Korg: Tekt NTS-2 Oscilloscope Kit | Hacker News Reader

Korg: Tekt NTS-2 Oscilloscope Kit

thomann.ae

62 pointstrifit37 comments

This thing was announced May 2022, and since then the shipping date has been pushed back several times. Any indication it's finally going to be available?

Regardless - once this one comes out, I'd consider getting one, maybe on the second hand market. If you want an oscilloscope for audio purposes and are on a budget, you can go much cheaper - any of those $20 oscilloscopes on amazon will let you measure audio signals fine, although the displays are lower-resolution than I'd like for this purpose (and I'm not sure this one is much better in that respect). Conversely, for $200 you can get oscilloscopes with much better specs , many of them arguably overkill for audio purposes. That said, this one definitely has some attractive features for audio, specifically the form factor and I/O make it pretty convenient to just plug in (and pass through) a stereo signal without much fuss.

Even an old 5 MHz scope will do for audio applications, though that generation is getting on in years and likely to be a problem to maintain.

Usually just replacing capacitors

You'd be surprised. The older Tek <100MHz scopes I'm familiar with (like the 465) are pretty easy to work on and most of the parts are commodity. CRTs are starting to get harder to find, tho. Newer stuff is full of custom components and/or ASICs and you'll prolly have to cannibalize one to repair another these days. But I agree that the way to go now is to just get a $25 disposable scope from China off Amazon.

Any recommendations on medium price oscilloscope? How do you hook it up - insert it into the 1/4" signal path? I've never used an oscilloscope so I fear I'll order something close sounding but completely wrong :)

Used Hameg scopes are common and fairly inexpensive, as they were used a lot in schools (at least in my area), and their manuals are very good for learning about oscilloscopes.

To hook up your 1/4" signal, add a splitter to your output, and use one side to drive whatever you're outputting to, and the other side to measure the signal on the oscilloscope. Ready made 1/4" to BNC adapters are available, so you don't even have to use oscilloscope probes

Used Tektronix analog scopes would fit the bill, for around the same price as the Korg.

2200 series and 2400 series are probably the sweet spot in terms capability for money, weight, reliability and repairability. I particularly like the 2245 and 2445, which have basic (digital) measurement capabilities and digitally controlled attenuators. 2225 and 2215 are also solid options. I would stay away from the analog/digital hybrid and digital scopes from this series (243x, 2440, 2210, 2212, etc).

T900 series scopes are good too, but have somewhat lower specs.

400 series scopes are just as capable as the 2200/2400, but much heavier, older and more likely to need re-capping. Some 400 series also have a not-very-good built in DMM.

For audio work, you could also check out the 5000 series mainframe scopes, but that inevitably leads down the rabbit hole of wanting all the plugins (and there are many neat plugins!)

There are also a ton of new $200-class digital scopes from china.

I'm a huge Korg fan and I have the NTS-1, but this is a miss for me. An actual oscilloscope would be more useful and cheaper.

Anyway here is Loopop's review of the NTS-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_LtC6HI5YI

and his review of the NTS-1 which is IMHO a better choice if you want a fun musical toy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhonu-rM0B0

It's important to recognize what this product is and isn't. It's marketed as a "limited edition" set that includes a book, so the target audience is a collector/enthusiast and puts the price at a premium.

As an educational tool, the limited functionality makes it more focused than a generic oscilloscope and in a tighter form factor. Pairing the book with the hardware will make the experience smoother than a broader guide like "Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook".

This isn't for everyone, but should be appealing to collectors or knob tweakers looking to learn this domain. It will most likely retain its value or appreciate over time, as well.

But for premium collector item they certainly cheaped out on components; crappy low-res lcd and not particularly impressive dacs do not evoke premium feel.

It's a price premium, not a premium product. A premium product in this space would cost 10x as much and nobody would bat an eye.

It's a DIY-ish kit with a low-cost BOM, no doubt about it. The limited availability / exclusivity is why it costs more than the $20 hobby kits on Amazon.

I'm guessing this is just a rebranded DSO

https://jyetech.com/dso-138-oscilloscope-diy-kit/

That's a weird thing to guess for a company with Korg's reputation? Any specific reason you'd say this?

Not the op but note Korgs latest 1000$ digital synths are all powered by raspberry Pi. Most other digital synth manufacturers too use off the shelf chips like SHARC etc. There's neither shame nor is it rare for established manfucaturer to use available stuff and not reinvent the wheel. The world market for these devices is smaller than we normally assume and second hand market is huge. There isn't as much money in synth hardware as one might think.

I said it because it's something a lot of companies do, and also they look very similar. It's not meant to be a knock on Korg. I like Korg and own Korg products.

For people in the US: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1703444-REG/korg_nts2...

Nice, but this one fits the bill a little better - albeit without a nice book:

https://www.mordax.net/products/data

Disclaimer: currently waiting for DATA.

The Mordax is a bit more expensive though!

I went for a 4 channel Rigol instead of the Mordax as I thought the extra capabilities were worth the small price increase

I have one (DATA), I also have a DSO. tbh, the DSO has been used more:

    * I have other modules for envelope generation
    * I tend to use a scope when prototyping hardware/software
    * the DSO is on the desk, much closer to the stuff being tested than the rack is

With a range ending at 20 KHz (or 100 times higher), most of us could easily go the DIY route, implementing most of it in software.

At that price point, there are A LOT of options, I'd recommend one of those 10MHz handheld oscilloscopes.

last discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31395352 there were multiple comparisons to the DSO138.

but I think that the more apropos comparison would be the mordax data: https://www.mordax.net/products/data

It's an audio range scope (<20KHz). Pretty expensive for that. I think that you can get modules that will drive a computer, or even mobile device (like a phone or tablet), for cheaper, and with more bells and whistles.

But Korg makes good stuff.

Yea, you buy this for the KORG aesthetic and the nice coffee table instruction book. You could probably get something equivalent at the tech spec level for $20 on aliexpress.

> You could probably get something equivalent at the tech spec level for $20 on aliexpress.

Under $10. Search for "DSO138".

It also has a two-channel signal generator and 3.5mm connectors built in, and you don't need to hook a laptop up to it to use it. You can probably get all of those things cheaper but I wouldn't count on them being reliable, nice to use, or good enough to plug into a synthesizer.

Then again, I've mostly been looking at vector network analyzers lately so ~$200 for electronic test equipment for professional use seems laughably cheap to me.

This is very cool, but very expensive. For this money (€230 in EU) there are a lot of other options, however, for getting an oscilloscope that is useful and robust (unlike those €30 DIY kits that ... I'm too clumsy not to break).

Yea, you can get a Rigol or Siglent 2-4 channel oscilloscope for barely much more in the $300-5000 range. I guess it's neat because of its size, but there are other options even cheaper than the Rigol and Siglent ones.

Do either of these have pitch detection?

If by pitch detection you mean fundamental frequency measurement for a given channel, then yes, and much more.

Oscilloscopes in art: I'm old enough to remember a time when TV interstitials were Lissajous patterns from an oscilloscope.

I'm curious, when and where was that?

Not an interstitial (and am not the original poster), but, somewhat related, ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation)'s logo is a Lissajous curve:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corpor...

The article does mention that 'In the early years of television, the ABC had been using Lissajous curves as fillers between programmes.'

Germany in the 70s. We had no private television back then, only two nation wide stations and one station per state. The nation wide stations had cartoon interstitials but the Bavarian one still had Lissajous in the 70s.

I found this Youtube video [1] from the mid 80s as an example. The comments say (auto-translated):

"There was a big report in the Elrad 06/1997 about the advertising separators and an interview with the man who produced them. Filmed from an oscilloscope, copied to positive film, coloured and mixed with other figures. Everything was produced analogue, partly with bicycle dynamos and tape heads with a circular saw blade between the magnet and the pick-up, quite interesting to read what kind of effort was put into it..."

And off-topic but funny if true:

"By the way, the blondie in the Duplo ad is Jason Connery, Sean's son. He probably also played Robin Hood in the English series at about the same time."

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=15WqxmKZbTc&t=189s

EDIT: One of the nation wide stations had cartoons, the other I don't remember.

Beautiful - such a great idea pairing it with a quality book like this.

Iirc there was a similar product, or was there only the scope?

There's also the NTS-1 https://www.korg.com/caen/products/dj/nts_1/.

Is there finally a release date for this yet?

> This product is currently sold out

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