recommend an oscilloscope?

[honkyjonk]

Well, yes, on a budget of course. Anything in the $100 dollar range?

[Scodiddly]

Analog scopes have really gotten cheap in the used market - everybody wants/needs a nice digital scope. So check around second hand stores, local surplus places. You should be able to get a good 20MHz dual trace scope for under $50. 20MHz is overkill for audio stuff.

[kcrusher]

You can find older oscilloscopes on ebay all the time. Look for names like HP, Tektronix, DuMont, Leader, etc.

All well under $100. I scored a Tectronix 2365B for $40 about a year ago and it works great.

[honkyjonk]

Sweeeeet!!!

I checked ebay and was astounded at a number of scopes going over $400.
So I thought, great, those are probably the ones I need.
Thankyou.
I wasn't sure what was suitable for aligning a tapedeck, and what is not.

[Scodiddly]

Yeah, well, everybody's going nuts for old obscure microphones and mic pre's... but if you want value, look into old scopes. Nobody's buying them these days...

[percussion boy]

Analog scopes have really gotten cheap in the used market - everybody wants/needs a nice digital scope. So check around second hand stores, local surplus places. You should be able to get a good 20MHz dual trace scope for under $50. 20MHz is overkill for audio stuff.

What up Sco?

Is 20 MHz also sufficient for kit-building? E.g., tweaking the Seventh Circle pre requires an oscilloscope.

Also, does "analog" mean the damn things have tubes in them?

[Scodiddly]

Is 20 MHz also sufficient for kit-building? E.g., tweaking the Seventh Circle pre requires an oscilloscope.

Also, does "analog" mean the damn things have tubes in them?

20MHz is plenty for any audio electronics, unless you start building FM radio transmitters or something. You should see the old 4-5MHz garage sale relics I started with. Pity I didn't take any pictures of my trusty old Eico single-trace.

"Analog" just means it's not digital. Old units may well have tubes, and pretty much any analog scope has that small TV picture tube as the screen. But you can get a nice solid-state unit that's only a few years old cheap these days. That's because anybody who does serious work has some kind of digital scope with an LCD screen. Maybe a year ago I plunked down big money for a nice Fluke Scopemeter 123, which has a dual-trace scope, all sorts of cool metering functions, etc, but runs on batteries and fits in my toolbox.

And actually the general trend has also been less repair work - newer stuff is just so much better and cheaper, nobody's getting TVs and VCRs fixed anymore.

[Professor]

I picked up a fairly nice BK Precision scope about three years ago for $100 on eBay. It is a little slow in warming up when it comes on, so I just leave it on all the time (the trace starts off-center and slowly drifts into place as it warms up). What I like is that it isn't too huge and heavy, has a nice large screen, and has BNC inputs instead of any obnoxious banana jacks or 'probe' inputs. I pretty much only use mine as a vector-scope which is called X-Y mode on the front panel, and that is where it graphs the L versus R signal to show that the stereo mix is in phase. It is very valuable to be able to SEE how well your mix is in phase. I've also had the trace save me from low freq. noise on several occasions when I had wind or other noise that was too low for the speakers to reproduce but I could see the scope just bouncing away during the 'silent' parts - so I popped in a low roll-off and away went the noises I couldn't hear.

So, I would say to watch for a smaller sized two-channel (or more) with a large screen and BNC input jacks. (BNC to RCA cables or adapters are pretty easy to manage.)

-Jeremy

[tonewoods]

Could ya'll excuse my complete ignorance, but what are you all using your oscilloscopes for?

Thanks!

[Milkmansound]

I think I may have a few extra ones lying around my place of business - I am pretty sure there is at least 1 bk precision scope that is not going to get used. They are lab grade - but most likely it will need a little tweak. There may also be an old heathkit, but that one is not quite lab grade. PM me and maybe we can work something out - Tim

[percussion boy]

20MHz is plenty for any audio electronics . . . "Analog" just means it's not digital. Old units may well have tubes . . .

Thanks.

I actually just like 'em 'cause they look pretty. From now on, I will sit on the floor, drinking Bacardi 151 in borrowed vestments, listening to my tone generator at a soothing 500 hz and watching that lovely wave . . . up . . . down . . . up . . . down . . .

[Scodiddly]

Could ya'll excuse my complete ignorance, but what are you all using your oscilloscopes for?

Thanks!

I use mine for electronic repairs. It's incredibly handy to be able to run a sine wave through an amp and actually see the waveform on the output - I can troubleshoot various problems, set output tube bias, look for ultrasonic oscillation, etc.

Studio folks like to use scopes for the pretty display, and you can do neat things like play stereo left and right into different inputs and see how they interact.

[kcrusher]

Could ya'll excuse my complete ignorance, but what are you all using your oscilloscopes for?

Thanks!

Electronics repair mostly - checking component outputs, tuning components, lissajous patterns for checking mono compatibility (or for cool on-stage fx!) and that sort of thing.

[aurelialuz]

Maybe a year ago I plunked down big money for a nice Fluke Scopemeter 123, which has a dual-trace scope, all sorts of cool metering functions, etc, but runs on batteries and fits in my toolbox.

these are pimp. we have these at work and i TOTALLY don't have the $2k-up required for one. damn do i wish i did.

hey sco, what do you use for a signal generator?

[Scodiddly]

Maybe a year ago I plunked down big money for a nice Fluke Scopemeter 123, which has a dual-trace scope, all sorts of cool metering functions, etc, but runs on batteries and fits in my toolbox.

these are pimp. we have these at work and i TOTALLY don't have the $2k-up required for one. damn do i wish i did.

hey sco, what do you use for a signal generator?

The 123 is the "cheap" line - $1200-1300. Worth it, though.

I don't yet have a cool signal generator. I've got an old Jameco-chip based homemade unit, and I've got a salvaged B&K that I need to fix some day. But for audio stuff it's sometimes easier just to grab a test CD.