Overview of the Tektronix MSO58 8-Channel 6.25GS/s 2GHz Mixed-Signal Scope

[mikeselectricstuff]

Given the amount a fully loaded one of these costs, I'd be highly surprised if the vast majority of potential customers couldn't get all-round better value and productivity by buying multiple different scopes for the same money.

[madmax96]

The point is that if you are soing memory testing you don't need more than 4 analog channels... and at 2Ghz both Keysight and LeCroy have solution with higher Enob and SR... looking a ddr signal with just 6.25Gs/s is not so helpful. 8 analog channel make sense in power electronics, sensors , hybrid engine, motor drive control ... and here 2Ghz is not request . Then 2Ghz at 8 bit and 6.25gs/s is much worse of what already in the market since years

[snoopy]

The point is that if you are soing memory testing you don't need more than 4 analog channels... and at 2Ghz both Keysight and LeCroy have solution with higher Enob and SR... looking a ddr signal with just 6.25Gs/s is not so helpful. 8 analog channel make sense in power electronics, sensors , hybrid engine, motor drive control ... and here 2Ghz is not request . Then 2Ghz at 8 bit and 6.25gs/s is much worse of what already in the market since years

if you are looking for runt pulses caused by bus conflicts etc then you need analog channels

[EEVblog]

Sometimes I do not understand if it's just marketing or if there are also technical reason on saying that this scope is opening a "new era".
12 Adc and 8 channel scope are in the market since more than 3 years...if you look at the Enob of this scope , it'a worst than Keysight S series and LeCroy Hdo9k. If you look at the noise , the Tek scope is a disaster. At 2Ghz is an 8bit scope (why a 12 bit Adc should became an 8 bit???) ... memory is just 125MS, LeCroy have 250M....the only new thing is the monitor, not enough for a new era.
Why someone should buy an 8 channel scope? The main applications are power and motor control (3 phase).
Who would use a 2Ghz scope for these apps???

Not many are going to need 2GHz and the 8 channel.
Yes, the main apps for 8 channels are the likes of embedded motor control and power stuff, and for that sort of stuff the basic 350MHz model would be more than enough.
With all the multiple rails in stuff, 4 channels can be gone in an instant just PSU system monitoring.
An affordable 8CH scope would be most welcome in the mid level market I'm sure, but no one does a bench one AFAIK.
Even a 6CH MSO would really liven up the mid level market.

[Wuerstchenhund]

First, cudos to Tek for finally coming up with a scope that is not just a rehash of their old lacklustre DPO/MDO platform. It's nice to see quite a bit of innovation in the new scope, and we have a (niche) task where the new MDO5 could serve well.

However, I also have to agree with Dave and others that Marketing went overboard, unfortunately as usual with Tek (not that Keysight and R&S don't suffer from the same illness, they're both similarly bad). I know there's a widespread believe that scopes like these are bought by MBA'd office monkeys who have no clue about how to use it, but reality is that it's generally engineers who specify and request a specific instrument. Exaggerations like "game changing" or "this changes everything" make a manufacturer look pretty silly, even more so when wrongly claiming firsts, and frankly if a manufacturer spends so much time talking (usually through their asses) about its competition's scopes instead of its own product then it makes this manufacturer look desperate as well, all which take away from a product which, if it's any good, should be able to stand on its own. If it doesn't then, well, it may be that the product isn't as good as you thought it is.

Now to the "game changer" scope:

I like the format, I like the design, and the large high resultion screen is nice (I don't think it makes a huge difference but there's certainly the argument why a $15k+ scope needs to come with low res panel in this day and age). Also the choice of Windows or some embedded OS is interesting and probably helps in areas where classification of test data is an issue. The 12bit vertical resolution is nice, too, despite the ENOB (which is pretty meaningless anyways without knowing how it was derived).

Connecting the digital channels to the main ADCs is an interesting concept which gives more flexibility although it might create 'either/or' situations where analog and digital channels fight for an ADC.

However, based on what I saw from the videos I watched, I do have to say the UI is really poor. It might have been designed for touch as claimed, but considering that Tek is late in this regard I think the result isn't exactly stellar. It looks like it has been designed by someone who has very little idea about human factors interaction. Some of the actions seem unnecessary convoluted and illogical (i.e. switching off a channel by dragging it to the recycle bin???). Considering that LeCroy had it's touch-designed MAUI for roughly 15 years, and by now even Keysight has turned the original mouse-driven UI of its Infiniium scopes into a proper touch UI, I would have expected something more, even though it's already a big step up from the horrible UI of the MDOxxxx Series.

I'm also not sure how useful an AWG is in a scope of this class, especially when it comes with limited BW (50Mhz) and tiny sample memory.

Also, it seems Tek hasn't really clearly thought about the markets at which to aim the new scope:

Why someone should buy an 8 channel scope? The main applications are power and motor control (3 phase).
Who would use a 2Ghz scope for these apps???

This. The main application for 8 channel scopes are power/motor control application, which generally are fine with BW of 500Mhz to 1GHz. Pretty much all 8 ch scopes are aimed for that market segment, which is why they all come with some kind of power analysis tools. Something that doesn't even seem to be available for the Tek MSO5x.

In fact, the overall list of options for the MDO5x is pretty sparse: some jitter analysis package, and serial decode package supporting a few standards (I2C/I2S, SPI, UART, USB2 (but no HS mode), Ethernet, CAN, LIN, FlexRay, TDM) seems to be all that's available. The LeCroy HDO8kA's option list offers a long list of serial decode standards as well as packages for power analysis, compliance, EMC, Serial Data Analysis and even Vector Signal Analysis. As to four channel scopes, Keysight's DSO-S comes with an option list that has even more serial decode standards plus several analysis packages.  Which is no surprise, because in this scope class application-specific options are crucial and make or break a scope.

So where does this leave Tek? The MSO58 is an 8 channel scope that doesn't support the main application for which 8 channel scopes even exist. The four channel MSO54 still lacks most of the capabilities of its competitors. Up to 64 digital channels are nice, and an 8ch MSO58 can have 4 analog and 32 digital channels which is more than other scopes, however applications requiring a 32bit wide MSO are certainly a tiny niche, and again the lack of options will leave the Tek MDO5x exposed.

The AWG, not only because of it's low specs, seems to be more like a gimmick. The same is true for the DVM, and considering the UI I'm inclined to say the same about the high res display. AWG and DVM may be useful in entry-level scopes but I can see little purpose for them in a lower high-end scope.

I also wish Tek had put some of the effort they used for exaggerating into making its datasheets better, or why is basic performance data like max FFT sample size, the AWGs sample memory size or the AWG resolution absent?

If the waveform update rate of the Lecroy and Keysight is low then you may not capture glitches for a long time.

I'm not sure how Tek did its "tests" (or how competent the tester was with a non-Tek scope), and of course Tek doesn't state the test parameters or even the software versions of the involved scopes, but we get a lot more than the claimed 700 wfms/s from our HDO8000 (non-A) scopes, and even our Keysight scopes fare better than the 1000(?) or so wfms/s stated by Tek.

I'll certainly get a demo unit in at some point for our engineers to look at but aside from one niche case where the high number of digital channels might be useful I can't see how the MDO5x could even replace our Keysight and LeCroy scopes, forget about "changing everything". However if Tek works on expanding the options (maybe start with power analysis) then it could become a viable alternative to Yokogawa, LeCroy and Keysight, though.

[boggis the cat]

Why not do a modular system?  With modern fast bus speeds it would surely be easy enough to put the front end in a module and offload the data collection and processing.  Make provision for eight plug-ins and let the customer buy the mainframe and populate it with their choice of modules.

Hioki do this already with card based mainframes (and some other Japanese manufacturers, I think), but you could make a better job of it with more compact front connecting modules -- even make them hot-swappable.

Produce analogue modules in various bandwidth ratings, high voltage analogue modules, digital signal modules, multimeter modules...

Surely in the age of USB-C and touch-screen controls this could be done well.

[EEVblog]

No one has yet dared comment on my assertion that the flex channel decision makes the 4 channel scope almost unmarketable.
You pay big dollars for a 4 channel MSO and you have to give up two of those to get your standard 16 digital channels. It's a ridiculous compromise that no other scope has.

Wait, there are no 2 channel MSO's on the market that provide 2 analog + 16 digital? But the 4 FlexChannel input 5 Series MSO has 4 analog or up to 32 digital (providing the standard scope usage case of 2 analog + 16 digital). I think it has its place, different people will value 4 analog (like a DPO) others will value 1, 2, 3, or 4 analog with the option of trading off an analog for 8 digital. To each their own, this provides superior flexibility, integration and performance. 

I  your eternal marketing optimism.
You clearly don't understand what I'm getting at, or you just want to admit it.
Your 2CH comparison is the most ridiculous straw man I've heard in a long time. I won't explain why, you already know.

When people buy a 4CH scope they are doing so because they have a real need for 4 analog channels. They want to know they have 4 analog channels available should the need arise.
Now, when someone buys an MSO, nothing changes, still buying entirely on the 4CH analog requirement knowing they are getting the extra digital functionality for free.
This is how every MSO on the market works, except yours.
Buy your 4CH 5-Series "MSO" and not only do you not get the digital probes with a scope marketed as an "MSO", you have to lose one or two analog channels to use it.
A massive compromise that no other scope on the market has.
And Murphy will ensure you'll lose those analog channels right when you need them.

An oscilloscope is designed to view analog signals, that's what they do, that's why people buy them, that's what you pay for. MSO scopes are analog scopes with some extra handy time correlated digital channels, people don't buy expensive scopes primarily as logic analysers.
This is why your ability to go to 64 channels is entirely moot, virtually no one will ever do that.

Only a fool would buy the 4CH 5-Series as a general purpose MSO. You would have to have a very specific need for some performance aspect of the 5-series or like it for some other reason.

Yes people can and do have different needs, but this is how the vast majority of people will be thinking when they want to buy a new scope for the lab. The 4CH 5-Series is simply not competitive in the general purpose 4CH MSO market. Yes it "has it's place", but that place is ridiculous small because it's a crippled design concept when it comes to 4 channels.
Not nearly so much of a problem with the 6CH and 8Ch version of course.
Now this isn't to say you made the wrong choice by doing this, you may have has very good technical reason to do it, and got very good performance by doing so. But it's a not a solution that is all rainbows, there is a price to be paid for doing this, and on the 4CH it's a biggie.
If you tried this in the lower end market with a 4CH Flex channel scope compared to all the competition with 4+16CH, it would be dead in the water.

Let me know in 12 months time how well your 4CH 5-Series is selling...
I await you bundling those digital probes in, 3.. 2.. 1..

[EEVblog]

Why not do a modular system?  With modern fast bus speeds it would surely be easy enough to put the front end in a module and offload the data collection and processing.  Make provision for eight plug-ins and let the customer buy the mainframe and populate it with their choice of modules.

An angry engineer shouts across the lab: "Alright, who's the bastard who stole my $5k 2GHz plugins?"

[EEVblog]

Given the amount a fully loaded one of these costs, I'd be highly surprised if the vast majority of potential customers couldn't get all-round better value and productivity by buying multiple different scopes for the same money.

If you are in the market for a general purpose lab MSO in the sub $20k market then there are certainly many other compelling options.
If you are after specific high performance in the >$20k range, then the new 5-Series would have much less competition. It might even be the bang-per-buck winner on a few metrics. Hard to know without detailed analysis.

This scope simply isn't in the running for the general purpose lab scope market though, although they sure marketed like it was going to be the new scope every engineer must have.
It's a great scope, but I think everyone was expecting a lower price level, but it turned out not to be that. And there is nothing wrong with that of course, it is what it is.

Will be interesting to see the new Rigol scope, who have now joined the "big 4" players in having their own custom ASIC technology and multi GHz bandwidth. That will no doubt be more "everyday engineer" pricing level.
Will also be interesting to see if people will trust spending up another price level on a Rigol scope.

[grouchobyte]

The rep is bringing one over tomorrow. Having worked at Tek in a design capacity for years I am curious about this latest beast. When it comes to innovation Tek has a decent reputation. However in the past decade or two I have seen Tek really fall behind. I am quite certain, based on some early reviews that there is some nice innovation going on. Many of Dave's comments really hit the nail on the head and the reality in which Tek find themselves in todays market. At current published pricing, I am not sure this will bring everyone running to tek to place early orders. I asked to see one because I want to see if this scope  is worth it. I can certainly afford it, but it is on the high side for just a few cool features and some meh improvements. Since when is pinch and zoom innovative or capacitive touch?. Sounds alot like catch-up to me

@grouchobyte

[mikeselectricstuff]

The rep is bringing one over tomorrow.

Would be very interesting to sound out just how fixed those list prices are, and how amenable they are to throwing probes/options in to get a sale

[grouchobyte]

Helps to be in Beaverton just down the street from Tek. Played with it for about 20 minutes, less than that actually.

Impressions:

- Very nice BIG screen....not as crisp as I would have liked. Viewing angle and brightness/contrast is a tad underwhelming for a box costing 15-20K
- snappy response to button pushes and touch gestures
- physical controls are well implemented. The color illumination on the physical controls is useful. Makes finding stuff in the dark easy.
 -cursors work very well and the touch gestures are easy to use. Works with a mouse too
- 8 simultaneous measurements - very handy indeed
- web interface is snappy and useful
-scope takes 1.5 minutes to boot up...uggg
- fan is quiet and acceptable for a lab environment
-the stacked feature is clever and saves time
-FFT's seem fast  but I didn't have enough time to really see how they stack up to other 12-bit scopes

I asked them about price and they know the market is gasping for a lower price point. There was some indication that after a few months of signing up the early adopters and seeing some slowing in sales that they will probalby throw in some options to get the sagging sales back up. They are keenly aware of the high price. They want to price it that way initially. Right now they want full boat list price for everything ( all options) and that is really unfortunate for them. I am gonna wait until they realize the sales are just not there. Sad.

@grouchobyte

[edavid]

-scope takes 1.5 minutes to boot up...uggg

Was that the Windows version?

[grouchobyte]

-scope takes 1.5 minutes to boot up...uggg

Was that the Windows version?

The demo unit I had in my lab apparently had no SSD with full blown Windows on it.
 Instead, I assume it had some embedded version of Windows running on the scope. However , a 90 second boot time is a little excessive IMHO

@grouchobyte

[BrianH_Tektronix]

Helps to be in Beaverton just down the street from Tek. Played with it for about 20 minutes, less than that actually.

Impressions:

- Very nice BIG screen....not as crisp as I would have liked. Viewing angle and brightness/contrast is a tad underwhelming for a box costing 15-20K
- snappy response to button pushes and touch gestures
- physical controls are well implemented. The color illumination on the physical controls is useful. Makes finding stuff in the dark easy.
 -cursors work very well and the touch gestures are easy to use. Works with a mouse too
- 8 simultaneous measurements - very handy indeed
- web interface is snappy and useful
-scope takes 1.5 minutes to boot up...uggg
- fan is quiet and acceptable for a lab environment
-the stacked feature is clever and saves time
-FFT's seem fast  but I didn't have enough time to really see how they stack up to other 12-bit scopes

I asked them about price and they know the market is gasping for a lower price point. There was some indication that after a few months of signing up the early adopters and seeing some slowing in sales that they will probalby throw in some options to get the sagging sales back up. They are keenly aware of the high price. They want to price it that way initially. Right now they want full boat list price for everything ( all options) and that is really unfortunate for them. I am gonna wait until they realize the sales are just not there. Sad.

@grouchobyte

Glad you enjoyed seeing the new scope    Our engineering team has spent a lot of time making sure user pain points are reduced, and that the user interface works extremely well. The new measurement system adds a wide amount of capabilities like integrating our jitter analysis package. BTW, your not limited to 8 measurements (you can add as many as you want). The bootup time isn't bad seeing it does a lot of preliminary checks on 8 FlexChannel inputs and acq system. Many scopes in this space take ~1min for 4 channels. So 1.5mins for 8 channels isn't bad    I'm sure engineering could reduce the time even more, but I honestly boot up my scope on Monday and turn it off on Friday so its not really that critical IMO.

-scope takes 1.5 minutes to boot up...uggg

Was that the Windows version?

The demo unit I had in my lab apparently had no SSD with full blown Windows on it.
 Instead, I assume it had some embedded version of Windows running on the scope. However , a 90 second boot time is a little excessive IMHO

@grouchobyte

Its an embedded linux OS, the SSD option is Windows 10.

[BrianH_Tektronix]

First, cudos to Tek for finally coming up with a scope that is not just a rehash of their old lacklustre DPO/MDO platform. It's nice to see quite a bit of innovation in the new scope, and we have a (niche) task where the new MDO5 could serve well.

If the waveform update rate of the Lecroy and Keysight is low then you may not capture glitches for a long time.

I'm not sure how Tek did its "tests" (or how competent the tester was with a non-Tek scope), and of course Tek doesn't state the test parameters or even the software versions of the involved scopes, but we get a lot more than the claimed 700 wfms/s from our HDO8000 (non-A) scopes, and even our Keysight scopes fare better than the 1000(?) or so wfms/s stated by Tek.

First off, Thanks! Our engineers have worked their butts off getting this product launched. Its a real work of art when you get to play with it for any length of time. I can't tell you how many times we've heard 'why didn't anyone think of that before' after being blown away with how simple it drives or the details that were taken into the design.

Regarding the waveform update rate "tests", our testing is performed the same across all vendors. Its done using the aux out to capture the average trigger out speed at different horizontal settings. Each horizontal setting is adjusted (RL, display modes, ect) until the fastest speeds are achieved. Then the average of those fastest speeds are plotted against the horizontal scale. To be completely honest, the Tek 5 Series MSO gets to its peak speeds much easier than most competitor scopes in its class (with only a simple button press). And all competitor scopes were tested using the their latest FW at the time of testing. The Keysight X-Series scope is optimized for speed, but if you compare the S-Series or higher you'll notice its under that 1000 wfms/sec, same with the HDO scopes. If you can get their scope faster, PM me and i'll happily update our documentation.

[snoopy]

Helps to be in Beaverton just down the street from Tek. Played with it for about 20 minutes, less than that actually.

Impressions:

- Very nice BIG screen....not as crisp as I would have liked. Viewing angle and brightness/contrast is a tad underwhelming for a box costing 15-20K
- snappy response to button pushes and touch gestures
- physical controls are well implemented. The color illumination on the physical controls is useful. Makes finding stuff in the dark easy.
 -cursors work very well and the touch gestures are easy to use. Works with a mouse too
- 8 simultaneous measurements - very handy indeed
- web interface is snappy and useful
-scope takes 1.5 minutes to boot up...uggg
- fan is quiet and acceptable for a lab environment
-the stacked feature is clever and saves time
-FFT's seem fast  but I didn't have enough time to really see how they stack up to other 12-bit scopes

I asked them about price and they know the market is gasping for a lower price point. There was some indication that after a few months of signing up the early adopters and seeing some slowing in sales that they will probalby throw in some options to get the sagging sales back up. They are keenly aware of the high price. They want to price it that way initially. Right now they want full boat list price for everything ( all options) and that is really unfortunate for them. I am gonna wait until they realize the sales are just not there. Sad.

@grouchobyte

Sounds like the Osbourne effect in play. Now everyone will be waiting around for the extra probes before they make a move. They should of had the introductory offer right from the start like some of the other scope offerings

[mikeselectricstuff]

. Many scopes in this space take ~1min for 4 channels. So 1.5mins for 8 channels isn't bad

Considering that almost all of the time, one would hope that there aren't any faults, and if there are, chances are they would be fairly obvious, perhaps at least an option for faster boot and a manual selftest on demand might be useful?

..and if each channel is independent, surely it should be possible to test them mostly in parallel, so more channels doesn't take much more time?

[madmax96]

What is very strange to me it's that the main innovation of this scope seems to be just the screen....no one talking about Enob and noise comparison against other 10 or 12 bit scope. No really Hw performance comparison that is the only reason why there should be really improvements against other scopes. At 1Ghz this new scope has 7.6 enob against 8.4 bits of LeCroy  Hdo8000A. Noise at 10mv/div is 283uV agains 210uV...at 1V/div the noise is twice in the Tek scope (ok 10 division vs 8 but with the right proportion still much worse). A true 12 bit Adc can not have a DC accuracy at just 1%...
In the datasheet Mso 5 series is an 8 bit scope at 2Ghz...but does it have a 12 bit or 8 bit Adc??? At 2 Ghz Enob is at 7. LeCroy Hdo9000 has 7.4 at 2Ghz and 6.8 enob at 4Ghz!!!
But everyone talk about screen, pinch zoom (Keysight has this since more than 2 years)...and think with no value from the technical point of you!
Would you like to talk about the Bw at 2mV/div? Just 350Mhz...other scope has 1Ghz or higher Bw!! This is still the same performance of the old Tek amplifier since 10 years.
Sincerely I was expecting from Tek a really new scope that would have demonstrate their big capabilities on the Hw side...but I think we have still to wait...but let's talk about the screen (Keysight has the capacitive 15.3" touch screen monitor since 2-3 years)

[technogeeky]

What is very strange to me it's that the main innovation of this scope seems to be just the screen....no one talking about Enob and noise comparison against other 10 or 12 bit scope. No really Hw performance comparison that is the only reason why there should be really improvements against other scopes. At 1Ghz this new scope has 7.6 enob against 8.4 bits of LeCroy  Hdo8000A. Noise at 10mv/div is 283uV agains 210uV...at 1V/div the noise is twice in the Tek scope (ok 10 division vs 8 but with the right proportion still much worse). A true 12 bit Adc can not have a DC accuracy at just 1%...
In the datasheet Mso 5 series is an 8 bit scope at 2Ghz...but does it have a 12 bit or 8 bit Adc??? At 2 Ghz Enob is at 7. LeCroy Hdo9000 has 7.4 at 2Ghz and 6.8 enob at 4Ghz!!!
But everyone talk about screen, pinch zoom (Keysight has this since more than 2 years)...and think with no value from the technical point of you!
Would you like to talk about the Bw at 2mV/div? Just 350Mhz...other scope has 1Ghz or higher Bw!! This is still the same performance of the old Tek amplifier since 10 years.
Sincerely I was expecting from Tek a really new scope that would have demonstrate their big capabilities on the Hw side...but I think we have still to wait...but let's talk about the screen (Keysight has the capacitive 15.3" touch screen monitor since 2-3 years)

Well, the main innovations are:

• the screen
• the analog/digital front-end that is 1 analog / 8 digital

You can argue positives and negatives about both, I'm sure. But I don't think anybody else has these kind of switchable front-ends.

[EEVblog]

You can argue positives and negatives about both, I'm sure. But I don't think anybody else has these kind of switchable front-ends.

Unlike most innovations in this segment, I don't think this is one that other manufacturers will want to copy.
You certainly wouldn't want to do it on a 4CH scope for example, you'd get killed in the market by all the other 4+16 channel scopes.

[Wuerstchenhund]

First off, Thanks! Our engineers have worked their butts off getting this product launched. Its a real work of art when you get to play with it for any length of time. I can't tell you how many times we've heard 'why didn't anyone think of that before' after being blown away with how simple it drives or the details that were taken into the design.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that last part. As I said, the UI looks pretty poor and shows a lack of Human Factors considerations by whoever designed it. If you trialed with engineers that still work with analog scopes or only know other Tek scopes then you might get a lot of  awe', but if like me you know what else the market offers  (and I have to, considering the amount of T&M gear I purchase for our labs) then reactions will understandably be a lot more modest. Because besides the idea of using one port and ADC for analog and digital channels (which is new but comes with advantages and disadvantages) I can't see much which would leave me wondering why no-one else has done it (and a lot of things others have been doing for a long time). There's a lot of new stuff in the MSO5x for Tek, but that is simply because Tek's previous DSO offerings have been pretty lacklustre throughout.

I see the MDO5x as a solid start for Tek to shake off the cruft of the past, but certainly not as a game changer. Because it really isn't. I'm not even sure which market Tek tries to catch with it. This may sound harsh to you (I know it's not nice to hear if someone calls your baby ugly) but that's my opinion as a large T&M customer, and people like me are at the end of the day the ones who procure these things.

Having said that, the MSO5x looks impressive enough for Tek to get it's foot in our door again, which is quite an achievement. At some point I'll certainly try to get an MSO58 in for our engineers to evaluate.

Regarding the waveform update rate "tests", our testing is performed the same across all vendors. Its done using the aux out to capture the average trigger out speed at different horizontal settings. Each horizontal setting is adjusted (RL, display modes, ect) until the fastest speeds are achieved. Then the average of those fastest speeds are plotted against the horizontal scale.

What's your input signal? And especially, what's your trigger settings?

To be completely honest, the Tek 5 Series MSO gets to its peak speeds much easier than most competitor scopes in its class (with only a simple button press). And all competitor scopes were tested using the their latest FW at the time of testing. The Keysight X-Series scope is optimized for speed, but if you compare the S-Series or higher you'll notice its under that 1000 wfms/sec, same with the HDO scopes. If you can get their scope faster, PM me and i'll happily update our documentation.

I have no specific figures at hand but I'm pretty sure we get quite a bit more than 1000 wfms/s from our DSO-S scopes, and even more so from our HDO8ks and HDO6ks. If you really got such low numbers then there must be something wrong in your test methodology (which btw anyone who's concerned about being taken seriously would fully specify together with the results, just sayin'), i.e. like using AUTO triggering.

Besides, in this scope class, update rate is a lot less important than for entry-level scopes, simply because glitch finding is generally done with advanced triggering through one of the many available options. Unfortunately many of which are not even available for the Tek MSO5x.

no one talking about Enob and noise comparison against other 10 or 12 bit scope

There's no point talking about ENOB. It's completely meaningless as long as it's not clear under which condition the number was achieved/calculated.

[madmax96]

There's no point talking about ENOB. It's completely meaningless as long as it's not clear under which condition the number was achieved/calculated.
[/quote]

For sure everyone is using on the datasheet the best result he can get using IEEE method or spectrum method ...

If you put on your datasheet a value that is 1 bit below your competitor, I'm sure you have used the method that can maximize your result

If you say that your 12 bit Adc che give to the scope a 7 Enob...I'm sure you can no do better in any other way (you are using the best vertical division , the best method)

[madmax96]

What is very strange to me it's that the main innovation of this scope seems to be just the screen....no one talking about Enob and noise comparison against other 10 or 12 bit scope. No really Hw performance comparison that is the only reason why there should be really improvements against other scopes. At 1Ghz this new scope has 7.6 enob against 8.4 bits of LeCroy  Hdo8000A. Noise at 10mv/div is 283uV agains 210uV...at 1V/div the noise is twice in the Tek scope (ok 10 division vs 8 but with the right proportion still much worse). A true 12 bit Adc can not have a DC accuracy at just 1%...
In the datasheet Mso 5 series is an 8 bit scope at 2Ghz...but does it have a 12 bit or 8 bit Adc??? At 2 Ghz Enob is at 7. LeCroy Hdo9000 has 7.4 at 2Ghz and 6.8 enob at 4Ghz!!!
But everyone talk about screen, pinch zoom (Keysight has this since more than 2 years)...and think with no value from the technical point of you!
Would you like to talk about the Bw at 2mV/div? Just 350Mhz...other scope has 1Ghz or higher Bw!! This is still the same performance of the old Tek amplifier since 10 years.
Sincerely I was expecting from Tek a really new scope that would have demonstrate their big capabilities on the Hw side...but I think we have still to wait...but let's talk about the screen (Keysight has the capacitive 15.3" touch screen monitor since 2-3 years)

Well, the main innovations are:

• the screen
• the analog/digital front-end that is 1 analog / 8 digital

You can argue positives and negatives about both, I'm sure. But I don't think anybody else has these kind of switchable front-ends.

The screen...in the market you did other screen like this one - Keysight S serie and LeCroy Hdo9000

Switchable front end...LeCroy can already give you 8 ch + 16 digitals...you can no do that with the new Tek scope...you can have 7 ch + 8 digitals or 6ch + 16 digitals../
Sorry but I don't understand the innovation...
People using an oscilloscope is much more interested on analog channel and not digital..if not the buy a logic Analyzer.
I love Tek and his old technology.
First to have a 20Ghz scope, incredible front-end in the past...so I was really expecting much more from them

[Wuerstchenhund]

First to have a 20Ghz scope

What model? I'm only aware of the DPO70000 and this wasn't the first 20+GHz real-time scope (LeCroy and later Agilent were there before), although Tek was stuck with that design for a long time (and still offers it) while the competition marched on to 73Ghz, and only came out with a 70Ghz scope (DPO70000SX) after the competition launched 100GHz.

There's also the CSA8000 sampling scope but again it wasn't any faster than the competition (Agilent DCA, LeCroy WaveExpert).