Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2.4 Channel Dolby Atmos/DTS:X Soundbar with Dual 10" Subwoofers, 4 Rear Surround Effects Speakers, eARC and SSE Max Technology

09/18/25 This is for nakamichi shockwafe wireless 11.2.6. Not sure why reviews for past nakamichi products are on this posting for the sohockwafe wireless but meh. Any who. I had my eye on this system for the better part of 6 months since announced around February of 2025. Since my old system was annoying me to the point of just throwing it out along with the trash. In comes the Shockwafe almost like a sign from the speaker odds. I left the thought marinade in my head until August, when i pulled the trigger on this. So far.... no regrets.... As i said august 1st i ordered it and by the 7th of august, it was sitting at my door. Amazed at the three fairly bulky packages i had to lug in. "lug" is an understatement. Two of the three packages were quite the adventure getting them in the house and down to the room where they are gonna live. The packages themselves were nicely fortified, although the soundbar one had a noticable gash in it but luckily it was not in a critical position. Setting it up was fairly eazy, hooked up the sound bar to my tvs arc port and it "just worked" not sure of if its mandatory, i waited to turn everything on for the first time until i had everything pulled out and all speakers placed. **note i will warn you before you play your first source turn down the volume. Upon turning on soundbar for the very first time. Volume is set at max "30" this system is "llloooouuuudddd" I really hope that with future upgrades they reduce the default volume level to at least half way. I would really hate to attempt a firmware update at 1am only to scare the soul out of everyone at home. Now for the meat and potatoes. Firing up the system for the first time. The sound was.....im sorry but meh. Dont get me wrong the subs are boomy, but there was no "bubble effect" like the hype videos said. Sounded a little flat. But then here comes the "firmware upgrade" the firmware upgrade came in one day in a little usb flashdrive before the whole system showed. I decided to listen to the system "out of the box" for the whole first day. Next day i decided to do the firmware update. Following nakamichi's instructions, resetting setting right after (watch the max volume) quite literally took 15mins to complete. I watched youtube vids on my phone during this time. After the update, i did notice a significant difference. A "bubble" like difference. I do notice before the update the system would not play nicely with the remote app, after the update, you can do practically anything with it. Hell you can put away the remote it comes with and just use the app. Take a few minutes to do the advanced system calibration through the app it make a further difference. I know alot of people like to dump on nakamichi for being behind the curve on things like mic assisted calibration, or room correction. They probably think with more bells and whistles the more that can go bad. Im all for that thinking. Im also beginning to like what this system does with 2 channel stereo music videos it enhances the music effects and harmonys by putting them on the rear speakers on the fly. The nakamichi theater app....can use some TLC. Two major problems neither are deal breaking but could use some fixing. First is the apps tendency to not be able to sometimes connect to update servers to find updates. although im not sure whether this lies with the soundbar or the app. Every so often the app would fail to connect to update servers due to a wifi disconnection. So i would have to reset wifi connection through soundbar and reconnect by app. Next would be using the custom calibration option. After inputting measurements for speakers, clicking save a loading circle appears and never progresses from there. It seems to update sound bar with calibration measurements cause sound pauses momentarily and sounds different. (UPDATE: OCT 17: I HAVE NOTICED THAT THE ISSUE MIGHT LIE WITH MY PHONE. I NOTICED WHEN APP FAILS TO CONNECT WITH SOUNDBAR , I TRIED TO RESTART PHONE AFTER; PHONES REGAINES CONNECTION) I know the shockwafe wireless is barely in its infancy, those are the only two issues i found with it. (Yeah first world problems) So for the verdict. if you got the money to blow. And the wife/GF doesn't want to murder you upon seeing you bring this monster through the door. Do it. (JUST WATCH OUT AFTER RESETTING IT WILL SCARE THE SOUL OUT OF YOU)

Let me preface this review by saying that I'm a huge home theater guy for many years. I've used Polk, Focal, Paradigm and now in my current setup I have a full SVS Ultra Tower setup with SVS 13 Ultra Subs. Not saying I've heard the "Best" out there but I do have a pretty critical basis as I paid nearly 6 times what this sound bar costs in speakers alone not including the Marantz pre processor and Emotiva amps! I wanted a living room setup as my dedicated theater is nice but overkill for watching some things. I hated the Samsung built-in TV Speakers (Obviously) but didn't want to spend the money on another 7.2.2 sound system. I brought a JBL soundbar, returned it. It sucked! It was better then the TV but I needed something better. All my research brought me to this soundbar. So big question will this soundbar keep with the big boys? The answer is *drumroll*..... surprisingly yes!!! With some caveats. Sound quality out of the box in my opinion was completely horrible, the subs were muddy, too loud and overbearing. While this may be favorable for some I found it horrific and was automatically putting my return hat on. However with most sound/video equipment out of the box does not show it's full potential espically when it comes to personal preference. I found out the "Movie" mode was on, which in my opinion was very overbearing and trying to hard to be a almost IMAX like theater experience. Besides the basd, the main soundbar voices sounded way to high and hollow/boxy like the mids were turned up all the way! Long story short I messed around with the remote and found DSP Off. Once it was off hooray! A nice flat sound stage. SVS Sound stage? No. but nonetheless quite impressive! The overall sound is good and especially the surround speakers have great imaging that engulf you in a little sound bubble. A horizontal bubble I might add because Atmos... yeah I don't hear anything above me. Maybe I'm spoiled because I have dedicated atmos speakers in my theater but at no point did a helicopter fly over me and find myself saying "wow". Don't buy this with the idea that Atmos is just magically going to work. It's not. But in my opinion for what this overall soundbar is and how it performs for the cost it's hardly a deal breaker. Also not a knock on Nakamichi because I'm sure they had to cut some corners to get the price point. But the tweeters/high end can be quite fatiguting at higher volumes. I can run my SVS Speakers at full blast no distortion and my ears are fine. I find when pushing the Nakamichi at high volumes when watching something like Avengers my ears seem to have the "after a concert" feeling. I'm being a little nit picky here but this is something I would have like to known during my research period. I'll sum it up here: Pros: Excellent sound to cost ratio Has a premium look unlike many other soundbars Excellent connectivity options with the HDMI inputs all running HDMI 2.2. Easy installation! Comes with everything you need including speaker brackets. Absolutely solid wireless connection between the main bar and subs. Literally no lag or dropouts. Cons: Compared to my SVS system, this one sounds a little boxy with resonance. Probably would help put extra sound deadening material in each component. When starting a show or media the system plays the sounds. Stops for 1-2 seconds then the system will resume sound. More annoying then anything after that initial hiccup after starting every show or movie it works great. The menu system sucks! I guess I'm spoiled with great receivers I use that have great interfaces that let you control the sound. This one is ALL LCD which can be frustrating as some things are abbreviated. Please in your next soundbar try to implement the menu system on the TV itself. Since the Left Center Right are stuffed into one unit it's nearly impossible to get a true sound stage experience. Nakamichi was smart on placing the outward tweeters to give the effect of this but still, this does not replace a true front LCR setup. With all that said I would buy this again and again especially for those who don't have a dedicated theater space. Great job Nakamichi! Can't wait for your next generation of products!