I hate the probes that came with my Rigol DS4024, the clip grabber is junk. Found some old new stock Tektronix P6053C 250Mhzprobes on Ebay. While not 500Mhz like the Rigol, they should be better mechanically and fast enough for general use.
The bandwidth rating of a probe is far less important than the input capacitance. In fact, it tells next to nothing about the ultimate performance of the probe/scope combination. It is perfectly possible that a 250MHz probe yields better bandwidth and flatness than a 500MHz probe.
That said, the probes supplied with any decent scope usually perform best because they are matched with the scope frontend.
So here is my issue -- they are 2M long, would like to shorten them to 1.5M Just wondering if anyone has ever attempted to repair or shorten a Tektronix probe. Best I can tell the compensation network resistor values may change slightly …
It is not only the resistance, but also the capacitance. The probe lead is an integral part of the probe and its compensation circuitry. Shortening it will significantly change the characteristics and the result might not be desirable. Of course it depends on how the unmodified probe performs in combination with the scope in question.
Below is the simulation result for a probe with 2m cable length perfectly matched to a 1MOhm//18pF input using a low frequency compensation capacitor value of 11.5pF (red).
Then the cable is shortened to 1.5m, everything else unchanged (green).
Finally the low frequency compensation capacitor value re-adjusted to 9.2pF (blue).
Probe x10_75_25 02a
In practice you’ll hardly get a flat initial frequency response like shown in the graph, but the relative change should be representative, i.e. something similar to the +3dB peak at 150MHz shown above can be expected.