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Well worked paid for mine and I actually use a lot of the features that it has, As far as basic car audio, yeah you could get away with a cheap one. The Fluke's do come with a lifetime warranty which means you would only have to buy one. To each there own though.

IMO, what really matters is “Will this tool pay for itself?”

I use a fluke every day at work, cause we need all our measurements to be within some pretty small tolerances. So all our tool boxes have flukes, or blue points (snap-on), and they get calibrated every 6 months.

Until recent I used an el cheapo craftsman for my hobby stuff, but I always wanted something that would be more accurate, and that was built to a higher spec. Especially once I started trying to set up my RTA. The craftsman I had wasn’t accurate enough to set all the input/output stages on my sound card. So the chance to get a Fluke at a really good price was a dream come true (especially with a built in oscilloscope) Sure I could get by without it, but why bother. IMO it will pay for itself, and that’s what maters to me.

The thing with flukes is they last 15+ years most of the time, they are extremely durable!! The only reason you find them at pawn shops is because they have a high resale value because of there durability.

BTW I found a 73 today at a pawn shop, basically the same as a 77 I am told. They wanted 50, I got them down to 40 but I didn't buy it. That was the first and only pawn shop I was able to get to today.

a few reasons the fluke is better for professional use:
impact resistance and water resistance
more accurate (higher internal resistance)
better features like th backlighting
true RMS
more options for probes (wire piercing, aligator clips, etc)
data interface for logging results and graphing them

when you actually have an electrical background, you have a better understanding of why you want good tools for your livelihood. Same with mechanics. You don't see professional mechanics saying "oh these wal-mart pliars are good enough for my work." They use craftsman pro series, Mac, SnapOn, etc. Professional grade, well backed tools because their jobs, and often their safety depends on those tools.

I'm glad your $3 meter makes you happy, but there is a reason better meters exist.

have you used a fluke 189 glass? its there accuracy/precision model that does data loggin and such.

Not debating that Glass,

but for 99.9% of what we do in car audio and even alarm insalls, that $3 meter is just fine.

i use an old school fluke from the 70s. my father gave it to me. it does its job.

I'm not arguing that Fluke makes great products with great accuracy... I'm just a cheap bastard :)
If you can get one at a pawn shop in good working order for a lot less, jump on it (that's the essence of cheap)... While you're out browsing around the pawn shops, see if you can find me a cheap o-scope

you could do what I did and just build your own scope :)

GlassWolf wrote:you could do what I did and just build your own scope :)

Ok... how?