NEW Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC Soundbar Review

you heard it here first this is the new nakamichi shockwave ultra 9.2 er soundbar system i know i'm not the only one who's been waiting on something new from nakamichi for a while now but i'm thrilled it's finally here and better yet i'm going to share with you every important detail i can so you know what's new with this system the pros and cons of owning the system and more it's got all the modern features that everybody wants dolby atmos and dtsx support hdmi 2.1 hdmi earc and more before we get into things i do want to thank keeps for sponsoring this video stay tuned to find out more this was a lot of work to say the least so if you don't mind supporting my channel and dropping a like it goes a long way to providing detailed reviews like these now let's get into it first off when you unbox the system it was crazy how much there was every time you removed something there was even more for starters you get a sound bar two ten inch subwoofers two side surround speakers and two rear surround speakers all of which are managed by only a remote control on top of that nakamichi was generous enough to include much much more including all the mounting hardware needed for the surround speakers as well as the soundbar they even included a wall mounting template for the soundbar to make everything as easy as possible if all that doesn't make it easy enough they also included surround speaker audio cables hdmi digital optical 3.5 millimeter and all the power cables needed as well as a four foot wide banner with pictures that explains how to set the system up as well as a over 40 page user manual that will answer any question you could possibly have nakamichi has understood from the beginning that quality customer service and excellent resources goes a long way starting with the sound bar there weren't a lot of changes to the design of it it's almost like looking at identical twins with different haircuts the new one did away with the silver accents and went with an all black finish it also has a much sleeker mesh grille and a modified logo that went from silver to bronze or gold color aside from that what makes the system so unique from anything else nakamichi has produced is the support for e-arc this has been one of the biggest requests for a long time now and they finally listened so now you get three hdmi 2.1 inputs and that well-desired hdmi e-arc port although they made this upgrade you do still have other options the soundbar is also equipped with digital optical digital coax auxiliary and usb inputs the usb port is also used to upgrade the firmware which is definitely something you want to do on the inside of the soundbar holds six two and a half inch full range drivers and two one-inch tweeters with the two very large subwoofers the design has received fairly decent cosmetic upgrades nakamichi found a simple way to update these with rounded edges before it was sharp edges which caused some visible wear on the subs exterior it's a small change in detail but still important nonetheless after all if you're purchasing a system you want it to look good and sound good for years to come each unit still packs a 10 inch wireless sub which is pretty exciting if you had a chance to listen to the previous model this is one of the things nakamichi boasts about the most and it's a good thing they didn't mess with it too much and although the subs may connect wirelessly to the soundbar the big downfall that i really wish was resolved was the fact that the surround speakers have to be wired into each sub that's right i mentioned just a minute ago that there were a lot of cables and i wasn't kidding i'm not totally sure why they haven't pushed to go fully wireless like practically every other sound giant has done but it is what it is because of this though you do see a handful of ports on each subwoofer that you don't traditionally see there's of course a pairing button power switch acn for power a usb service port and finally two separate ports for the back speaker and the surround speaker as far as the surround speakers go they got a facelift too with this new design they're no longer silver and black but now they are all black each of the four surround speakers is equipped with one three inch full range driver and one one inch high frequency tweeter the aesthetics of the system have improved dramatically there are three different configurations that you can choose from to set up the surround speakers this is where it gets a little complicated the first option is to have side surround speakers directly to the left and right and the rear surround speakers behind you while being offset to the left and right this is nakamichi's recommended configuration in this first setup option you have the ability to modify the angle of the speakers as well the first way that you can modify option one is what nakamichi calls side elevation this alternative has the two side speakers rotated onto their side and facing upward the second way is to modify only the rear speakers which is called rear elevation this choice has only the two rear speakers turned on their side and facing upward third and finally there is all elevation this way you have all four surrounds turned on their side and facing upwards this will add to the height effects from all around you there's no recommended placement in these elevations but will mostly depend on the shape of your room and the height of your ceilings for instance if you have a really high ceiling and a slanted ceiling then overhead sound effects aren't going to work well for you at all so you might opt just to use them all in the upright position if you find that this is too cluttered then the second and third options may be the best for you this is called the dipole setup with this option you connect both left speakers together then connect both right speakers together using the provided hardware then you can choose to place these connected surrounds directly to your left and right as the second option for the third option you can place the dipole surround speakers behind you to the left and right of course it will likely depend on how your entertainment space is set up but this does allow for a variety of options to give you what you need as i mentioned already one of the biggest downfalls of this system is that you must connect the surround speakers to the subwoofer with a cable i personally think this is an eyesore for the system and it would make a lot more sense if they could go fully wireless like the subs are but i do understand that this keeps the cost lower and reduces the possibility of wireless interference the overall look of this system is a step in the right direction for nakamichi there are still a handful of convenient features that i would have loved to have seen like wireless surround speakers spotify connect chromecast and most of all an app i have mentioned it to nakamichi many times that they need to have an app having a physical remote is great sometimes but i really don't want a remote control that has a dedicated chapter in the user manual so that i can actually understand how to use it other than those details which i know can be a lot it's a well-designed system that you get a lot for your money which i'll talk about in just a minute let's take a quick break and thank the fantastic sponsor of this video keeps i know hair loss is a topic that a lot of guys think about but just don't want to talk about two out of three guys will experience some form of hair loss by the age of 35 but enough is enough and it's as easy as ever to act on it now keeps offers clinically proven and research-backed treatments that not only stop hair loss but can also improve hair growth if you want to get started keeps physicians will help you select the right products and treatments for your specific hair goals and once you're subscribed you can get refill reminders so you'll never run low on the products you need to take care of your hair all keeps treatment plans are doctor recommended and delivered straight to your door and to your benefit at about half the cost of a traditional pharmacy but the best part is with reduced cost you don't have to sacrifice quality care they have a network of expert medical advisors prescribers and care specialists to support you in making your hair goals a reality so be sure to sign up today with the amazing deal they have going on hair loss stops with keeps to get 50 off your first order go to keeps.com jonah mathis or click the link in the description again that's k-e-e-p-s dot slash jonah mathis thanks again to keeps for sponsoring this video now on to sound quality this system is going to be one of the closest examples of a full home theater system that has fully encompassing surround sound once i had all the cords sorted out and connected which takes about 15 minutes by itself i then proceeded to test the system with familiar movies tv shows and music keep in mind that i use the same handful of movies for most of my audio testing so that i can easily distinguish between any differences in this system or any other that i've already tested but i'm pretty sure i've seen the same scene in ford vs ferrari at least 400 times now so let's jump into movie testing and see what this system has to offer as expected nakamichi did an awesome job with delivering unparalleled deep bass and superior audio that's extremely immersive what was most noticeable at first was the extremely punchy bass with this system having two subwoofers each packing a 10 inch driver it's hard to hear much else due to the shape and furniture placement in our living room i had the subwoofer closer than what nakamichi recommends for some of my testing but i did mess around with different configurations fortunately this system has individual controls to adjust the subwoofer levels as well as the center channel two side surrounds and two back surrounds all independently this is a really underappreciated bonus that nakamichi has understood from the beginning being able to easily adjust each individual channel with the remote control allows anyone to fine-tune the system for your specific room and you know your own preferences now don't get me wrong it's not as easy to do or as simple as a bose or sono system but the added control is a massive bonus for a lot of people once you've got the settings where you want them you can save it as a preset using the remote system memory buttons for our room i upped the center channel quite a bit and lowered basically everything else the base and both sets of surrounds this is what sounded best to me and is where i did a majority of my testing okay back to talking about the subwoofers these things can literally shake the couch and the entire living room with ease you can physically feel the shifting of gears in ford vs ferrari the gunshots and fight scenes in john wick and the massive explosions happening in various marvel movies it's an absolute joy to experience overall i have to say that this system sounds incredible it produces so much sound in our living room that it makes everything in the movie feel real but it's definitely not the most clear sounding compared to some of the other high-end systems out there the surround speakers are good and it's nice that there are four of them but they don't individually sound as great as the sonos 1sls the samsung q950as or even the sony rs3s surround speakers so there's definitely a trade-off in terms of more speakers and subwoofers for the sheer audio quality that you get but honestly it still feels like a very fair trade-off overall the 3d audio is extremely immersive because how much sound is surrounding you but now it's time to talk about the overhead sound effects this is where things get a little different with nakamichi systems as i mentioned earlier the surrounds can be configured in many different ways you can have them upright with no vertical effects you know elevation 1 elevation 2 or in dipole mode so the options here are really nice but it does have some limits in this fashion so if you want more height effects you sacrifice the ear level surround effects to an extent but if you want as much ear level surround sound as possible then you're only going to get overhead sound from the soundbar itself which won't be extremely evident when you're watching something so this is something you'll have to change up a bit to fit your own tastes personally i opted for more surround sound audio than height audio because that's what's more important to me and with the system in this configuration the overall 3d audio is just stellar it completely nails it yes there's a lack of overhead audio but that's not a huge deal in my eyes this system really is a game changer that's worth investing in my only complaint is that the clarity of dialogue is not quite a 10. it can be adjusted slightly but i still don't feel like i'm 100 satisfied with it for testing music i use bluetooth because that's the only native option for wireless music playback i used both spotify and title and saw some mixed results overall spotify plays extremely well on this system but title experienced some strange issues when playing different types of music specifically the 360 reality audio tracks which i guess i shouldn't expect them to play well on a non-sony system but it's still strange how off it sounded there are two different modes you can listen to music in the first one is just plain stereo which plays audio from just the sound bar and the subwoofers i'm not sure why anyone would opt for this when you have four perfectly good surround speakers that can be used but to each their own the other mode which is preferred is the all-channel stereo mode which enables stereo playback on the surround speakers as well this is best for listening to music of course watching youtube videos like this one you're watching right now and really any type of content that doesn't have any native surround sound effects music listening is extremely similar to watching movies because you need to adjust a lot of settings to get it sounding right for your specific room at first i was not satisfied at all the audio sounded muddy the bass wasn't producing near as much as it was with movies and it just didn't sound great to me but after adjusting all the audio settings specifically for music boy was i impressed getting the settings balanced properly and using all channel stereo mode will make music completely envelop you with sound and it just makes it an extremely fun experience i got goosebumps numerous times while testing the system out i really only have a couple of complaints when it comes to music though one i hate that there's only bluetooth streaming natively i did some quick tests by chromecasting music to my nvidia shield tv which was directly connected to the soundbar and it sounded so much better so i would highly recommend using wi-fi over bluetooth for music playback naturally and lastly i wish the music coming from the soundbar was just a bit more clear and clean sounding it's not bad by any means but when you have four surround speakers relatively close to you playing the same exact thing the sound bar can kind of sound muffled but again these are just slight complaints in no way are these enough for me to write off this system at all i do think there are some downfalls sure but you're going to encounter some issues with any system you purchase and a lot of it may come down to purely your own preferences i'll lay it out straight though and tell you what i do like and what i don't like about this system overall first off i love that there's three hdmi 2.1 inputs this keeps me from having to change up the wires constantly and i can set it up and be ready to go second this system has every input you could possibly want or ever need if someone could possibly need more than eight inputs then i don't know what to tell you third all the mounting hardware is included really the only thing that is not included in the box are speaker stands you basically get everything else you could possibly need fourth and finally the price i don't think you can get a better deal than nineteen hundred dollars for this huge of a system most systems cost more than that with just one subwoofer and two surround speakers yes i know there are some people that still think spending nearly two thousand dollars on a sound system is insane which it is insane but you get what you pay for here on the other hand by getting all these added bonuses with nakamichi there's some areas that are too good to be true my biggest complaint is how user-friendly this system is not there's no wi-fi streaming no app way too many wires and it requires manual updates with a usb drive i don't know if it's just me but after being spoiled by literally every other sound giant with an app all these features are added except by nakamichi if you have an open concept living space or anything but a square room then it's just gonna be plain awkward having four surround speakers and two massive subwoofers sitting around taking up space this is where mounting the speakers on the wall would make the most sense to clear up some space and it's literally the only way you can hide the ridiculous amount of wires that are needed for this system next the size of the soundbar is nothing to brag about and i wish the soundbar itself and the front sound image was just a bit larger and lastly it's unfortunate that the rears don't have simultaneous front firing and upward firing speakers it depends on how you position them you either get front firing or you get upward firing you don't really get both you can try the hybrid option where they're firing at like a 45 degree angle but that's still not the same as discrete front firing and upward firing drivers overall you won't find any other system with this many speakers and components on the market that can compete with this price yes it's a bit more expensive than the previous model the nakamichi shockwave ultra but all costs for all electronics have skyrocketed thanks to inflation higher demand and tons of supply shortages sure you won't have some luxuries that you would otherwise get from systems from bose sony samsung and more but they are just that luxuries once you have the system set up the hassle is out of the way and you're ready to enjoy an amazing audio experience i think if you're just starting out or want to upgrade anytime soon i jump on this while it's available in this world you never really know when products will actually be available but again this system is not for everyone you'll need the right room layout and setup as well as the patience and understanding that it's not just a simple plug and play type of system it will take some adjusting and additional steps to get it the way that you want it if you have a dedicated entertainment room and you don't want to drop a ridiculous amount of money on a custom home theater or worry about picking up all the components yourself this is the perfect alternative thank you all so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one bye

Channel: Jonah Matthes

Views: 110,569

Keywords: soundbar, sound bar, tv, receiver, a/v receiver, projector, speakers, projector screen, HDMI, nakamichi, shockwafe, ultra, nakamichi shockwafe ultra, eARC, ARC, Audio Return Channel

Id: LznlCugP9DM

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 19 2022