DER EE DE-5000 LCR Meter

[George S.]

I've had this a good while and have used it for testing large, expensive capacitors in old equipment. Jim asked how to test capacitance in interconnect cables, something I haven't tried, so here's some results.
When I bought my meter there was some talk on the net that the newest meters were now using a sine wave test signal instead of a square wave. Testing shows a sine wave on this unit.

 

[George S.]

All my interconnects were old cheapies until I bought Chinese Monoprice Monolith cables. Still a very cheap cable. So let's measure it. The meter generates the sine wave in one of 5 frequencies from 100 kHz to 100 Hz. Changing frequency had a very small effect on results, so let's use 120 Hz for testing. All results are pF.

 

[George S.]

A very old Signet gold with a 3rd ground wire.

 

[George S.]

A 6 foot long old Radio Shack.

 

[George S.]

A home made appx 3 foot SwitchCraft/ Belden 83284 jumper.

 

[George S.]

My old AR XB with the head shell removed. All wiring on the unit is original and untouched.

 

[George S.]

Word on the net is DER EE manufactures the Agilent LCR meter. So they use the same chipset in the DE-5000, but due to licensing, the DE-5000 is available only from Japan. Lots of sellers of these on the Bay from Japan, and China is now making cheap clones. I got mine direct from Japan, and they have gotten less expensive over time. It's a very good meter. Many videos on using it are out there. Later.

 

[J!m]

Cool!

Big difference in the "home brew" compared to the commercial ones, which are all quite similar from what I see. Yes, it's shorter too...

But, being pf, how audible would any of them be???

And, I got my earlier question asked: how to physically take the measurement. Now that I see you connect the probes at pin and shield on the same end, and leave the other end to float, I can try testing stuff with my Fluke in a similar manner. Too bad I don't have any of the same cables to compare results with...

 

[George S.]

All good questions that I haven't a answer for. I need to spend some time and find Switchcraft RCAs that are appropriately sized for that Belden coax, and make up a full set for a listen. I have that coax bushed with automotive vacuum line and heat shrink.
Doubt your Fluke will work for this application. Those are 4 wire Kelvin clips. Those clips are a popular modification for this meter. The meter passes the built in calibration procedure with those clips.
I've read elsewhere that guys are using these meters and a oscilloscope with some sort of test record to set up their tables.

 

[Gepetto]

I also have the DER meter and a bench top LCR meter. They both provide very similar results, within a pF or so. The DER is a very handy LCR meter in a small size.

It does not matter if you connect the shield and one end and stinger at the other or both at the same end, the result is the same. You are just measuring a classical 2 plate capacitor with dielectric between them.

You can see that your interconnects are not negligible when it comes to capacitive loading of your cartridge. Bound to have some effect on the weak signal produced by a phono cartridge.