CopperCONN Outlet Unboxing & Review
 

Finally, they are here, both the CopperCONN outlets I ordered last month :banana:

Audiophiles are a strange animal for raving over an electrical outlet, or even audio grade fuses but well, you know, it is what it is. So, I wanted to give my first impressions of the outlet as I cannot install them for now (but very soon hopefully) to have a listening. A proper review will come at a later time after an extensive listening experience with them. So stay tuned for this. But for now, let's unbox these things!

I was actually pleasantly surprised with the packaging. From what I was told there was no plan to actually release the CopperCONN as a retail product but this information was since their introduction in 2015 and until recently I got the same message. It turns out it look very well like a retail product. The box it came in looks like a jewelry box, or wrist watch box. The quality is very good and right from the start it exudes quality of the product it contains. Ok, ok, it's still a box but this gives a really good first impression.

After looking at the outlet itself, quality does not disapoint. It looks and feel like a high quality product. In some ways you would be right to expect this from a 295$ outlet (ouch) as, as far as I know, it is the most expensive outlet I am aware of. While it is very nice to have a cool looking body, what matters most is what is under the hood. From what I have been gathering from the interwebz (posts from Caelin himself), these outlets are made from Tellurium copper and do not have gold or rhodium plating. From my experience with other competing outlets, "platingless" copper offers the most intimate sound, removing layers of haze between the music and the listener. I don't pretend to have tried them all but some others audiophiles and reviewers echos that experience. And, Shunyata could confirm, this is part of the design philosophy behind the CopperCONN. For my part, I wanted an outlet to get closer to the music and not sugarcoat anything. I will see if this assertion meets my listening experience once it's installed.

Just for the heck of this, I grabbed my wife's culinary scale and weighted the outlet. A shining 94 grams it shows. Once I remove my actual Shunyata SR-Z1 and Furutech GTX-D NCF, I will weight them as well just for fun of comparing. Speaking of the SR-Z1, it is currently feeding my amplifier (Yamaha CA-1000) and the source (Bryston BDP-2) and just to compare apples to apples, I will swap only this one for a CopperCONN. I have some other upgrades on the grill but I will hold on before I can start making to critical listening since I am quite used to how my system sounds now. I have decided to go straight from the SR-Z1 to the CopperCONN because I want to compare both Shunyata's outlet "head to head". There was some demand that I test the Furutech GTX-D NCF against the CopperCONN, which I will do, but only once I am accustomed to the CopperCONN. Then I will swap in the GTX-D NCF.

So, here it is for now. I know, that's a bit of a teaser but life and Covid have the upper hand over my audio addictions for now.

REVIEW (KEEP READING BELOW)

Great post!

Appreciate all the pics and description and looking forward to read how it sounds!

:thumbsup:

:D

Serge-

Great introduction to this journey. I'll keep the coffee hot and donuts cool while awaiting the next chapter!

It's installed! :banana:

I had some extra time this morning so I jumped on this golden opportunity to install the first CopperCONN outlet. As I have previously said in my initial post, I installed only the one feeding my amplifier and source as I am just replacing the SR-Z1 for now to isolate the audio benefits of the CopperCONN, and in order to have a proper basis for comparison.

So I started to remove the SR-71 which you can see side by side with the CopperCONN for comparison. I took the extra time to cut the end of each wire and also the ground, which I also cleaned with some sandpaper (there was some leftover paint on it). I realized that I had installed the SR-Z1 wrong by wrapping the wires around the screws like you do with the standard outlets. So by cutting and stripping the wires with the proper clearance (which is shown at the back of the CopperCONN, approx. 1/2"), I inserted the wires the proper way by the back of the outlet. One thing of notice, unlike the SR-Z1 which is compatible with Robertson heads, the screws on the CopperCONN was Philipps only. No big deal but for us in Canada we use Robertson heads screws for about anything. Speaking about screws, I think it would have been nice to have two screws included to secure the outlet to the electrical box. I had to salvage the ones I was using for the previous oultet. Anyway, no big deal but some competitors offer this. Once installed, I turned on the breaker back up and (fortunately) there was no *POOF* so all was good :D.

I won't do any justice to this magnificent product since I am on the first hours of listening but what I can say right off the bat is that it is significantly better than the SR-Z1. If I relate to price alone, I think the CopperCONN is justifically priced in reference to its performance compared to the SR-Z1. The SR-Z1 is 100$ while the CopperCONN is 295$ and I think it matches equally the performance gap between both. Quite an assertion it does sound like it.

I will post the comments of user Mobiusman about the CopperCONN over What's Best Forum, which I find to match what I can hear so far:

"...much deeper bass with more authority, better percusion and much more realistic and musical sounds throughout. The imaging is already much deeper front and back..."

Please remember that I only changed one outlet. I know that if I had changed both outlets at the same time, the results would have been even more impressive. But for the sake of analysis I chose to change only one. Anyway, to install the second one, I will have to install another electrical box 32 inches away as the other one is too far (and since two is not enough).

So for me, I think I found the holy grail in audiograde outlets. It turns out just to be everything I was hoping for. And this is not even broken in. It has all the quality I like about the cruzeFIRST Maestro I had last year and expand above and beyond. The Maestro is an excellent outlet but it was lacking that tiny bit of bass slam that I like. But to be fair, at 89$ the Maestro is a steal for what it does.

I will report back again later but for now I will just listen even more. Kudos to Caelin for such an amazing outlet.

:goodpost:

Thank you, Serge! I need to order one of these straightaway.

Cheers.

I'm really happy to finally read a review of this outlet. Thanks and great post!

I hear you. I was kind of frustrated with the lack of information online that I decided to take this on my own and give as much as details as possible to everyone. I think this thread alone has more picture of the CopperCONN outlet than what you can google over the whole internet.

I am still evaluating (read, enjoying) this new outlet, even as I type this. I will update soon with some more impression as I listen to more familiar material.

As me, I am sure you won't be disappointed.

My idea is that in the near future I would like to expand my system with a Shunyata conditionner like a Triton or Denali. Knowing that the CopperCONN was put into service with the Triton v2 and up, it just made sense to start with a CopperCONN outlet at the wall. This way the sound would be the most consistent throughout. It's kind of a paradigm shift thinking that an outlet can have an actual impact on the overall sound but in my experience they can have a dramatic one.