Most responsive UI 500Mhz scope

[kuon]

I know this question has been asked a million time, and I read a lof of threads, but well, things evolve and my requirements might be a bit different.

I am looking for a 500Mhz scope for analogue signal analysis. I need no MSO functionalities because I have a DSLogic logic analyzer which I love.

My most important feature is: UI responsiveness/speed. I had my hands on a modern Tek scope (a 4 serie) at my brother lab, and damn that thing is slow, there is like 200ms delay on each touch and many operations takes ages. On my old 50mHz Tek scope every operation is instant, sure it has very little features and no touch screen, but what happened?

To summarize:

- 4 analog channels
- fast UI, I want analog controls (like voltage offset) to be butter smooth
- 500Mhz
- $5k max

I found many many scopes that could fit my needs, but it is very hard to get a feeling of the UI responsiveness. It is also not often reviewer properly in reviews I could find.

[Fungus]

a) No DSO will respond like twisting the gain potentiometer on an analog 'scope does.

I need no DSO functionalities

b) That's what YOU think. 

I believe the fastest scopes are the Keysight InfiniiVisions with MegaZoom ASIC:

"MegaZoom delivers 2 MB of deep memory behind every channel, without the sluggish response and complex operation that had to be tolerated with other deep memory scopes. Thanks to multiple processors and proprietary ASICs MegaZoom deep memory responds instantly to changes in the signal with update rates of up to 25 million vectors per second per channel as well as to changes in settings from the front panel. And unlike other scopes, MegaZoom deep memory is not a special mode: it operates with the same familiar controls used for regular scope measurements."

[ci11]

Like Fungus said, the Keysight DSOX3000x (and higher) will be the closest to your UI responsiveness goal by a LONG SHOT. Everything else simply pales by comparison. But I am not sure you can get 500MHz from Keysight for under $5K with 4 channels even if you are open to used and the A models.

[nfmax]

I agree, nothing else comes close to the Keysight MegaZoom 4 scopes for butter-smooth operation. Keep a watch on Keysight's used eBay store - they are currently listing a used MSOX3104T, with a limited set of licenses, for $6,316.45. They do take offers, but probably not as low as $5,000. OTOH it has more bandwidth than you need and the digital channels you don't want. Keep looking, and something may turn up

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Keysight-Used-MSOX3104T-Oscilloscope-mixed-signal-4-16-channel-1-GHz/184692969412?hash=item2b008f0fc4:g:-XQAAOSw9vdgP7f2

[KE5FX]

If you can live with a relatively small XGA screen (6.5", I believe), you should look for a DSO6054A.  You'll end up with a lot of change left over from $5000.

Drives like a Tek 485, but with digital storage.

[Electro Fan]

Anyone with a Keysight 3000T and a Siglent SDS2104X Plus who can highlight what are the key advantages of the Keysight over the Siglent (and/or vice versa)?

[wizard69]

If you want analog like feel you can always go to the electronics grave yard and dig up an old scope.   Just about any old CRT based analog scope will feel better in my experience.   There is the possibility that one of the Keysight scopes mentioned above is better than average but I don't have the bank account to buy one (even at work).

In any even you state:

I am looking for a 500Mhz scope for analogue signal analysis

but then immediately say you don't need a DSO.   Which has me wondering how you expect to analyze anything without storage capability?   Maybe I'm missing something here.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Definitely Keysight ( or even the older Agilent ones) for UI speed

[kuon]

I got mixed up about DSO, I meant I don't need MSO (or whatever logic channels are called) because I have my logic analyzer.

[nctnico]

If you can live with a relatively small XGA screen (6.5", I believe), you should look for a DSO6054A.  You'll end up with a lot of change left over from $5000.

I'd stay away from that series. Way too much noise on the signals.

Anyway, if the goal is to do analog signal analysis a brand to consider is Lecroy. An older model with the signal analysis options freed can do a huge amount of math operations on a signal. Yes, it will slow down doing that but getting an answer quickly saves time in the end. Taking a slow short cut versus taking the long highway.

[Fungus]

Anyone with a Keysight 3000T and a Siglent SDS2104X Plus who can highlight what are the key advantages of the Keysight over the Siglent (and/or vice versa)?

Key advantage: Megazoom ASIC - everything is fast.

[tautech]

Anyone with a Keysight 3000T and a Siglent SDS2104X Plus who can highlight what are the key advantages of the Keysight over the Siglent (and/or vice versa)?

5 GSa/s vs 2 GSa/s however a SDS2kX Plus has 100x the total memory depth and a larger 10" display.

To more fairly compare apples vs apples SDS5000X should be considered where the the disparity in memory depth is even greater.

[Fungus]

To more fairly compare apples vs apples SDS5000X should be considered where the the disparity in memory depth is even greater.

That isn't what the OP's asking for though, is it? 

[nctnico]

Anyone with a Keysight 3000T and a Siglent SDS2104X Plus who can highlight what are the key advantages of the Keysight over the Siglent (and/or vice versa)?

Key advantage: Megazoom ASIC - everything is fast.

Except for navigating the menus...

Anway... probably everything out there is way faster compared to the Tektronix.

[tautech]

Anway... probably everything out there is way faster compared to the Tektronix.

Yeah that's the issue when you only have one yardstick to compare anything else against.

I do remember the big W saying they were as slow as treacle.

[kuon]

I'll keep an eye on the used keysight, thanks for your suggestions.

[jonpaul]

Tektronix 2465B or 2467B

LAST TEK analog scope.

$200-800 on epay but avoid the seller whos ebay name is the same as the scopes.

Jon

[KE5FX]

If you can live with a relatively small XGA screen (6.5", I believe), you should look for a DSO6054A.  You'll end up with a lot of change left over from $5000.

I'd stay away from that series. Way too much noise on the signals.

You're on glue. 

[kuon]

Tektronix 2465B or 2467B

LAST TEK analog scope.

$200-800 on epay but avoid the seller whos ebay name is the same as the scopes.

Jon

Actually I said I didn't need DSO, but I got mixed up MSO/DSO.

I need signal analysis capabilities (like taking a 5ms snapshot and then view the signal in details with zoom and pan...).

But actually, having an analogue scope for quick look at "what is this pin doing" is a good idea to have something very fast, but I still want something with more capabilities

[nctnico]

If you can live with a relatively small XGA screen (6.5", I believe), you should look for a DSO6054A.  You'll end up with a lot of change left over from $5000.

I'd stay away from that series. Way too much noise on the signals.

You're on glue. 

No. I used to own the bigger brother (DSO7104A) which is built on the same platform. The fat traces where so annoying that I used it in high resolution mode (which comes with it's downsides) most of the time. On a smaller screen it is probably less noticable but there are way better choices nowadays to get a crisp trace.

[KE5FX]

No. I used to own the bigger brother (DSO7104A) which is built on the same platform. The fat traces where so annoying that I used it in high resolution mode (which comes with it's downsides) most of the time. On a smaller screen it is probably less noticable but there are way better choices nowadays to get a crisp trace.

768 vertical pixels on a 12" screen = yes, you are going to see a lot of noise.  You're penalizing them for giving you more Y resolution than other scopes in their class.

[tautech]

I know this question has been asked a million time, and I read a lof of threads, but well, things evolve and my requirements might be a bit different.

I am looking for a 500Mhz scope for analogue signal analysis. I need no MSO functionalities because I have a DSLogic logic analyzer which I love.

My most important feature is: UI responsiveness/speed. I had my hands on a modern Tek scope (a 4 serie) at my brother lab, and damn that thing is slow, there is like 200ms delay on each touch and many operations takes ages. On my old 50mHz Tek scope every operation is instant, sure it has very little features and no touch screen, but what happened?

To summarize:

- 4 analog channels
- fast UI, I want analog controls (like voltage offset) to be butter smooth
- 500Mhz
- $5k max

I found many many scopes that could fit my needs, but it is very hard to get a feeling of the UI responsiveness. It is also not often reviewer properly in reviews I could find.

One of the cheapest and most capable in this class is a hacked SDS2104X Plus, improved to 350 MHz then the 500 MHz option applied. However it's just a 2 GSa/s DSO so 500 MHz is near to challenging Nyquist and why only 2 channels are recommended to be used at these frequencies.
If you hunt out the thread for these and check Howardlong's video linked in the first post it's a very fair look at its capability.

[KE5FX]

I agree that many of the lower-end Tek portable DSOs are slow-burning dumpster fires, but you could do worse than a TDS784D.  It was a high-end instrument back in its day.  That will leave you a lot of change left over from $5000.  Buy several, and then, when one breaks, just toss it. 

Sure. you won't get much memory, but you didn't mention how important that is to you.  If it's not very important, you don't need to drop $5K.

[tkamiya]

I had a few TEK2465 series scopes.  I sold most except for one.  One of the very annoying thing is, unlike the usual analog scopes, it has some digital features, like displaying scale factors on screen.  It's all drawn by a single beam.  What happens is, at some scan rate, it appears as though screen is flickering.  Very annoying. 

I have HP54542C.  Unlike many modern scopes, it uses proprietary software for processing.  Its UI is quite fast.

I'm a bit confused...  I don't have any UI update issues (with being slow) with most of my scope except for very low end Siglent and Rigol.  Even with them, it's a momentary wait.  None of them are not the "fastest" but they are all sufficiently fast and I don't perceive any delays.  What kind of delay are you talking about??  Do you actually mean delay as in action happening from button press, or having have to go through layers and layers of menus?  I hate that.
 
I would really not spend $5K on 500MHz scopes....  there are so many in used market for a lot less.  I would buy used from reputable places and have it calibrated.

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

I'm admittedly biased since I'm a Keysight employee, but I've used a LOT of scopes and the Keysight InfiniiVision are definitely the most responsive. The refurb ones on eBay are the best deal around, but are almost always the 1 GHz model and >$5k. Never hurts to make an offer, though. It would definitely give you some headroom in bandwidth, though.

[EEVblog]

My most important feature is: UI responsiveness/speed.

As others have said, Keysight is the fastest UI, and it's my preferred daily driver for that reason.
See the ad link above for the Keysight ebay store where they official sell refurbished gear.

[nctnico]

No. I used to own the bigger brother (DSO7104A) which is built on the same platform. The fat traces where so annoying that I used it in high resolution mode (which comes with it's downsides) most of the time. On a smaller screen it is probably less noticable but there are way better choices nowadays to get a crisp trace.

768 vertical pixels on a 12" screen = yes, you are going to see a lot of noise.  You're penalizing them for giving you more Y resolution than other scopes in their class.

Again no. Even on a small screen the traces are very noisy. Put a modern, lower noise DSO next to it and you'll see the difference.

[knapik]

The TDS3000 series is pretty responsive actually, its surprising just how much better it is than many modern oscilloscopes. I do have issues with other aspects of the UI, but it is responsive at least.

[AlexDavidson]

For what it’s worth, I’ve spend the last couple of weeks debugging SPI on both Keysight 3000A and Siglent SDS2104X Plus, both upgraded to 500 MHz. Even though the Keysight is a lot more responsive to the controls and was easier to setup for SPI, I actually prefer using the Siglent due to the larger more detailed display, mouse & touch control, finer traces, and much larger memory.

[kuon]

For what it’s worth, I’ve spend the last couple of weeks debugging SPI on both Keysight 3000A and Siglent SDS2104X Plus, both upgraded to 500 MHz. Even though the Keysight is a lot more responsive to the controls and was easier to setup for SPI, I actually prefer using the Siglent due to the larger more detailed display, mouse & touch control, finer traces, and much larger memory.

Yeah for logic analysis, the bigger the screen the better, that's why I prefer the PC (DSLogic) for logic analyzer. It's way easier to browse 10+ logic channels on a PC.

[KE5FX]

No. I used to own the bigger brother (DSO7104A) which is built on the same platform. The fat traces where so annoying that I used it in high resolution mode (which comes with it's downsides) most of the time. On a smaller screen it is probably less noticable but there are way better choices nowadays to get a crisp trace.

768 vertical pixels on a 12" screen = yes, you are going to see a lot of noise.  You're penalizing them for giving you more Y resolution than other scopes in their class.

Again no. Even on a small screen the traces are very noisy. Put a modern, lower noise DSO next to it and you'll see the difference.

The problem you perceive is a combination of the added available resolution and the rendering algorithm they use, which takes advantage of that resolution by showing additional intensity-graded pixels that you'd normally never see at all.  It does look noisy, but the correct remedy is just turning down the intensity, rather than switching to a worse scope (i.e., everything else in the same market sector) or the high-resolution display mode (which sucks.)

The only real problem is that their default intensity setting is too high.   The DSO6054A is probably the best possible fit for the OP's original request, if they are not interested in the older HPAK scopes or the TDS700D generation from Tek. 

(Actually the TDS3054A would be a good fit in the responsiveness area, but they have an absurdly-small acquisition memory.  And they aren't much newer than the TDS784D that can probably be purchased for about the same money.)