Rigol DSA-1030 reviews / opinions?

[papo]

Hello everyone

I'm currently considering the purchase of a DSA-815 or maybe a DSA-1030. I came across excellent reviews on the Signal Path Blog but other than that, I'm having  a very hard time to find reviews and opinions, even in this forum. This, or Shahrir's video was so good that everyone is thinking that he/she has absolutely nothing to add :-). It seems as if the DSA-1030 is not as popular as the DSA-815. This makes it hard for me to come to a conclusion. Is there anything wrong with the DSA-1030, maybe a reason not to go for it? Something that I don't quite understand is that the DSA-832 is way more expensive than the DSA-1030, even though the latter is supposed to have superior specs apart from the extra 200 MHz. I'm probably missing something obvious since I have only started looking, but what would be a reason to go for the DSA-832 as opposed to the 1030?

Thanks and regards

Matt

[Andy2]

Hi Matt.
I have a DSA1030A-tg. It's a fairly nice instrument and works cleanly and without any issues as far as I can see. I bought it because my Signal Hound analyser was behaving badly due to terrible software, and it was a great relief to have a reliable analyser with good ergonomics in my shack.
My only real quibble is the poor phase noise. Compared to my Signal hound (which is now working like a charm with new software), the Rigol is pretty poor, around 30dB worse. This makes the smaller RBW's (10Hz, 30Hz) almost redundant for narrowband work as the oscillator noise just fills in the cracks.
Then there's the price - £5000 for a mediocre analyser is a bit steep really, even if it is less than a 'golden badge' instrument from one of the hallowed few.
Now that my Signal Hound is working so well, I am tempted to flog the Rigol.

[Ivan7enych]

Hi,
I wanted to buy DSA-815, instead I've got SignalHound SA44, played with it for some time and replaced it with SignalHound BB60C, and I quite happy with it. BB60C has the same price as DSA1030A, and it has much better performance.

BB60C has some drawbacks -
gentle input SMA port (center pin is very tiny and soldered very gently to thin trace on a board, I've repaired it once),
and a bit limited power range (+20dBm max, you should take care not to blow the input). In all other things it is much better than Rigol.

Shahrir has a video about BB60C, so you can compare both reviews.