Giving your opinion on equipment.

[Lightages]

If you are person who cares about giving people your opinion on what equipment they should buy, ask yourselves these questions:

1. Are you answering the question the person asked?

2. Does the person actually understand what they are asking?

3. Are you spewing BS from unfounded herd mentality or fanboyism?

4. If your best friend asked you the same thing, would you actually recommend the thing you are about to recommend?

5, If the person purchases and does not like what you recommended, would you buy that thing from them so that they would not be out of money?

If you can't answer these questions with "yes", then don't say anything, you are just spouting BS and trying to look important.

[tautech]

If you are person who cares about giving people your opinion on what equipment they should buy, ask yourselves these questions:

1. Are you answering the question the person asked?

2. Does the person actually understand what they are asking?

3. Are you spewing BS from unfounded herd mentality or fanboyism?

4. If your best friend asked you the same thing, would you actually recommend the thing you are about to recommend?

5, If the person purchases and does not like what you recommended, would you buy that thing from them so that they would not be out of money?

If you can't answer these questions with "yes", then don't say anything, you are just spouting BS and trying to look important.

Who's got under your collar Lightages ?
Not sure where this will lead. 

[Lightages]

Who's got under your collar Lightages ?
Not sure where this will lead. 

I am guess I am a bit tired of seeing unfounded, irrational, and fan boy opinions from people insisting that one thing is what a person should buy. It is usually from one personal experience of a bad or good outcome, from the herd mentality and without any experience. There is so much pollution of unfounded opinion sometimes it makes a mess of a person's question that makes it almost useless for someone to even ask about equipment.

If someone is going make a statement like "Brand X kills brand Y" and that is the whole content of the post, then their post is a waste of time and is tantamount to just saying one football team is the better over another. It is pointless rhetoric that wastes everyone's time and confuses newcomers.  If you make an assertion then prove it or provide evidence, or go away.

[Lightages]

AND, this is an engineering forum. You better back up your assertions.

[3db]

Brymen kills Fluke. 

Sorry couldn't resist.

3DB 

[DimitriP]

2. Does the person actually understand what they are asking?

Good luck with that one!!!

[joseph nicholas]

Amen to the orignal post.  Most of the review seen on you tube are compensated product endorsements.

[joeqsmith]

The transient generators I made have no care about brands or color or a meter.  If the Fluke 87V fails at a low level, you will see that the 87V fails at a low level.  You may not like seeing it fail but the generator does not care..   Someone wants to claim adding MOVs to UT61E does something, the grill starter paints a different story.  Someone thinks the EEVBLOG rebranded BM235 can't measure temperatures above 100 deg C accurately, my other TCs and meters show otherwise.   Someone thinks jumping an HRC fuse is alright, I show data on a small scale of just how stupid this is by shooting a cork skyward using a jumped fuse.   Someone thinks I get compensated for my youtube evaluations, my wallet is much lighter (but thanks for all the offers to send me meters).

You want my opinion, I'll give it to you straight, no BS.  The next meter I evaluate is going to die a horrible death and it won't be from throwing it against a wall, dropping it from 50 meters up or swimming in the lake with it.   And you will get to see just how it compared against every other meter I have looked at.

[Ampera]

1. Probably not, but sometimes

2. NOPE

3. Not really

4. Probably unless the thing I suggested was appropriate for a person to person basis.

5. I'm not stupid enough to make them buy crap.

[R005T3r]

1. Are you answering the question the person asked?
Yes, I always try to respond to the best of my knowledge. I say "I don't know" otherwise.

2. Does the person actually understand what they are asking?
Test equipment is not like buying a smartphone or anything else consumer related. People need to understand what the gears can do and, more importantly: what gears cannot do. Also, people, need to realize that if you do something dumb with a £20K or more gear and you damage it, you are responsible for it. If you are not sure do some research first and do calculations.

3. Are you spewing BS from unfounded herd mentality or fanboyism?
I'm not a fanboy of any kind: I hate fanboysm. I'm always open to new gears of any kind of brand,regardless the price point. If something is poorly supported or it's known to have problems that remain not solved I don't buy it. I found unacceptable that a scientific instruments of any kind are not supported in a reasonable amount of time, considering, that test equipment should always be trusted even if it's old. Of course you can't pretend that it's still in spec if it's old, but things change drastically if you can't find anything about it. Especially, if the gear malfunction.

4. If your best friend asked you the same thing, would you actually recommend the thing you are about to recommend?
Probably Not. Different scenarios mean different applications and  taking a decision like that, without thinking about "what is the right tool for his application" will result in wasted money...

5, If the person purchases and does not like what you recommended, would you buy that thing from them so that they would not be out of money?
  What? what's the point of this question? If you choose wisely you will never have this situation. This question is pointless.

The real question, would be: is it worth buying crappy instruments? The answer is probably yes if and only if you know what you are doing, but be warned that when problems are instument-related and not DUT related,when you figure out it's too late and money (and time) are not refundable....

If you can't answer these questions with "yes", then don't say anything, you are just spouting BS and trying to look important.

  Not really: you just need to be wise and know what you are buying before moving the money. You need to know how to compare the items in an objective view, and it's kinda difficult nowadays...

[joeqsmith]

You want my opinion, I'll give it to you straight, no BS.  The next meter I evaluate is going to die a horrible death and it won't be from throwing it against a wall, dropping it from 50 meters up or swimming in the lake with it. 

Called that one....   

[iampoor]

Does this have something to do with people not trusting Bryman meters?

[Rick Law]

Actually, fanboy talk is not necessarily bad.  It shows a loyalty to a product and loyalty is generally earned by having some attributes that a customer desires.

[rfbroadband]

not sure where this post is going. I have once done a professional comparison between two "state of the art units, measurement equipment". I compared both units for a week before I made a purchase decision and purchased one of them. I had taken so many measurements that I thought let's do  comparison of the two. I even wrote Matlab scripts that displayed measurements results of the different units in s single graph.

So in the end I decided to do the following (since I had an application engineer from each company assigned to me). I presented the measurement results of equipment A from company A to their application engineer and gave them the opportunity to review the results of their unit. And guess what apps engineer A said "all results are valid, all good". Then I did the same with company B and applications engineer B, same result : "all results are valid, all good". Knowing that both companies had confirmed the results for their unit, I created the comparison of unit A vs B and sent the side by side comparison to both companies. Again, these were measurement results under identical test conditions.

Obviously the presentation concluded that the unit that I decided to purchase was the better unit based on the measurement results shown in the presentation.

At that point all hell broke loose. When both companies had the side by side comparison to their competitor (with each apps engineer confirming that the results are accurate)..things got bad. Company A loved me, and company B hated me. I will stop here.

Considering the time it takes to do detailed evaluation and provide feedback or advice I decided it is usually not worth my time. Trying to convince a longtime Tektronix fanboy that a Keysight scope is better (or pick any other set of companies) based on measurement results a,b,c is often pointless.

That's why I stopped to participate in discussions what scope or 'xyz' should I buy.

In short to answer some your questions:
I do a very detailed evaluation of every! equipment I purchase and if the budget supports it I will buy the best equipment within a category of products. I will tell the same opinion, that is based on my own experience using that equipment to everyone who honestly wants to listen.

It is as simple as that.

[Lightages]

Does this have something to do with people not trusting Bryman meters?

 

How many ways can you be insulting and wrong in one sentence?

[Lightages]

To be clear to everyone, I am not accusing any one person here. I am merely blowing off steam about how people will jump in a thread with statements like "this piece of equipment is the best and shits all over everything else" but provide no reasons nor any evidence to say something like this. It amounts to religious BS that adds nothing to a thread where someone asks for help in deciding what equipment they might want to buy. It is pollution and makes rational conversation almost impossible when all the questioner wants is a good idea what is the best way to spend their money.

Please consider the points I have made before you answer a person's question about equipment. Point #5 might be a bit over the top but it is a point of consideration when weighing your response.

My opinions are just like any other opinion, my opinion and to be weighed as an opinion, but I try to back it up with evidence and reason why I provide the opinion.

[iampoor]

Does this have something to do with people not trusting Bryman meters?

 

How many ways can you be insulting and wrong in one sentence?

 

The point was not to be insulting. I asked a question, and apparently my intent came out wrong. I was wondering if you have had issues with anti-Brymen fanboys, since your a distributor.

Nothing more, nothing less.

[R005T3r]

To be clear to everyone, I am not accusing any one person here. I am merely blowing off steam about how people will jump in a thread with statements like "this piece of equipment is the best and shits all over everything else" but provide no reasons nor any evidence to say something like this. It amounts to religious BS that adds nothing to a thread where someone asks for help in deciding what equipment they might want to buy. It is pollution and makes rational conversation almost impossible when all the questioner wants is a good idea what is the best way to spend their money.

Please consider the points I have made before you answer a person's question about equipment. Point #5 might be a bit over the top but it is a point of consideration when weighing your response.

My opinions are just like any other opinion, my opinion and to be weighed as an opinion, but I try to back it up with evidence and reason why I provide the opinion.

I see your point... People should demonstrate their statements.
Nah, I'm still on the opinion that Point #5 should not be considered valid: if your friend make a choice that fits, there's no point into buying it's items.

[FlyingHacker]

I like hearing opinions of people who actually own and have used equipment. People randomly saying Brand X is great/bad without having used their equipment are what bug me.

Post about things you have actual experience with-- ideally the actual item being considered, we all know that products from the same high-end manufacturers vary in quality. Not every Fluke/Keysight/Rigol/Siglent/whatever product is great, or bad. They vary, and I like to hear about the actual instrument being considered.

Also, it is best to hear both the good and bad qualities of things. I think Dave usually does a decent job of this in his videos. He complains about the little annoyances.

[Lightages]

Does this have something to do with people not trusting Bryman meters?

 

How many ways can you be insulting and wrong in one sentence?

The point was not to be insulting. I asked a question, and apparently my intent came out wrong. I was wondering if you have had issues with anti-Brymen fanboys, since your a distributor.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I would not write something like this in reference to anyone not liking something I sell. I wrote this about the general way some people make a mess of thoughtful people trying to help.

[2N3055]

Here comes the fun part. If I was buying a UniT, I won't care about some minor issues, be it uneven backlight, bad buzzer sound quality, or crappy leads, because I know I didn't pay that much.
If I was buying a Fluke, then I would like everything to be perfect because essentially for the same accuracy and feature set I am going to pay 2x+ the money.
For instance, for a 0.05% level DMM, a UT71E sells for $170, while a Fluke 87V sells for $380. If it is not as polished as I imagined, then how can I justify the extra money paid, let along the lack of power measurement function.

I agree with you on this 100%...

[FlyingHacker]

He complains about the little annoyances.

Here comes the fun part. If I was buying a UniT, I won't care about some minor issues, be it uneven backlight, bad buzzer sound quality, or crappy leads, because I know I didn't pay that much.
If I was buying a Fluke, then I would like everything to be perfect because essentially for the same accuracy and feature set I am going to pay 2x+ the money.
For instance, for a 0.05% level DMM, a UT71E sells for $170, while a Fluke 87V sells for $380. If it is not as polished as I imagined, then how can I justify the extra money paid, let along the lack of power measurement function.

Yep. That was my point. When reviewing quality gear it is mainly about the little annoyances. Dave doesn't just kiss its ring; he points out the scratches on the ring as well.