Paul,
The 180 series of scopes will do just fine for your
basic audio applications. It is the "some digital"
that you mentioned that has me offering a suggestion
or two.
If you wish to just analyze the timing of the DAC
signals, than the 180 series will do. If you wish
however to see any relationship of that timing to
other aspects of your digital signal, than another
option might be considered.
Most scopes will give you a voltage indication, which
is vertical, in reference to a particular time period
base (or frequency), which is horizontal. These
voltages may be analog (as in a sine wave audio
signal) or digital (with a constant pulse of one,
stepped pulses or no change from base - zero). If you
wish to analyze the digital signal (a series of ones &
zeros) to a series of timed events that may be in
constant change, or a one time event that might too
quick or fast to notice, than you might get the
feeling that something is missing.
If you ever wish to more in depth analyzing of digital
signals then consider a unit that does both. Two such
are the HP1631D (primarily a Logic analyzer with a 2
channel scope included) or a HP54201D (a digitizing
scope with a logic analyzer included). These will give
you logic (digital) analyzing that can have timing and
signal inputs for comparisons. They have the ability
to stop recording waveforms (since they are digital,
they use RAM to store info) on a glitch (or digital
noise).
As for your application, the 180 series should do
well. The 181 (50MHz)& 184 (100MHz) have screens with
persistence (a type of screen hold to freeze your
display). Some of the vertical plug-ins are the 1801A
(50MHz), 1805A (100MHz), 1808A (75MHz), (which are all
2 vertical channels) and the 50MHz 1804A (which has 4
vertical input channels). Be sure to use X10
oscilloscope probes as to not load your signal under
test and therefore you will get truer readings.
Some of the pros: Other available options for the 180
series are spectrum analyzer plug-ins (to analyze band
pass and/or harmonics). They are inexpensive compared
to more modern equipment. Since they are modular, if a
plug-in does fail, purchase another and replace.
Some of the cons: The units are getting on in age. The
CRTs are going to get harder to find if needed to be
replaced. Finding a repair facility might be difficult
as well. (Some places will try to sell a newer unit
altogether.)
As what might be your first oscilloscope, you could do
worse than a 180 series unit. For a beginner who might
be on a buget, a 180 series should do you well.
Good Luck,
Tom
--- Paul Jacobson <pj@...> wrote:
In complete contrast to the discussion on the nature
of scientific
knowledge, I have a couple of fairly prosaic
questions.
I'm new to the list, and to scopes in general and
I'm currently
looking at buying a 180 series scope for doing basic
audio work, with
some digital. Digital would primarily be checking
alignment of 16Mhz
clock signals in an audio DAC.
Will a 180 mainframe with 50Mhz plugins be up to
this kind of work?
Can someone give an idea of what the pro's & con's
of the 180A, 180C
and 184A mainframes are?
thanks
Paul
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