Propeller Head Plaza

Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

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RE: What to do with an Oscilloscope

Posted by Old nuff 2 no better on August 3, 2015 at 05:17:01:
I still use my boat-anchor tube scopes every day. The big knobs fit my big hands and the high resolution analog trace lets me see fuzz on waveforms that I'd miss on a digital. The high gain plug-in lets me see noise in audio circuits you couldn't see with other scopes. I enjoy using analog scopes of any flavor.
I use digital scopes at work. They increase productivity and let you see very slow phenomena. Yes, they have FFT, but IMO it's completely worthless, especially for audio. The problem is most scopes have a linear frequency scale for their FFT display. Audio requires a log display to cover any decent range and accomplish anything. An FFT scope is a poor second to a spectrum analyzer. The lower end digitals don't have as much vertical resolution as I'd really like. There are some great digital scopes out there, but the ones I'd want to own are way out of my price range.
IMO, when you say, "Damn, if I had a scope I could see this", then it's time to buy a scope. If you're wondering what to do with one, it's probably not going to help you much and you'll quickly lose interest. The above post about how you think is very important. I've worked with people who've used scopes for years but still don't know how to properly set one up to view a specific waveform or feature. It's still a matter of luck with them. You need to understand why a scope shows you what it does, and why the many triggering options exist.