When I was younger I loved twisting knobs too... mostly on things less mechanical though. I suspect most things twisted on back then are now the worse for wear...While troubleshooting, nothing beats just twisting a knob! Same for signal generation at times.
I know things are not fair... and have come to realize that I was never really a chick magnet... but whenever I did something novel that was worthy of recognition senior management always unanimously refused to let me to be the face of the company.... and I don't know why!...

Exactly my approach. Aside from the computer on the workbench, my whole test set-up for both audio and RF projects fills roughly 2/3 of a closet shelf when not in use.Maybe I'd arrive at a different view if I was 'more serious' about this stuff, but as is (dabbling in audio for a little while at a time, and then switching to something else, and maybe picking up again weeks or months later) I appreciate compact equipment that doesn't take up too much desk or bench space when in use, has a quick learning curve, and is easy to stow away when I'm done with it.
Although none of the gear produces famous logos in the screen shots, I can perform analyses that rivals what I could do in the lab at work before I retired. Plenty good enough for me. Now, if I was in the electronics business in some way, I'd buy and use the recognized standard tools. But, I'm not.
In my experience, human skin smells more like pork when it burns. Or maybe that's just me? (oink, oink)If it smells like chicken, you're holding it wrong!
That's fair. I've just been bit too many times by buying a cheap or universal tool only to hate it and buying the tool I actually wanted or needed a few years later. In those cases, buying the cheap tool turned out to be more expensive than just buying the more costly tool up front.Tom, I totally agree that you and I have very different 'use cases'. I did look at some Rigol and Siglent models, and found them tempting (real buttons!), but I was (and still am) afraid a standalone scope would become just another dust catcher taking up my limited desk space.
Tom
It's a fine line, even in a larger scale R&D setting. There's always hidden costs, like use of space that has to be freed, people and machines relocated, and no longer available for other uses, or infrastructure upgrades that become necessary, replacement of transformers and switch panels, training for people, etc.. Sometimes it's also not exactly foreseeable how things will develop. For example, at my old place of work I argued for getting the largest autoclave we could reasonably afford and fit, so we could cure up to ten foot support structures. Well, in the decade we've had that autoclave we never made anything longer than four feet. So, was it a wrong decision? For my own R&D, I resisted the urge to buy a multi-$10k device to measure thermal properties of material samples, but then I spent about a quarter of that amount on buying those services from an outside lab.
Federal labs have a good setup for making equipment no longer needed at one place available to other labs. But even free equipment is never really free, and hoarding is a real problem...
Federal labs have a good setup for making equipment no longer needed at one place available to other labs. But even free equipment is never really free, and hoarding is a real problem...
Well, yeah. Money doesn't grow on trees here either. My lab is in a small bedroom in my house. It's probably 8 sq m. Storage is at a premium. But even large test equipment, such as the HP gear from the 1980s, doesn't take up that much space when stored on its side on shelves. You don't have to have each and every piece of equipment on a bench, plugged in, ready to go.
Hoarding is a problem for some. As is overconsumption. I do my best to avoid both. I also refuse to pay for storage. I park my car in the garage. I'm one of those people. 😉
Tom
Hoarding is a problem for some. As is overconsumption. I do my best to avoid both. I also refuse to pay for storage. I park my car in the garage. I'm one of those people. 😉
Tom
Hi,
yeah, we probabely all had a few giggles about that girlie buning their fingers ....
but did it come to your minds also that this cheap smoldering iron -and we all know this type as it is soo common- is just a very bad, non-intuitive design, a dangerous one too??
Come on ... mankind uses pencils since thousands of years and picks them close to the tip.
Yet some real fools manage to design hot iron pencils just so that they are hot as hell exactly at the tip.
So, who are the real idiots here?
.... just thinking 🤔
jauu
Calvin
yeah, we probabely all had a few giggles about that girlie buning their fingers ....
but did it come to your minds also that this cheap smoldering iron -and we all know this type as it is soo common- is just a very bad, non-intuitive design, a dangerous one too??
Come on ... mankind uses pencils since thousands of years and picks them close to the tip.
Yet some real fools manage to design hot iron pencils just so that they are hot as hell exactly at the tip.
So, who are the real idiots here?
.... just thinking 🤔
jauu
Calvin
You can perhaps forgive the model because she would have done what the director/photographer asked. But nobody at the time took note of the marks on the iron that warned that it had been hot in the past...
I'll throw out this idea to the OP just in case: I ended up ordering a PicoScope 2206B and a QA403 as PC based rig.
The circle is complete🤓
The circle is complete🤓
Both look decent. Audio Science Review does a breakdown of the QA403 below.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...o-analyzer-review-teardown-experiments.49097/
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...o-analyzer-review-teardown-experiments.49097/
Very cool stuff on The Signal Path channel. The Sencore PA81 the he was working on the other day is awesome.Audio Science Review does a breakdown of the QA403 below.
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And also Jan Didden did a very nice review in the AudioXpress december issue.
Hans
Hans
You mean The Signal Path does a breakdown of the QA403 below...Both look decent. Audio Science Review does a breakdown of the QA403 below.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...o-analyzer-review-teardown-experiments.49097/
Tom (TomChr) also did a nice review/comparison on his Neurochrome website, and on youtube.
I'm at this point now (replace pan flute with QA403):
Just joking. But I did free workbench space in the garage, or rather did not fully reoccupy it after finishing the chassis for the Zenductor 2....
I'm at this point now (replace pan flute with QA403):
Just joking. But I did free workbench space in the garage, or rather did not fully reoccupy it after finishing the chassis for the Zenductor 2....
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