Difference Between Oscilloscope and Spectrum Analyzer

Both oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers are instruments to view and analyze electronic signals. This is important for many things in the engineering world such as viewing a signal from a microphone, speakers, radios, cell phones...it goes on and on in terms of electronic devices.

The difference between an oscilloscope and a spectrum analyzer is that an oscilloscope allows you to view the signal in the time domain, meaning how the signal changes in response to time, while a (FFT) Spectrum Analyzer allows you to view the signal in the frequency domain, meaning how the signal changes in response to different frequencies.

So the oscilloscope plots the Amplitude vs. Time of the signal, while the Spectrum Analyzer plots the Amplitude vs. Frequency of the signal.

Both oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers are necessary and have their various applications for different fields. But this is the chief difference.