Fiber vs. Ethernet sonic differences

[TRHH]

Hi Everyone,
This is my first post. I was stunned to hear difference between my DAC connected via laptop, then a raspberry pi based streamer on LPS, then a cheap cat5 and finally a decent cat8 cable. After recently realizing that inputs can make significant differences, I have been going down the rabbit hole of fiber ever since. I was about to pull the trigger on cheap FMCs and cheap Single Mode fiber cable on Aliexpress before I read this thread.

I understand the "CISCO SFP-10G-AOC" (5Meters) sounds great. Which FMC box should I use on either ends?
Can anyone please suggest me a cheap model? Should I try a cheap one from aliexpress or buy one used - just to see if it works well? (If it works well then I could upgrade later to a FMC with superior femto clock.) Also are fiber cables always attached to this cisco model? I found a used one on ebay.

Hi

I use LevelOne GVT-2000



Torben

 

[audiobomber]

10G SFP+ Direct Attach Kable (DAC) consists of a twinax copper cable terminated with SFP+ connectors at both ends. DAC cables can be divided into two categories: passive DACs and active DACs. Both passive and active DAC cables can transmit electrical signals directly over copper cables. The active DAC cables have electrical components inside the transceivers for signal amplification.

But unlike an SFP module, there is no optical fiber conversion.

"DAC cables (Direct Attach Cable) are nothing more than two twin-axial copper cables (one for each direction) terminated to a near-empty circuit board that has SFP edge contacts. Since the signals connected to an SFP cage are just differential pairs (fiber-mode SGMII in the case of Ethernet devices), a DAC can be used for very short runs to join two pieces of gear. No PHYs, no clocks, no voltages needed at all (unless it is the Active variant of DAC--used for longer than 7-meter runs--in which case they contain a driver chip that runs needs a little voltage. But a Direct Attach Cable does not offer ANY galvanic or common-mode noise isolation between components."

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