DS1074Z-S
DS1074Z-S 70 MHz Digital Oscilloscope | Rigol - Beyond Measure
DS2072A-S
DS2072A-S 70 MHz, 2 Channel Digital Oscilloscope with integrated 2 channel source | Rigol - Beyond Measure
Dont know which model that would be most suited for audio.
Not a huge price difference between those two, but wonder if the extra money will benefit me compared to the Rigol DS1054Z.
Im just about going to start my business and developing audio gear needs a good scope. But maybe i should just buy the cheaper one and see if it will meet my needs. The 1054 is 1/3 of the 2072, but then i need to buy a signal generator or use my sound card as one but thats not as practical... cant decide 😀
Im not developing anything for nasa, just want a reliable equipment and don't want to buy a knew one after a year.
GW Instek GDS-3000
https://www.elfa.se/sv/oscilloskop-...1+-+162170&page=57&origPageSize=50&simi=97.26
Sale, from ~$2500 down to ~$1500
Its a fair amount of money but would i be happier buying this one? Hard to try them out before i buy..
https://www.elfa.se/sv/oscilloskop-...1+-+162170&page=57&origPageSize=50&simi=97.26
Sale, from ~$2500 down to ~$1500
Its a fair amount of money but would i be happier buying this one? Hard to try them out before i buy..
GDS-2072E GW INSTEK - Oscilloscope: digital | TME - Electronic components
That it is mine. For audio it is beyound what I need. You must to have an oscilloscope but you can buy a cheap one. You do not need a high performance oscilloscope. Add a decent signal step generator , a QA401 audio analyzer and you have finished.
Rigol it is the best producer from the cheaper producers. You may consider Siglent and GW Instek too. Stay far away from Hantek, Uni-T, Volcraft, etc...
That it is mine. For audio it is beyound what I need. You must to have an oscilloscope but you can buy a cheap one. You do not need a high performance oscilloscope. Add a decent signal step generator , a QA401 audio analyzer and you have finished.
Rigol it is the best producer from the cheaper producers. You may consider Siglent and GW Instek too. Stay far away from Hantek, Uni-T, Volcraft, etc...
Looking nice, i should probably just buy the Rigol DS1054Z and be happy.
I attached a pic of the scope i have right now, must have been a 100 million dollars price tag on it 😉
(pic taken from internet)
Attachments
The DS1054Z is a GREAT oscilloscope, especially after you hack it. For most hobbyists, it is ALL the oscilloscope you need.
As for other brands:
GW-Instek - Tends to be a bit overpriced for the features you get. Tend to not have nearly the same price/quality ratio that you will find from the other
Hameg - similar to GW-Instek in price/quality ratio. That being said, being a division of R&S they have more upside. The quality rises at a much higher pace than those of Rigol/Siglent.
Owon/Hantek/Atten/Uni-T/etc. - Owon and Hantek make their own scopes and they pretty much suck. Very high input noise and general low quality software. Uni-T and others rebadge stuff. Many companies rebadge Siglent stuff (this include LeCroy, which uses Siglent to manufacture pretty much everything under $10k). While a lot of the other cheaper companies will rebadge Atten/Gratten.
Siglent - good performance and value. Tends to have buggy software which takes time to get fixed. Not hackable. Performance tends to be a tad better than Rigol. Both perform better than their specs indicate.
Rigol - good performance and great value. Software is relatively mature with most major bugs fixed. Easily hackable.
LeCroy - See Siglent. Siglent makes almost everything for LeCroy under $10k.
Signal Generator:
The signal generator in the Rigol DS1074Z-S is not worth double the price. You can get better quality and performance ones from other sources for a similar price. For example, you can get the Hantek HGD2002B for under $400 and hack it into a 16-bit 100MHz signal generator. See here: Hantek HDG2002B AWG: 5Mhz or 100MHz? Let's see! - Page 1 Though some seem to have some issues with this Hantek, others seem to love it. If you keep your eyes out, you can find a variety of value around the $300-400 price point.
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QA401 generates it's own signal for distortion etc. I recommend an entry level function generator from Siglent to go with that. Look for Eevblog on youtube and internet. They have very good forums and videos on test gear. If you are able to take advantage they also have discount arrangements with tequipment in the USA.
Sent from my x600 using Tapatalk
Sent from my x600 using Tapatalk
Thanks great summary.
Now its probably betweeen the Rigol 1054z and buying an analog older scope. I found a hitachi v552 quite cheap near me. Its like ~150 but i can probably get it for ~100. But maybe its just better to buy the 1054z.
I actually dont know excactly what i need from my scope since i has not got started with my development yet. I need a scope before i can get started 🙂 Probably i just beed a basic analog scope and i have not used a digital scope so dont know what to expect.
Whats the main advantages using a digital scope? Especially for audio signals and power supply.
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Thanks have got a lot of usefull advice here, almost hard to decide now.
So far i have decided to buy separate pieces, one scope, one signal generator and one analyzer.
Have you looked into Virtins? No personal experience but I hear the software (included with their products) is quite good and can be used with any soundcard, so maybe one of these + your Apogee + signal generator?
Cheers,
Cabirio
Cheers,
Cabirio
The scope and sig gen can be bought second hand and potentially save a lot of money.
Hi no i havent but i will look it up. But i want a bench scope i think, easyer to work with.
Digital oscilloscopes have a variety of advantages in general, as well as some drawbacks. First and foremost, they show you the "REAL" instantaneous signal. I put real in quotes because it can mean different things in different situations (for example, it is still digitally samples). Many people look at 100Mhz digital scopes, when coming from analog scopes, and complain how noisy they are. The reality is, on many analog scopes, the same noise is there but it is so fleeting that it is more or less invisible. This is both good and bad, it is good when you only want to see the underlying signal, bad when you want to see the true signal. This is why digital scopes, like the DS1054Z now incorporate intensity gradient (aka digital phosphor) functionality. You can turn this function on and get an analog like view, or turn it off and see the full real noise.
This a rather dated video (the DS10x4Z had not been released yet) from the EEVBlog shows the difference in old versus newer digital technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TSr9nFN1GU
Digital scopes are really good at capturing snapshots of single events and other events that would be invisible to an analog scope.
Where digital scopes lack is in their vertical resolution, you can use high-res mode to get a better vertical resolution, but they still don't have an equivalent resolution to analog scopes (at this time). The currently expensive scopes that have 16-bit resolution are much better on that aspect. Truthfully, I have rarely run into quantization issues.
Another thing to think about is your probes. Quality probes are often quite pricey, especially if you want to measure power supplies. Power supplies can cause huge issues with your scope (due to the ground pin on the probe usually being connected to earth ground). For doing power supply measurements, you can often need a differential probe and htose are NOT cheap. That being said, they keep you safe and give you real data.
As for measuring things like distortion a spectrum analyzer is WAY more competent. The human eye is really bad at seeing distortion in a sine wave. On the other hand, a spectrum analyzer will show you that in great detail, with MUCH MUCH higher precision than you could get with any digital or analog scope.
Basically, scopes are good for seeing glitches, looking at waveform shape (ie is there ringing in the square wave), etc. Spectrum analyzers are good at seeing distortion and distortion products. Distortion analyzers are really really good at measuring distortion, and sometimes the fundamentals of distortion but NOTHING in between.
ds2072 scope is killer
for around 800 bucks the ds2072 is a real killer scope its also a storage scope 😱 i mean with real resolution and easy to use!
there is a diy guy trying to get his act together and produce pc based all in one that its not come to land yet...
Lawrence
for around 800 bucks the ds2072 is a real killer scope its also a storage scope 😱 i mean with real resolution and easy to use!
there is a diy guy trying to get his act together and produce pc based all in one that its not come to land yet...
Lawrence
What do you mean by "real resolution"? Are you comparing it to the 1054z when you say so?
Rigol 2072 vs 1054z
Analog BW: 70MHz vs 50MHz
Analog Channels: 4ch vs 2ch
Max Sample Rate: 1GSa/s vs 2GSa/s
Max Memory Depth 12Mpts vs 14Mpts
Max Waveform Capure Rate: 30,000wfms/s vs 65,000wfms/s
Std Probes: 150MHz 4 sets vs 350MHz 2sets
Averaging: 2-1024 vs 2-8192
Timebase Scale: 5 ns/div - 50 s/div vs 5.000 ns/div - 1000 s/div
Vertical scale: 1mV/div -10V/div vs 500uV/div - 10V/div
…never stops.
I don’t know, i see the specs but is it worth double the price but in general only 25% better specs?
In Sweden ~$800 vs ~$400 inc.vat.
Is it more to it that I’m missing? Would i notice those improvements.
Maybe everything is adding up to a twice the good oscilloscope?
Will i be happier and get more precise readings and the work done faster if i buy the 2072 instead of the 1054.
Im everything between buying an old analog scope to a more expensive digital right now.
I cant test the Rigol stuff before i buy, i have seen a couple of videos on EEV blog but
I cant se a huge difference between the two.
Will look up that video, thanks. Im used to an analog scope and the digital ones look a bit laggy on youtube, thats what I'm most worried about.
Dont know if the 2072 is updating faster than the 1054z? And i don't mean frequency wise I'm talking about adjusting and probing around. I want something quick and responsive to work with.
As said earlier i have an analog tektronix 547 (really my grandfathers who was a engineer for the Swedish National Defence Research Institute 😀 ) but its just too big and i don't rely on the readings since it probably needs service and calibration.
the 2072 can look like an analog scope very hi resolution and better sampling look at the video its very clear why you want the 2072
specifications are one thing but seeing it is another its video time 😀
It really depends on what you are doing. All digital scopes can be bogged down, if you have too much processing going on (even Agilent). Part of the reason is you can do SO Much more with a digital scope. Yes, the DS2000 series is faster than the DS1000Z series. I would not put it at 2x the price faster. The DS2000 series was released first and in the modern market, it is a BIT off. Due to them being able to do much more, there are often more menus, features and options. THat being said, you can also do things that are IMPOSSIBLE with an analog supply. Things like digital decoding, instantaneous waveform capture, nth triggering, runt or giant triggering, etc. The advanced triggering suites on digital scopes help makes finding problem waveforms MUCH more easy. As I alluded to before, the DS1000Z has the ability to decode things like RS232, I2S, etc.
Sorry for the rambling, it is hard to compare analog to digital in just one coherent post. Back to the question at hand, if you are adjusting your setting just like you would on an analog scope, then it will behave VERY similar to the analog scope.
You are confusing the DS1054Z with the DS1052E. The DS1052E, which was shown in the video, is VERY old technology at this point. The DS1054Z is its replacement and it has similar performance to the DS2072 series, with the dDS2000 series being better but the difference is NOT night and day. Both have Intensity Gradient (which gives it the analog feel) and both have high resolution displays. The DS2000 has a higher degree of intensity gradient, but that is not nearly as big of a difference as going from not having to having. The biggest loss of stepping up to the DS2000 series is that you lose two channels on your scope. The DS1000Z series is all four channel.
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A quick note on FFTs, pico-scopes and whatnot:
The built-in FFT of a sampling scope should be good enough for measuring THD down to 0.1 % maybe approaching 0.01 % at 1 kHz so it could be handy for some debugging work.
To get beyond that, an external sound card with Pete Millett's Sound Card Interface could work. I don't know the THD of Pete's interface, though. Mostly what you need is input ranges. If you pay attention to detail and are a bit careful, you can easily set up a couple of resistive dividers to accomplish the task. For good sound cards, I'd look at the Focusrite Scarlett series. They're reasonably priced and the performance is hard to beat. That's your $200 solution.
The next step up would be the Quaint Asylum QA400-series. Its headline specs rival that of the APx515 at a small fraction of the price. That said, I suspect the QA400 is awesome if you run it right at its optimum point, but away from that, you'll see some compromises. Last I checked the QA400 ran about $400.
Next up is the Audio Precision line of goods. The main kink there is that AP for the longest time used its own proprietary interface (APIB), which required an expansion card to be inserted in the host PC. Made perfect sense at the time. For AP systems without USB, one can use the APIB-USB interface ($400), however, it only works with AP SYS-2500 and above. So if you're looking at used APs, I suggest looking for SYS-2500 and beyond.
The software for the SYS-2500 and SYS-2700 is leaving a lot to be desired. While it does work, it is not intuitive to use at all. The software for the newer APx-series is absolutely amazing, though. The hardware is solid, as you'd expect from AP. The AP boxes start at about $6500 as I recall.
...and no. I don't work for AP. I just like their stuff - especially the APx-series of stuff.
Pico scopes: Wouldn't touch them. They usually have two ranges: 100 mV and 1 V. That's just not enough for analog work. Great for a logic analyzer. Not great for a scope. I still use my TEK 2465B (400 MHz analog/digital scope). Works great.
Tom
The built-in FFT of a sampling scope should be good enough for measuring THD down to 0.1 % maybe approaching 0.01 % at 1 kHz so it could be handy for some debugging work.
To get beyond that, an external sound card with Pete Millett's Sound Card Interface could work. I don't know the THD of Pete's interface, though. Mostly what you need is input ranges. If you pay attention to detail and are a bit careful, you can easily set up a couple of resistive dividers to accomplish the task. For good sound cards, I'd look at the Focusrite Scarlett series. They're reasonably priced and the performance is hard to beat. That's your $200 solution.
The next step up would be the Quaint Asylum QA400-series. Its headline specs rival that of the APx515 at a small fraction of the price. That said, I suspect the QA400 is awesome if you run it right at its optimum point, but away from that, you'll see some compromises. Last I checked the QA400 ran about $400.
Next up is the Audio Precision line of goods. The main kink there is that AP for the longest time used its own proprietary interface (APIB), which required an expansion card to be inserted in the host PC. Made perfect sense at the time. For AP systems without USB, one can use the APIB-USB interface ($400), however, it only works with AP SYS-2500 and above. So if you're looking at used APs, I suggest looking for SYS-2500 and beyond.
The software for the SYS-2500 and SYS-2700 is leaving a lot to be desired. While it does work, it is not intuitive to use at all. The software for the newer APx-series is absolutely amazing, though. The hardware is solid, as you'd expect from AP. The AP boxes start at about $6500 as I recall.
...and no. I don't work for AP. I just like their stuff - especially the APx-series of stuff.
Pico scopes: Wouldn't touch them. They usually have two ranges: 100 mV and 1 V. That's just not enough for analog work. Great for a logic analyzer. Not great for a scope. I still use my TEK 2465B (400 MHz analog/digital scope). Works great.
Tom
Audio Precision is maybe what i need but way over my budget (right now).
Would i be stupid if i buy the hitachi v552 for ~$120 to start with compared to the 1054? Right now i cant se the advantages of the digital scope. But i would probably discover a lot of features if i buy and use it for a while... Maybe i buy the cheap analog + the 1054z and then the Quaint Asylum 😀
For the sound card solution i have a $2500 Apogee Ensemble TB so no problem there but I'm just a bit sceptical about doing measuring trough a soundcard.
But i mean it has probably a lot more resolution than an digital oscilloscope.
Analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) for recording up to 24-bit/192kHz
A/D conversion: Freq resp 10 Hz -20Khz: > +/-0.2dB (@44.1Khz)
Rel. THD + N: -110dB (@ 96Khz)
Dyn. Range: 119dB (A-weighted)
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