Agilent vs Thermo

[CE Instruments]

Don"t you wonder why Agilent has 70-75 % market share

Where does this figure come from ? Whilst Agilent are the dominant market player this seems a little too optimistic ?

Turbo vs Dif pump , sorry I can't agree turbos pump much larger volumes and are the performance standard. Dif pumps are a cheap option.

The industry needs competitors to Agilent for innovation and to keep the prices keen. Go out check the competition, buy the system that most closely meets your needs. Agilent are not always the best, I had great success in the early 90s selling the Fisons MD800/Trace MS as we had a better system in terms of performance and software.

[HbJ]

Don't you wonder why Agilent has 70-75 % market share

Where does this figure come from? Whilst Agilent are the dominant market player this seems a little too optimistic?

Judging from the like 40 labs I've been visiting in the last five years my estimate is more like 90 percent.

Besides Agilent, I've only seen a handful of Thermo units. I can't remember having seen other manufacturers really.

Turbo vs. diff pump , sorry I can't agree turbos pump much larger volumes and are the performance standard. Diff pumps are a cheap option.

I have to disagree here. Diff pumps have a huge advantage for light gases like He. So they can be smaller and yet more efficient. At one lab I did visit recently, the owner just got his two new 5975D fitted with diffusion pumps. He told me that he loves diffusion pumps as those usually last longer than the rest of the instrument and are cheap to repair and replace. Turbo pumps tend to be noisy in comparison (the lab was utterly quiet, save for the GC's fans that were vented through some pipes over the roof!) plus they conveniently fall out of service (Pfeiffer) or can only be repaired by the manufacturer (Agilent), costing a massive fortune. I can't see any sensible reason to use a turbo these days in a new MS, at least if you plan to use your MS for more than five years.

The industry needs competitors to Agilent for innovation and to keep the prices keen. Go out check the competition, buy the system that most closely meets your needs. Agilent are not always the best, I had great success in the early 90s selling the Fisons MD800/Trace MS as we had a better system in terms of performance and software.

I'm curious how exactly the MD800 could outperform an HP5971 and what GC you'd hook up to it.

Plus what innovations were hindered by Agilent? I'm curious.

[CE Instruments]

I'm curious how exactly the MD800 could outperform an HP5971 and what GC you'd hook up to it.

MD800 only came with the Fisons GC8000. The injectors worked better especially if the application was on -column. Just check the specs, the MD800 had a better sensitivity and this was not just on paper we routinely got better sensitivity and had greater sucess identifying unknowns. Ability to take the source out , swap it and be back up and running inside an hour. Masslab software was good. I only lost sales to die hard HP fans. I left Thermo when they stopped developing the Trace MS and later discontinued it for the DSQ.

[James_Ball]

Don"t you wonder why Agilent has 70-75 % market share

Where does this figure come from ? Whilst Agilent are the dominant market player this seems a little too optimistic ?

Turbo vs Dif pump , sorry I can't agree turbos pump much larger volumes and are the performance standard. Dif pumps are a cheap option.

The industry needs competitors to Agilent for innovation and to keep the prices keen. Go out check the competition, buy the system that most closely meets your needs. Agilent are not always the best, I had great success in the early 90s selling the Fisons MD800/Trace MS as we had a better system in terms of performance and software.

Diffusion versus Turbo, I find depends on application. If you are trying to move over 1ml/min He through the column then you need a turbo pump, or if you are doing CI you need a turbo pump. I have both running purge and trap volatiles and either works just fine when you are using a 0.18 column flowing 0.7-0.9 ml/min and you only break vacuum once a year or less for maintenance. If you want to run Hydrogen carrier, the diffusion pump will handle the flow much better than a turbo will.

Either will last for many years if you have long service intervals, if you are venting and pumping down every few weeks to change columns for different methods or just to clean because you have really dirty samples then the turbo will not last as long. In my experience starting and stopping a turbo pump kills it quicker than just leaving it running at full speed. In the last 22 years I have replaced two turbo pumps and one diffusion pump while running on average 5 MS units(a mixture of 5995, 5970,71,72,73,75 the 5995s had diffusion pumps). One 5971 diffusion pump, one turbo on the 5970 and one on a 5973 were replaced and all were over ten years old when they failed. The only questionable decision Agilent made was using the tiny rough pumps on the 5973 and up series but as soon as those failed I went to E2M2s and never had any problems after that. I have 5975s running on twenty year old E2M2s with no problems at all.

[anamariboyes]

If you are still making up your mind on thermo vs Agilent, know that I was there several months back. I ended up getting the Thermo ISQ and trace 1310. I am very happy with it, and the seller for me was being able to clean source without having to vent the system. I have Tracefinder and I like it, but still learning all the options. Chromeleon I hear is the new pusch Thermo is making for it to be the main software, so maybe it would be a better option.
I am very happy. Good luck.

[bullfrog]

Agilent over Thermo and diffusion pump over turbomolecular.

I've had four turbomolecular pumps go out in my 14-year career. The turbo pumps for Varian instruments had to be shipped to Italy for refurbishing. To replace the cost is about $10,000.

Diffusion pumps are robust and never fail. Long after your MS is dead from bad analyzer electronics or some other (20+ years) the pump will still be good. You might have to replace a cheap thermocouple over the life of the pump, but no $10K repairs.

[Hornet]

Agilent over Thermo and diffusion pump over turbomolecular.

I've had four turbomolecular pumps go out in my 14-year career. The turbo pumps for Varian instruments had to be shipped to Italy for refurbishing. To replace the cost is about $10,000.

Diffusion pumps are robust and never fail. Long after your MS is dead from bad analyzer electronics or some other (20+ years) the pump will still be good. You might have to replace a cheap thermocouple over the life of the pump, but no $10K repairs.

I agree that diffusion pumps are robust compared to turbo, but please do not use Varian v70 turbo pump as a standard because they are a true disaster, especially if "regenerated" by agilent.
In 7 years i changed 4 V70 and since i'm not the only one who noticed how much they fail, they stopped the regenerqation process of that model. Now they are simply selling new Varian V81.
Turbo are not very robust but Varian V70 should not be used as an example...

Anyway, thermo is very good, changing column without pumping down the system is amazing especially if you have to regain the vacuum with a diffusion pump with your other option...(hours?)

[HbJ]

I agree that diffusion pumps are robust compared to turbo, but please do not use Varian v70 turbo pump as a standard because they are a true disaster, especially if "regenerated" by agilent.
In 7 years i changed 4 V70 and since i'm not the only one who noticed how much they fail, they stopped the regenerqation process of that model. Now they are simply selling new Varian V81.
Turbo are not very robust but Varian V70 should not be used as an example...

This reminds me of some very expensive paperweights I've sitting here.

[wraymogg]

Hi,

I bought the Thermo system and for now I am happy with it.

Agilent do have 75% of the market share, but there is an explanation for that.

Agilent started selling low costs but rugged single quads equipment when Thermo sold only high cost high end equipment like Orbitraps or Triple quads. We can say they started from opposite positions. In the last years Agilent started to produce also high end equipment, where Thermo started to produce low cost equipment.

When Agilent started to sell, they made a HUGE discount and kept it for like 5 years. It was something like current ink jet printers (not the price), where they sell them just for the consumables. Same was in car industry with Volkswagen which means 'people's car'. They sold A LOT of beetles opposed to Ferrari, for example, that sold very few expesive cars. But as you can see lately Volkswagen started to make top notch cars also - see Bugatti Veyron... We are still waiting for Ferrari to sell cheap cars thou ...

After that they started to raise the prices but it was already too late for the others. 50% of the market was flooded with Agilent. From there, when you have 5 Agilents and you want a new one, you will buy Agilent because you don't want to mess with other consumables just for the one.

Indeed all the labs i visited had mostly Agilent inside. This didn't stopped me to buy a Thermo

Regards,
Vlad

[anhpham]

Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum, and I'd like to dig this topic up as I am buying a GC/MS (single quad), and I am having a headache deciding between Agilent and Thermo.

I got the following options:

- Thermo: ISQ EQDS, Trace 1310 MS - inert source, turbomolecular pump
- Agilent: 7820A GC - 5977B MS - stainless steel source, diffusion pump

At a first glance, Thermo is better (in addition to the inert source and the pump, all other specs are also slightly better). However, I understand that tech support is as important, if not more important than specs. In addition, almost everyone around me has Agilent's.

I would love to hear your opinion, especially from those who bought Thermo GCMS a few years ago. What have your experience been?

Thanks!

[Hornet]

Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum, and I'd like to dig this topic up as I am buying a GC/MS (single quad), and I am having a headache deciding between Agilent and Thermo.

I got the following options:

- Thermo: ISQ EQDS, Trace 1310 MS - inert source, turbomolecular pump
- Agilent: 7820A GC - 5977B MS - stainless steel source, diffusion pump

At a first glance, Thermo is better (in addition to the inert source and the pump, all other specs are also slightly better). However, I understand that tech support is as important, if not more important than specs. In addition, almost everyone around me has Agilent's.

I would love to hear your opinion, especially from those who bought Thermo GCMS a few years ago. What have your experience been?

Thanks!

What analysis will you run on them?

Anyway, don't be skeptical about the Agilent's diffusion pumps, they are reliable and work great.

I have a 7820+5977E since 2014 and i had 0 problems to far and i run very dirty samples on it on a daily basis, mainly semivolatiles on enviromental matrices (sludges, wastes, soil) and i also find Masshunter very powerful.

The mass is top notch and very robust, the GC is "fine" and i mean it just does what it's intended for, nothing more. It's slow on cooling.

No direct experiences on thermo.

[YWa]

Hi,

I bought the Thermo system and for now I am happy with it.

Agilent do have 75% of the market share, but there is an explanation for that.

Agilent started selling low costs but rugged single quads equipment when Thermo sold only high cost high end equipment like Orbitraps or Triple quads. We can say they started from opposite positions. In the last years Agilent started to produce also high end equipment, where Thermo started to produce low cost equipment.

When Agilent started to sell, they made a HUGE discount and kept it for like 5 years. It was something like current ink jet printers (not the price), where they sell them just for the consumables. Same was in car industry with Volkswagen which means 'people's car'. They sold A LOT of beetles opposed to Ferrari, for example, that sold very few expesive cars. But as you can see lately Volkswagen started to make top notch cars also - see Bugatti Veyron... We are still waiting for Ferrari to sell cheap cars thou ...

After that they started to raise the prices but it was already too late for the others. 50% of the market was flooded with Agilent. From there, when you have 5 Agilents and you want a new one, you will buy Agilent because you don't want to mess with other consumables just for the one.

Indeed all the labs i visited had mostly Agilent inside. This didn't stopped me to buy a Thermo

Regards,
Vlad

Thanks for a discussion about different GCMS instruments.

What is your opinion today? Would you make the same decision today?

Have a great day

[anhpham]

We ended up going with Agilent. So far so good!

[Kenn]

We ended up going with Agilent. So far so good!

I work for a rather large lab and we have about 10 GC's. All of them Agilent, even a couple of the older 5890 model GC/MS's still running as well as a couple newer models. However, you walk into the LC/MS lab where we have 7 triple quads and every one of them is ABSciex (coupled with Agilent LC's). Having never used anything but Agilent GC's or Sciex LC/MS's I try and stay out of discussions of which is better because I really don't know. I do know when we have a problem we can't solve concerning of of the LC/MS's there is a Sciex guy there inside of 24hrs without fail. I don't think we would purchase any GC that wasn't Agilent or any LC/MS that wasn't ABSciex.