new Oscilloscope choice

[tautech]

Hi tautech,
Although coming from old analogue scopes having individual vertical control is nice, its not essential and I suppose you get used to what you have.

Most certainly prefer individual vertical controls however when you are forced to use shared controls it's something you get used to pretty quick. When I was given the privilege to beta SDS1104X-E it was the first shared control DSO I had used and some 20 mins later it was like I'd used them for years. LOL
Yes you do adapt fairly quickly and as few days go by when I'm not doing predelivery checks I'm often swapping back and forth between individual and shared controls and think little of it now when once it feared me with dread ! 

[hobbyelectronics]

R&S have a deal on the RTB2004 package at £2900 (3390 Euro)

https://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Rohde-Schwarz-RTB2K-COM4-SP.html

This is fully loaded 4 channel, 300MHz with all options (MSO, Decode, Protocols etc), 4 probes, logic probes etc.

Sounds like a pretty goo deal to me is it worth it?

[Fungus]

This is fully loaded 4 channel, 300MHz with all options (MSO, Decode, Protocols etc), 4 probes, logic probes etc.

Sounds like a pretty goo deal to me is it worth it?

Yes.

[2N3055]

R&S have a deal on the RTB2004 package at £2900 (3390 Euro)

https://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Rohde-Schwarz-RTB2K-COM4-SP.html

This is fully loaded 4 channel, 300MHz with all options (MSO, Decode, Protocols etc), 4 probes, logic probes etc.

Sounds like a pretty goo deal to me is it worth it?

That is a good deal compared to retail price. That, OTOH, is arbitrarily pumped up by manufacturer, because they are big brand and they think they can.

Look, nobody will take responsibility of choice from you.

RTB2000 is not worse scope than SDS2104X+. Nobody will claim that.
Is it better?

I personally think it is a bit more polished at the time, if nothing else because it is longer on the market. God knows it was buggy mess when it came out. But, despite taking really long, they fixed most of the obvious stuff. Some things are still unsolved, but not obvious stuff.

It is  also mixed bag: Decoding is really nice on that scope. But you have only one decode. Wait, that is wrong there are 2.... Yeah, but those 2 are simplex. So you want to decode UART you can decode only 1 uart if you need RX and TX.  On SDS2104X+ decoding doesn't look so nice (but does the job neverthless) but it has 2 full duplex decodes. R&S would try to sell you this as "we have 4 decodes". So If you do only simple stuf, and 2 simplex decodes are good enough for you , RTB2000 will do good job. If you need to look at 1 SPI and 1 UART bus at the same line both RX and TX, you cannot do that on RTB2000, but on Siglent it's no problem.

Siglent has arbitrary math, 2ch and math chaining. It can do some  stuff RTB2000 math cannot do, but RTB2000 math is already pretty good for average user.

So depending on what are your priorities. When I'm in a situation that I need to decide but cannot make a simple clear choice, i literally open Excel, enumerate on the left points I find important, and in several columns I give grades from 0 to 10 for each options. I sum it up, and then usually becomes obvious. Put all the technical merits inside table, but don't forget other factors if they are important to you.
For  instance, for a educational videos maker, availability of ready made edu materials mith matter more than cutting edge performance. Or you have customers that care about if your lab looks either "old school" or "super modern and hip" (apple style)..

Don't forget to  give points for price... If in your comparison RTB2000 comes on top, fine, but also make sure that it is  as much better for your needs as it is more expensive...

For a small business owner, for instance , it would make more sense to get 2 SDS2104X+ than single RTB2000. Siglent is more than good enough (actually make that way more than good enough) to do the general purpose job, and I could have 2 engineers or technicians working at the same time, instead of waiting their turn.

In the end, it is you who have to make a list of priorities and decide.

[goaty]

Surprisingly the thing that annoys me most on the RTB2k is that horizontal and vertical is above each other and not beside. I find it takes long time to get used to it.

[Caliaxy]

I personally think it is a bit more polished [...]

... the screen in particular 

Joke aside, as 2N3055 says. If you do the point thingy, don't forget that if you decide to hack the Siglent to 350 MHz you also need to factor in at least four 300 MHz (~$200) or 350 MHz probes (2104X only comes with 200 MHz probes). Also, don't forget to add the logic probe for Siglent (~$350).

I was offered a similar deal as yours, on top of witch I got an educational discount of ~20% ($800); the educational discount was only 5% ($70) for Siglent. Altogether, the final price for the official R&S was ~30% higher than the price for the similarly equipped (bandwidth and probes) hacked Siglent (with all the discounts). Then I had to decide if the 10 bit ADC (which lured me in the first place) was worth the difference...

[hobbyelectronics]

And was it, or did you go down the Siglent route? I need to re-read some of these posts, having trouble keeping up!!

Although some things that are not really tech spec related sometimes push me over the edge either way, but some things we have no choice like the vertical knobs, just have to live with that and get used to it and then wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place.
Of course the Siglent 5000 series has the extra knobs, but by then time you add logic probes, hacks or upgrades for all the MSO and other stuff. The RTB2K-COM4-SP package with everything now looks like what I am going to go for, all though way more than what I wanted to pay, but I think longer term it is a good investment.

Where do you stop, looking at the R&S 3000 series, so much better again on some fronts but then the prices start to really rocket. If the They had the same deal as the COM4 but a 3000 series for just a couple of hundred more than maybe, but it really jumps a lot.

If its like my last scopes (Phillips 2 channel, 50MHz Dual time base) x 2 stacked on top of each other, they lasted me for nearly 30 years so this shiny new R&S might well be the last scope I buy if it lasts that long. 

Of course, like what many have said, their is not really a bad choice here, but I think com4 package deal is the way forward for me. So, thanks to everyone comments because it these comments that have made me really think, maybe too much, and hopefully end up with a decent scope on my bench.......

Then nest on the list at some point is to replace my bench PSU and other stuff, but that's not this year.....

Thanks

[Zlotnik]

At the moment I feel if I could get a RTB2004 fully loaded at a good price I may be tempted but the Siglent certainly offers better value bang for buck.

Back to having a long hard think......

After checking the specs are compliant with what you need and the features you need are available, IMHO don't check only for feature-extras and specs exceeding your requirements (which is what the forum tends to focus on), but also factor in ease of use/annoying quirks into your cost-vs-benefit trade-off.

The best way of course is to test drive all scopes in question!
If this is not possible, watch as many videos as you can. Ignore the vlogger's comments, instead imagine yourself handling the scope. Do that a LOT, it doesn't work with only one or two videos. After some time I find one gets a feel for the device: I tend to begin to roll my eyes at reviewers "not getting it" for some devices, and roll my eyes about the device's design choices for others. For me I found this is a halfway good predictor of the chance I'll actually like using the device.

You will NOT get this insight from reading forum posts! People on the forums tend to be too opinionated for this, and the issues one ends up hating and little touches one ends up loving vary too much from one person to the next.

Only then start doing your cost-vs-benefit trade-off. Only you can apply the correct trade-off weights between features, specs and ease-of use!

You already know how most of us felt in the end, let us know which way you'll swing!

[Zlotnik]

Then nest on the list at some point is to replace my bench PSU and other stuff, but that's not this year....

Oh, that one is easy. The best one for all needs ever is the HP/Agilent 6632B. :-P
Just kidding...

[normi]

@hobbyelectronics

One point to note which no one seems to mention is that the sample rate of the SDS2000X + is max 2G/s which is only available on 2 channels. So for ideal measurements the scope with all the hacks would be Max 2 channels 500Mhz and all 4 channels 250Mhz, unless you do some sort of bandwidth limit. There is a 4 times sample rate required to overcome possible aliasing, some recommend five times. This is why the RBT2000 has a 1.25G/s sample rate for each channel at 300Mhz.
There is a lot of information on the forum which is not often balanced, so please do your own research to confirm what is said.

TekTronix recommends 5 times.
See attached extract

[Caliaxy]

And was it, or did you go down the Siglent route?

Well, I chose R&S but that was just me under my circumstances (among others, I am not running a business to make profit).

I second the suggestion to test drive one if you can – it's quite an expensive piece of equipment (some people's first cars are cheaper...)

I did that with a lower end model from R&S (a fully equipped, 300 MHz RTC1K) and, despite being a very nice piece of equipment highly recommended by everybody who bothered to write about it, I found it awfully difficult to use. Being used with Tektronix and Keysight, nothing was intuitive to me on that little scope. Some feature were nice (like the two channel DMM or the pattern generator) but I had to scratch my head for simple things, like displaying and moving cursors or bringing back the trigger point to the middle of the screen. The layout of the front panel was totally strange to me (though everything was functional, once you figured it). I can’t tell you how many times I accidentally powered OFF the scope because the soft power button was right in the upper middle part of the faceplate, above the menu buttons (where the “Back” menu button is on the Keysight). Sure, I would have probably gotten used to it, but I decided it wasn’t for me…

Never had this feeling about RTC2K (which also feels different, but it doesn't get in your way of doing your job)

[hobbyelectronics]

Ah, yes. I read a lot about this over the last few weeks. That's why I also took a fancy to the RTM3000 Series from R&S, but then where do you stop. Its has higher sample rate and memory.

might be getting a re-mortgage at this rate just to buy my scope. That's why I thought if I could get a 3000 series bundled the same as the COM4 deal for not a lot more I would but the jump is just too much.

Nice thought though....

I think I will go for the RTB2004-COM Package deal. The reason for the R&S over the Siglent is exactly what you have said. I have watched hours and hours of videos, read pages and pages of forum posts and other online reviews along with video demos being used in real projects with people showing the quirks they hate and the ones they love and that's without the endless datasheets and spec sheets I have digested during the last month.

I have to say that for the money and considering all aspects and trade offs etc I don't think I can loose either way, because compared what I have used for the last 30 years, anything new today will be just amazing.
That said, and just like you said, I think with all the information and what I have seen, every time I seem to tip towards the R&S as the better feeling out of the two of them.

Don't get me wrong I am not saying the the Siglent is no good (Not that I can say anyway) but the R&S just feels the right choice. I am sure if I had the Siglent, I would all be over the moon with it, but a choice has to be made. So its the RTB2004-COM4 and lets see what happens. Maybe I might be on here next week saying having a moan that I made the wrong choice but hopefully not.

Time will tell. I have some real filter work to do next week on a board in development so hopefully it will be an asset and not something to tear my hair out over.

Thanks

[hobbyelectronics]

Just on that note, I borrowed a Keysight yesterday from work to check something, which works but everything seemed really awkward to use and just not natural or very intuitive. but that was just one model and I only used it for a few hours so its a bit unfair really. Most other analogue older scopes I have used (When in work or borrowed over the years), its been just a case of turning them on and being up and running in a couple of minutes. But then that's unfair really because a modern DSO or MSO are a totally different piece of equipment these days and comparing them isn't really a real comparison as such.

[tautech]

I have some real filter work to do next week on a board in development so hopefully it will be an asset and not something to tear my hair out over.

Right but have we discussed Bode plot/FRA capability ?

[hobbyelectronics]

no, but I have read a lot.....Why, what's your thoughts.

[tautech]

no, but I have read a lot.....Why, what's your thoughts.

Have a look at this answer to a question:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds2000x-plus-bugs-missing-features-feature-requests/msg3522482/#msg3522482

[james_s]

Joke aside, as 2N3055 says. If you do the point thingy, don't forget that if you decide to hack the Siglent to 350 MHz you also need to factor in at least four 300 MHz (~$200) or 350 MHz probes (2104X only comes with 200 MHz probes). Also, don't forget to add the logic probe for Siglent (~$350).

Not necessarily. You may only really need the high bandwidth on one channel at a time, so get one high bandwidth probe for those occasions when you need it, and use the cheaper probes for everything else. You might not even need a high bandwidth probe at all, there are lots of applications where you could just connect a coax directly into the circuit you are wanting to monitor. It all depends on what you're trying to do and what your budget allows.

[hobbyelectronics]

The probes that come with the RTB2004-COM4 are the RT-ZP03 probes, which look like they are 10MHz at 1:1 and rated at 300MHz at 10:1

So much to consider......

[hobbyelectronics]

Also, going on what I have seen & read the bode plot function of the RTB2004 looks ok and would be useful.

[nctnico]

I personally think it is a bit more polished [...]

... the screen in particular 

Joke aside, as 2N3055 says. If you do the point thingy, don't forget that if you decide to hack the Siglent to 350 MHz you also need to factor in at least four 300 MHz (~$200) or 350 MHz probes (2104X only comes with 200 MHz probes). Also, don't forget to add the logic probe for Siglent (~$350).

If you check the measurements made by Performa01 in one of the Siglent SDS2000x threads you'll see that these probes have near identical performance when using the standarised probe test setup (25 Ohm source). In addition to that you should NOT try to use high-Z probes to make measurements that produce a somewhat accurate rendering of signals over 100MHz anyway. The probe tip capacitance will load the signal way too much. A 50 Ohm feedthrough or 50 Ohm mode + direct coax connection is a much better option (if needed combined with an active FET probe or passive, low-Z probe).

[egonotto]

Hi,

Going back to the original topic about deciding on a particular scope and getting away from open source for a moment (Although an interesting discussion), what views do you have on the Siglent SDS5034X.

Mainly, compared to the R&S 20004EDU with plenty of free upgrades, is the Siglent 5000x series far superior?

https://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Rohde-Schwarz-RTB2004EDU.html
https://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Siglent-SDS5034X.html


Anyone got any thoughts on the 5000X series (Or anything priced similar) that would completely put it in a league of its own over the R&S2000 series.
Also is the 5034X easily and freely upgradable.

Any thoughts good or bad, would be good to hear.

Thanks

John

Hello,

there is a long thread in german for compare RTB2004 and Siglent SDS5034X.

https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/516056?page=1

Best regards
egonotto