookie enjoying building a few mics and some outboard.

Rather thought I‘d be unlikely to need 4 channels and would be fine with the 1202 for the price but, like I say, just a rookie so don’t know what I’d be missing

Since I already have a 2-channel scope I want to get another one with four channels. It's always nice to have extra channels in case you want to monitor both the inputs and the outputs of a stereo unit for example. Not absolutely necessary though.

However, bare in mind that the 1202-x can't do bode plots. Only the 4-channel has this option as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Tubetec]

I'm looking at a Tek 2430a for sale locally , 95 euros , appears to be in good condition
It seems to be the only model in the 2400 series thats digital , 8bit,
its still a CRT scope but has some extra measurement features .
It dates from the late 80's early 90's.
The Tek 2400 series seem to be maybe the best analog scope you could find and come with lots of recomendations but does the 2430a pose any limitations due to it being digital 8bit ?
Just looking around the 2430a seems to have certain issues that crop up , I guess it was new technology at the time and maybe not as reliable as the rest of its siblings in the range . any input welcome .

 

[warpie]

I'm looking at a Tek 2430a for sale locally , 95 euros , appears to be in good condition
It seems to be the only model in the 2400 series thats digital , 8bit,
its still a CRT scope but has some extra measurement features .
It dates from the late 80's early 90's.
The Tek 2400 series seem to be maybe the best analog scope you could find and come with lots of recomendations but does the 2430a pose any limitations due to it being digital 8bit ?
Just looking around the 2430a seems to have certain issues that crop up , I guess it was new technology at the time and maybe not as reliable as the rest of its siblings in the range . any input welcome .

Most new DSOs are also 8-bit. Definately all the cheap ones from rigol, siglent, etc that are being discussed here...