EEVblog is an excellent resource. Yowza!
EDIT: Ah good, still inside the editable window...! In regards to oscilloscopes, et al., learning to use any of them will require a lot of time. These aren't hand tools, TVs or smart phones, they are devices packed with a lot of functionality. I'd consider it would be like a part-time job (or part-time college course) if you want to get the most out of it. Learn, attempt, repeat, repeat, repeat.
EDIT: Ah good, still inside the editable window...! In regards to oscilloscopes, et al., learning to use any of them will require a lot of time. These aren't hand tools, TVs or smart phones, they are devices packed with a lot of functionality. I'd consider it would be like a part-time job (or part-time college course) if you want to get the most out of it. Learn, attempt, repeat, repeat, repeat.
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Probably not. But 7000 owners have more options! lol! Along with rack space to store those ...
It's all cool old stuff.
It's all cool old stuff.
Hi,
I´d assist in looking for a budget China scope and admit that I´m kind of Siglent oriented.
What drove me to them?
Since all modern devices are more or less just computers with a handful of frontend hardware, the differences and real issues stem from the software side.
And all -even expensive western devices- enter the market with more or less bugs.
On paper, resp. hardware wise even the entry level scopes are fantastically capable now .... but their software defines their useability.
Siglent has quite earned a good reputation for fast debugging, i.e high update rate and functionally upgrades .... which made Rigol a nogo for me.
Also the entry level lines of the western manufacturers all come from China, be it Keysight, be it Teledyne LeCroy, who for example for many years by now just rebrand Siglents und triple the price tag.
I expect from a modern DSO ´Digital Storage Oscilloscope´ to have plenty of memory for advanced signal analysis ... which Keysight typically lack.
That makes Keysights ´fast´ scopes since they don´t need to process the amounts of data as a scope with loads of memory.
When You own a analog scope already You might have greater analysing gain with a high memory scope.
jauu
Calvin
I´d assist in looking for a budget China scope and admit that I´m kind of Siglent oriented.
What drove me to them?
Since all modern devices are more or less just computers with a handful of frontend hardware, the differences and real issues stem from the software side.
And all -even expensive western devices- enter the market with more or less bugs.
On paper, resp. hardware wise even the entry level scopes are fantastically capable now .... but their software defines their useability.
Siglent has quite earned a good reputation for fast debugging, i.e high update rate and functionally upgrades .... which made Rigol a nogo for me.
Also the entry level lines of the western manufacturers all come from China, be it Keysight, be it Teledyne LeCroy, who for example for many years by now just rebrand Siglents und triple the price tag.
I expect from a modern DSO ´Digital Storage Oscilloscope´ to have plenty of memory for advanced signal analysis ... which Keysight typically lack.
That makes Keysights ´fast´ scopes since they don´t need to process the amounts of data as a scope with loads of memory.
When You own a analog scope already You might have greater analysing gain with a high memory scope.
jauu
Calvin
I bought a DSOX1202G based on my experience at work with the DSO6054A. That was an awesome CRO, both in performance and the UI. I used to be a diehard Tek analog scope fan until I tried out that one.
Unfortunately the DSOX1202G hides quite a lot behind menus and is not nearly as intuitive to use. Otherwise its performance is good.
This makes a remarkable amount of sense. It's sometimes difficult to shop for items like this since both camps will have fans and foes. Only after a few months of banging my head against "why won't they fix it?" would I then understand that I should have bought a different one. Danke!
If you think you might ever want to try your hand at digital audio, you should have at least a 100MHz+, 2 channel scope. A digital is better for that too. If less than 100MHz then clock signal square waves start looking a lot more like sine waves (which would be a problem).
I'm asking for a demo on a SIGLENT SDS3054XHD (500 MHz, 4 channel) and SDS2000X HD (arb signal generator).
Don't forget. You need about 5x the listed bandwidth more than an analogue oscilloscope. Doing digital audio, I never once needed a digital oscilloscope. I was doing this from the first CD player, so a few decades.
Don't forget. You need about 5x the listed bandwidth more than an analogue oscilloscope. Doing digital audio, I never once needed a digital oscilloscope. I was doing this from the first CD player, so a few decades.
I think you mean sample rate not bandwidth. The 3054 samples at max 4gsa, so to see a clean 500MHz signal, you'll probably be down to 1 channel if it means sharing the ADC. Pretty common for a 4gsa to be 1gsa if all 4 channels are being collected. Some and this one might in this price range, might have a pair of ADC's so you 4 channels active would be 2gsa. It does look like a pretty sweep scope. I think you'll like it. Blind time should be minimal with 200K waveform/sec capture. The color grading is a pretty neat feature as well. My rigol does that.
I used the term bandwidth so as not to confuse, and it is how most companies advertise their 'scopes. They also give sample rate. The MSOX3104T only drops to 1/2 with all channels active. They are used in two banks, so I maintain full sample rates by using Y1 and Y3 (Y1, Y2 are on one, Y3, Y4 the other).
There are other important factors like "blind time" which is related to the processors and what jobs they do. Plus other things.
Digital oscilloscopes are acquisition systems. They have many complexities and can trip you up pretty easily with the lower cost models. They are made to behave like an oscilloscope but have significant differences in how they work.
There are other important factors like "blind time" which is related to the processors and what jobs they do. Plus other things.
Digital oscilloscopes are acquisition systems. They have many complexities and can trip you up pretty easily with the lower cost models. They are made to behave like an oscilloscope but have significant differences in how they work.
I was looking over at rigol's site to see what was on sale and noticed they offer a similar product for a bit more. It includes 4 ADC's so all channels can run at 4gsa and offers 1M wfm/s which should cut blind time to a minimum. I think the 5000 series is a new product for rigol as I had not noticed it before. What I tend to see is siglent and rigol leap frog each other. One comes out with 12 bits, short time later the other does. One ups the sampling rate other follows. As someone who worked at TRW just after that very first 30MSPS 8 bit flash ADC came out, things have come a very long way both in price and performance. I think the converters were several thousand each, and were tested by having the DUI and a "gold" chip connected to the same signal and the outputs were compared. No one had test equipment that went that fast back then. The LSI Products division spinout was because of those ADCs. Later they made MAC's and some other things that were redo's of the mil parts. It was a triple diffused bipolar process that ate power. I did a chip that was just a 16 bit MAC with an onboard register file that consumed 5W, which back then was a feat to dissipate. And a 1.25u process, laughable by today's standards.
Ok guys, I had a little time to poke around and am down to this . . . grab a Siglent SDS804X and likely hot rod the firmware to the 824 equivalent for 200Mhz and 100 Mpts/ch . . . . or . . . . pull the trigger on something nice, possibly used, like a Tektronix TBS2074B. I see the TBS2074 for around 2,500 new and 1,000 used. Or even a more budget Tek like the 2215?
Follow up questions - for the 2074 Tek- its 70Mhz, there's some other specs where the Siglent looks "better" on paper but the Tek (I assume) is clearly a higher quality scope. Or is the Siglent more usable / feature rich but just won't be as reliable or long lasting? What I'm getting at is, what exactly am I getting for my money with a higher quality / more expensive scope like a Tek or R&S? I assume better reliability, warranty / quality and customer support. Are there other clear advantages going with a more expensive or even higher quality used scope over the $400-800 Siglent options? I'm not an aerospace engineer or doing anything super crazy, just a passionate hobbyist who likes nice tools when they make the job easier and more enjoyable.
What other models would be a clear step up in a real world situation- sticking with Tektronix for simplicity but would happily welcome other rec's.
Last question - so what exactly is the advantage of going with an analog scope for audio work? I'm all about analog, heck I love vinyl, tubes and manual transmissions, so if analog is where it's at, I'm there. If digital has the advantage I'm OK going that route too.
Really appreciate everyone's input and opinions, you all are a amazing sources of knowledge!
@mikeAtx - you replied as I was typing - From what I can gather online it seems Rigol has pretty bad customer support and service where Siglent is far superior. At least that's what I read from a few sources but have no personal experience. That's why I was leaning towards the Siglent but didn't think any models over the 800 or 900 series made sense and i should just buy a Tek or similar at that price.
Follow up questions - for the 2074 Tek- its 70Mhz, there's some other specs where the Siglent looks "better" on paper but the Tek (I assume) is clearly a higher quality scope. Or is the Siglent more usable / feature rich but just won't be as reliable or long lasting? What I'm getting at is, what exactly am I getting for my money with a higher quality / more expensive scope like a Tek or R&S? I assume better reliability, warranty / quality and customer support. Are there other clear advantages going with a more expensive or even higher quality used scope over the $400-800 Siglent options? I'm not an aerospace engineer or doing anything super crazy, just a passionate hobbyist who likes nice tools when they make the job easier and more enjoyable.
What other models would be a clear step up in a real world situation- sticking with Tektronix for simplicity but would happily welcome other rec's.
Last question - so what exactly is the advantage of going with an analog scope for audio work? I'm all about analog, heck I love vinyl, tubes and manual transmissions, so if analog is where it's at, I'm there. If digital has the advantage I'm OK going that route too.
Really appreciate everyone's input and opinions, you all are a amazing sources of knowledge!
@mikeAtx - you replied as I was typing - From what I can gather online it seems Rigol has pretty bad customer support and service where Siglent is far superior. At least that's what I read from a few sources but have no personal experience. That's why I was leaning towards the Siglent but didn't think any models over the 800 or 900 series made sense and i should just buy a Tek or similar at that price.
You have to decide what functions are actually important in a 'scope.
I document waveforms and other information at times. For that, a digital scope is easy, but I used to simply take pictures and that was also very good. Readouts were convenient and are available with both types of 'scope. The sharpness and detail in a display is very important at times, and this is one place a digital scope falls flat. The FFT function in new digital scopes is not very good, I use my spectrum analyzer instead. My expensive digital scopes can't replace my ancient analogue spectrum analyzers, simple as that.
Digital scopes sell on the "toys" they offer. Like anything, the core function is what you need to pay attention to. No matter what nice toys are offered, why would you pay more for something that almost performs the function you really need? Note I am speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has used oscilloscopes throughout their life. My first being a single trace, recurrent 500 KHz Stark tube model. I have bought improved ones, drooled over stuff I can't afford. I have several really good analogue scopes (which I will keep at least two), and a few expensive digital ones. I even had a Norland Prowler which was a very early digital scope. The very fact I need to keep an analogue scope should tell you something.
If I had a son, I would be giving him a good analogue scope to work with. I have given some good friends other analogue scopes because they do exactly what you need. Inexpensive DSOs are toys, and you need to really understand them in order to understand their shortcomings and when they my be giving you a false display. They are getting better.
As I said, I am setting up a demo for a good SIGLENT scope. I'll also say that after sales service is critical. Do not reward companies who can't look after you after they have your money. Enough people do that and they will learn to be responsible.
I document waveforms and other information at times. For that, a digital scope is easy, but I used to simply take pictures and that was also very good. Readouts were convenient and are available with both types of 'scope. The sharpness and detail in a display is very important at times, and this is one place a digital scope falls flat. The FFT function in new digital scopes is not very good, I use my spectrum analyzer instead. My expensive digital scopes can't replace my ancient analogue spectrum analyzers, simple as that.
Digital scopes sell on the "toys" they offer. Like anything, the core function is what you need to pay attention to. No matter what nice toys are offered, why would you pay more for something that almost performs the function you really need? Note I am speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has used oscilloscopes throughout their life. My first being a single trace, recurrent 500 KHz Stark tube model. I have bought improved ones, drooled over stuff I can't afford. I have several really good analogue scopes (which I will keep at least two), and a few expensive digital ones. I even had a Norland Prowler which was a very early digital scope. The very fact I need to keep an analogue scope should tell you something.
If I had a son, I would be giving him a good analogue scope to work with. I have given some good friends other analogue scopes because they do exactly what you need. Inexpensive DSOs are toys, and you need to really understand them in order to understand their shortcomings and when they my be giving you a false display. They are getting better.
As I said, I am setting up a demo for a good SIGLENT scope. I'll also say that after sales service is critical. Do not reward companies who can't look after you after they have your money. Enough people do that and they will learn to be responsible.
There are some good overviews here blue360cuda, anatech!
I used to use scopes and have not had any for a long time, but hope to get one having rediscovered my love of getting good results with quality audio and being able to fix anything that can be repaired.
On asking guys i used to work with, they all recommend to :
Get an analogue scope,
dual trace,
time base memory,
500Mhz,
make sure its fully-functional with probes.
Generally avoid digital scopes unless they're very high res.
Even then they're not 'true' scopes, but have their uses.
It's easy to get sucked into the slick advertising and gimmicks, but a thousand functions will never do the one, or a hand-full of functions well or reliably, and that frustratingly is true of most equipment one wishes to rely on.
Quick access, intuitive functionality and dials you can reach for, will always be easier in the pace of a concept solving session, rather than 'sub menu hell' and slow start up times of digital interfaces
-which if I may be a little more general-
lest we forget are only a simulation, not the reality of the situation or put another way, yet another stage removed from the situation we're trying to gain insight into.
These are diagnostic tools to extend the reach of our remarkable senses yet further.
We should never lose sight of that.
I used to use scopes and have not had any for a long time, but hope to get one having rediscovered my love of getting good results with quality audio and being able to fix anything that can be repaired.
On asking guys i used to work with, they all recommend to :
Get an analogue scope,
dual trace,
time base memory,
500Mhz,
make sure its fully-functional with probes.
Generally avoid digital scopes unless they're very high res.
Even then they're not 'true' scopes, but have their uses.
It's easy to get sucked into the slick advertising and gimmicks, but a thousand functions will never do the one, or a hand-full of functions well or reliably, and that frustratingly is true of most equipment one wishes to rely on.
Quick access, intuitive functionality and dials you can reach for, will always be easier in the pace of a concept solving session, rather than 'sub menu hell' and slow start up times of digital interfaces
-which if I may be a little more general-
lest we forget are only a simulation, not the reality of the situation or put another way, yet another stage removed from the situation we're trying to gain insight into.
These are diagnostic tools to extend the reach of our remarkable senses yet further.
We should never lose sight of that.
Hello!
1) As you see, there is not absolute convergence of opinions.
You'll have to take your decision by end of the day.
2) Analog devices just "copy" the input, amplify, filter etc and present it back to you in some other form of output. You don't have to worry about signal being artificially changed or loosing information. Bandwidth, noise, thermal stability etc are still a problem. Cheap or old (worn out) analog equipment will be bad and vice-versa. In addition, analog equipment is limited in functions, since there is no memory or signal processing.
3) Digital devices sample the input signal in small intervals, stores the samples in memory, process them and reintegrate them to the output. There is a loss, since your are not copying the signal and information in between the intervals is lost.
But, (a big BUT), digital uses the principle of the very powerfull calculus math theory (derivative/integral), where if you make the interval very small, you can "copy" the signal as close to the original as you want. It's a matter of making the interval very small compared to the signal.
This interval is represented by the sampling rate (the inverse) in scopes. High sampling rate will provide you small intervals and, thus, high accuracy. The higher, the closer you get to the original signal.
Current scopes under $500.00 are able to sample at 1Gsamples/sec as a minimum. For audio equipment analysis, let's say up to 100KHz at least, the period of a wave is 1/100,000=10us. If you sample it at a rate of 1Gs/sec, you get a sample every 1ns. This will give you 10,000 points in a 100KHz signal. It's practically a perfect copy of this signal. Even if you observe a 1MHz signal, still, there will be 1,000 points to represent it.
For digital equipment the question is how much small is the interval or how many samples are good enough to represent the original signal. Never will be absolutelly equal, but it will be as close as you want or as you can pay.
In addition, if using digital equipment you have all the functionalities and tools available, since you can store the signal in a memory and process it. Bandwidth, noise, thermal deviation also applies to digital scopes. Bad scopes will be bad, and good ones will be good.
You have to define how much good in these parameters you accept by the price you want to pay.
From what we can see, under $500.00 you can have digital scopes that matches what you need.
1Gsamples/sec is more than enough for audio equipment work and even for higher frequency equipment, such as switch mode ps, inverters etc.
And as with everything, you need to know the limits of your instrument since it will never be perfect, unless you spend multi thousand dollars.
My scope is cheap. Sometimes it reboots if I play with memory length, when I change the input scale the offset needs to be slightly readjusted, it is limited to 8-bits, 1Gs/sec for the 2 channels etc.
But I won't be folled by it since I know its limitations and I check what I'm doing.
Cheap digital scopes from, let's say, 15 years ago, were really bad and certainly worse than equivalent analog ones for sure when using for audio equipment.
But, based on what I 've commented above, this is no longer the reality of today.
But, based on what I 've commented above, this is no longer the reality of today.
Sometimes you need a storage scope that can do single sweeps. The Tek scope like that we had decades ago cost $4,000 back then to replace the storage CRT because it had been used too much as a standard analog scope. Once it was fixed I captured some one-shots of a vexing intermittent condition that was blowing up thousands of dollars at a time in power transistors in a precision. cyclotron main magnet power supply. Would have been cheap and easy to find the problem with a modern digital scope.
Also helped guys set up the triggering on similar analog storage scopes to capture X-ray generator one-shot waveforms.
Then again, there are times when an analog scope is better. Seeing a little fuzz on a power amp waveform may be evidence of a parasitic oscillation. Of course, a really good digital scope might be able zoom right in on that fuzzy spot and capture its precise waveform.
One big difference between quality scopes and cheap ones is the durability and fidelity of the probes. Cheap probes are disposable, and may need to be disposed of often as the hook clips go intermittent. OTOH, a good Tek probe can be highly reliable and give a truer image of a waveform.
Also helped guys set up the triggering on similar analog storage scopes to capture X-ray generator one-shot waveforms.
Then again, there are times when an analog scope is better. Seeing a little fuzz on a power amp waveform may be evidence of a parasitic oscillation. Of course, a really good digital scope might be able zoom right in on that fuzzy spot and capture its precise waveform.
One big difference between quality scopes and cheap ones is the durability and fidelity of the probes. Cheap probes are disposable, and may need to be disposed of often as the hook clips go intermittent. OTOH, a good Tek probe can be highly reliable and give a truer image of a waveform.
I'm just going to have to disagree with the analog camp I guess. I think it depends much on what cuda is going to do with it. I'll just give a couple examples. I was doing a new project that tied a raspberry pico to a pi via SPI. I wanted the pico to be the slave. I found the built in pico hardware (synopsys has a embedded blob that was plopped into the pico) did not work. It was buggy. So I opted to use the pico's PIO state machines to do a slave SPI. To debug it I spent about a week capturing single event traces on my DSO. Used multiple triggering methods over the course of the week, because almost all of it was one shots.
Another example was similar in a way. I wanted to be able to trigger two ADC's with one SPI bus simultaneously. Nominally not possible as SPI shares the MISO signal with all slaves. But by using the pico's PIO's I can have two MISO lines and do it. Although simpler than the pi-pico problem I had I still debugged it with the DSO and some fancy triggering.
Another example, I wanted to capture the current waveform of a motor starting. Not completely trivial as I was doing it on my cheaper scope which only has 25MPts of data. So I set the DSO up so that almost all of the memory was devoted to after the trigger. I used all 25M pts for one channel and got a very nice capture of 8 seconds at 0.5uSec interval. I still have the capture on a thumbdrive and can reload it and re-review if needed. One point here is that I think almost all the rigol's/siglent's support SCPI, so you can download the waveform to a computer and process it any way you want. You could even pdf-ize the data for a vector style chart in the pdf that is zoomable into a document. This is better than an embedded photo in a document.
One final example that I am still working thru. I am trying to use a pico to control an ECM fan motor. It is a 3 phase motor. I use the 4 channel scope to monitor the voltages on the 3 phases. Its been very useful to capture the waveform and then expand it greatly to see the details of the waveform. Again only possible because with my 4 channel I've 250M points split 4 ways or 62.5M data points on the screen. You cannot see that level of detail unless it is frozen in time and expandable/scrollable.
So I've listed 4 cases where a DSO was essential for me, granted not related to audio. But I could easily see cases for audio. Wanting to see power up (currents, voltages) of a amp as an example. Watching bias over a long period might be another. My scope offers as slow as 1ksec/div, although I've never used anything longer than 1sec/div myself.
I grant that DSO and analog scopes are completely different animals. For one a DSO acquires the signal and then displays it statically. This is a limitation as there is time delay between each iteration. An analog scope is completely different, it repetitively processes the signal and illuminates the phosphors on the screen directly with retrigger available almost instantly. What you see is the buildup of energy on the screen. So the analog needs the signal to be repetitive and continue because the phosphors will fade without it. It is one of the reasons I am much more likely to leave my DSO in "normal" trigger instead of "auto". If the signal stops, trigger stops and the last image on the screen is the one of interest. Analog just doesn't matter. Normal will be a blank screen and auto will be zero.
Almost all DSO's now offer a persistence capability to fade the image more like the old analog's did. This offers some benefits for "eye" analysis. Its not great, as the blind time between sweeps is still pretty long. Some newer DSO's offer coloring the screen which is another way of looking at persistence, just a little more control over it. And finally some of the pricier DSO's offer what rigol calls ultraview which is multiple sweeps very fast (mine is 1.5M wfms/s) and then the display is updated. You can review individual "frames" of the data in various ways. As a challenge from anatech, I wanted to see what worked best for doing a contrived eye pattern. I took a waveform generator and modulated(AM) it with noise. I ran the modulation from 1% to 80%. I got fairly decent results even with just persistence. With the ultraview, I think I could have done a pretty good job of optimizing the eye.
One thing I'll say for sure. You'll need to study the manual. As someone else said, you could make a one semester course on this stuff. I'd never used the ultraview trigger option as I'd never had a use for it. Even persistence, I'd only used once before for something and had to putz with it some before I got it right. Trigger too. I did use many of the fancy trigger options when debugging the pi-pico stuff. You really have to think about what you want to do and what way you're going to do it. I'll mention one more thing about trigger, because they are different between analog and digital in a huge way but even I forget it. The default for DSO triggering is the middle of the screen. As much screen/memory is default allocated to what happened before the trigger event as after. Contrast that with analog. The trigger is at the left of the screen and the whole screen is after the trigger. Of course with the DSO, trivial to move that trigger position if you want.
Lastly, I get there is no love for rigol on this and other sites. YMMV. For me, they've been fine. I've had one hardware issue, where they paid shipping back and return and the repair under warranty. I've had one software issue, which was just an old version of the firmware which they responded to immediately, suggested I do an update and the problem was resolved. I had one misc request, which battery did they suggest for the USB-C powered DMM I bought and again within 24 hours they responded with which battery to get. That said I am one data point, and not a very heavy user, so siglent may be the better choice for service/updates.
Another example was similar in a way. I wanted to be able to trigger two ADC's with one SPI bus simultaneously. Nominally not possible as SPI shares the MISO signal with all slaves. But by using the pico's PIO's I can have two MISO lines and do it. Although simpler than the pi-pico problem I had I still debugged it with the DSO and some fancy triggering.
Another example, I wanted to capture the current waveform of a motor starting. Not completely trivial as I was doing it on my cheaper scope which only has 25MPts of data. So I set the DSO up so that almost all of the memory was devoted to after the trigger. I used all 25M pts for one channel and got a very nice capture of 8 seconds at 0.5uSec interval. I still have the capture on a thumbdrive and can reload it and re-review if needed. One point here is that I think almost all the rigol's/siglent's support SCPI, so you can download the waveform to a computer and process it any way you want. You could even pdf-ize the data for a vector style chart in the pdf that is zoomable into a document. This is better than an embedded photo in a document.
One final example that I am still working thru. I am trying to use a pico to control an ECM fan motor. It is a 3 phase motor. I use the 4 channel scope to monitor the voltages on the 3 phases. Its been very useful to capture the waveform and then expand it greatly to see the details of the waveform. Again only possible because with my 4 channel I've 250M points split 4 ways or 62.5M data points on the screen. You cannot see that level of detail unless it is frozen in time and expandable/scrollable.
So I've listed 4 cases where a DSO was essential for me, granted not related to audio. But I could easily see cases for audio. Wanting to see power up (currents, voltages) of a amp as an example. Watching bias over a long period might be another. My scope offers as slow as 1ksec/div, although I've never used anything longer than 1sec/div myself.
I grant that DSO and analog scopes are completely different animals. For one a DSO acquires the signal and then displays it statically. This is a limitation as there is time delay between each iteration. An analog scope is completely different, it repetitively processes the signal and illuminates the phosphors on the screen directly with retrigger available almost instantly. What you see is the buildup of energy on the screen. So the analog needs the signal to be repetitive and continue because the phosphors will fade without it. It is one of the reasons I am much more likely to leave my DSO in "normal" trigger instead of "auto". If the signal stops, trigger stops and the last image on the screen is the one of interest. Analog just doesn't matter. Normal will be a blank screen and auto will be zero.
Almost all DSO's now offer a persistence capability to fade the image more like the old analog's did. This offers some benefits for "eye" analysis. Its not great, as the blind time between sweeps is still pretty long. Some newer DSO's offer coloring the screen which is another way of looking at persistence, just a little more control over it. And finally some of the pricier DSO's offer what rigol calls ultraview which is multiple sweeps very fast (mine is 1.5M wfms/s) and then the display is updated. You can review individual "frames" of the data in various ways. As a challenge from anatech, I wanted to see what worked best for doing a contrived eye pattern. I took a waveform generator and modulated(AM) it with noise. I ran the modulation from 1% to 80%. I got fairly decent results even with just persistence. With the ultraview, I think I could have done a pretty good job of optimizing the eye.
One thing I'll say for sure. You'll need to study the manual. As someone else said, you could make a one semester course on this stuff. I'd never used the ultraview trigger option as I'd never had a use for it. Even persistence, I'd only used once before for something and had to putz with it some before I got it right. Trigger too. I did use many of the fancy trigger options when debugging the pi-pico stuff. You really have to think about what you want to do and what way you're going to do it. I'll mention one more thing about trigger, because they are different between analog and digital in a huge way but even I forget it. The default for DSO triggering is the middle of the screen. As much screen/memory is default allocated to what happened before the trigger event as after. Contrast that with analog. The trigger is at the left of the screen and the whole screen is after the trigger. Of course with the DSO, trivial to move that trigger position if you want.
Lastly, I get there is no love for rigol on this and other sites. YMMV. For me, they've been fine. I've had one hardware issue, where they paid shipping back and return and the repair under warranty. I've had one software issue, which was just an old version of the firmware which they responded to immediately, suggested I do an update and the problem was resolved. I had one misc request, which battery did they suggest for the USB-C powered DMM I bought and again within 24 hours they responded with which battery to get. That said I am one data point, and not a very heavy user, so siglent may be the better choice for service/updates.
That is what I have been saying. It depends on what you need from the scope as to which is best. I work with analogue all day, but I need to look at serial digital information (my scope decodes). Bit over 90% of the time, even with digital, my analogue scopes worked perfectly fine. Now if you have to capture a waveform - yes. A DSO or MSO is the way to go. That is as long as it can capture the waveform. Vertical resolution is normally the problem with that, and eye patterns pose real problems for some DSO's.
The question was, for audio work, what is the recommended 'scope? Well for audio, an analogue oscilloscope works the absolute best. Used ones are available much more cheaply than equivalent DSO's. With any luck I'll be testing a current DSO, mine was current until recently. We'll see how it "handles". The Keysight I have is pretty intuitive to use.
The question was, for audio work, what is the recommended 'scope? Well for audio, an analogue oscilloscope works the absolute best. Used ones are available much more cheaply than equivalent DSO's. With any luck I'll be testing a current DSO, mine was current until recently. We'll see how it "handles". The Keysight I have is pretty intuitive to use.