Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC Soundbar Review

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has a similar design to other Nakamichi-brand soundbars. It's mostly made of high-quality plastic, with a metal grille covering the front and the sides. In front, there's a display screen, as well as a rose-gold logo.

Like the Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2Ch, the Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC comes with two subwoofers. They're mostly made of wood, and they look similar to the subs that come with the previous model.

The four satellites have a similar design to the original Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2Ch. They're made of plastic with a metal grille in front. You can place them horizontally or vertically, depending on your preferences.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC is quite wide, so it doesn't fit between the legs of a 55" TV stand. It's a little tall as well, so it may block your TV screen.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC's subs are rather large, and since there are two of them, they take up a bit of space in your setup.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has satellites that aren't very large, and you can place them horizontally or vertically to meet your needs. However, there are four of them, and they have to be wired to the sub to work, which adds some extra cables to your room.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has great build quality. The satellites and the bar have a similar design, with high-quality plastic as well as metal grilles to help protect the drivers inside. The subs are wooden, and they feel sturdy as well.

• Manuals
• Remote with batteries (2x AAA)
• Power adapter for soundbar (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 3x power cables (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Optical cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 3.5mm audio cable (3.6 ft / 1.1m)
• 4x satellite speaker audio cables (33 ft / 10m)
• Wall mount guide
• Wall-mounting accessories

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has a very good stereo frequency response. With stereo content, it sounds most pleasing when set to its Music EQ, and its two subwoofers bring plenty of thump and rumble in the bass to bring bass-heavy music like EDM and hip-hop to life. Vocals remain pretty clear in the mix thanks to its balanced mids, which is great if you watch a lot of dialogue-heavy TV shows like sitcoms, too. However, the recessed treble means that audio lacks some detail and brightness, especially with higher-pitched instruments like cymbals. That said, you can always switch up its sound using its subwoofer and treble adjustments, which is handy.

For our tests, the bar's speakers were set in the Hybrid Elevation 2 configuration. Depending on your room, you may find a different configuration more appealing. All stereo content was tested in 'Stereo Only' to ensure comparability between this setup and other soundbars we've tested. However, the bar's performance isn't that different with all channels activated, as you can see here.

If you prefer a more balanced sound with stereo content, you can set the subwoofer level to '1' and the treble to '9'. The resulting frequency response is even, so you don't notice as much boominess in the bass, and you hear more detail in the treble. Overall, voices and lead instruments are clear and present in the mix, making it suitable for listening to lots of different types of audio content.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has a good stereo soundstage. It has very good focus, so you can pinpoint vocals and instruments to exact locations in the soundstage around you. The soundstage itself is perceived to be about the size of the bar, which is good. If you want it to seem wider, you can activate all of the bar's channels. There isn't much difference in the focus with all the channels active, although if you pay close attention, it seems slightly more diffused.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has excellent stereo dynamics. The bar gets loud, so you don't have any trouble filling large and open spaces with sound. It doesn't get as loud as its advertised 113dB SPL, but unless you like a loud sound, this won't be an issue. There's not much compression, either, so you can crank up the volume without affecting the clarity of your audio.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has a good THD performance. At normal listening volumes, distortion falls within good limits, so audio reproduction is clean and pure. However, as with most bars, there's a slight jump in distortion when you push the bar to max volume. It's noticeable with real-life content, too. That said, you may not want to crank up the volume that loud, in which case it won't be much of an issue.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has a great center channel performance. Its discrete center channel enhances overall vocal clarity. The frequency response for this channel is very balanced, especially in the mids, where most voices reproduce. As a result, you don't have any issues following the action on screen.

Note:The center channel was tested in Native mode with the surrounds on. It was also set to the Music EQ.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC comes with four discrete satellite speakers, so it offers a more clear and real representation of sound effects in the space around you when compared to bars without satellites. Out-of-the-box, the frequency response of these channels is dark and boomy, with lots of extra punch in the bass and a lack of detail in the treble range. You find that sound effects are overpowered with all the additional rumble in the mix. Fortunately, you can switch up its performance with its customization tools, so you can get a better performance overall.

Note:The surround channels were tested in Native mode with the surrounds on. The bar was also set to the Music EQ.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC supports Dolby Atmos content. It uses front-firing drivers in the bar as well as up-firing drivers on its satellites to ricochet sound off the ceiling, which creates the illusion of height in the space around you. As with its surround channels, the frequency response is quite dark and boomy out-of-the-box due to the recessed treble and emphasized bass. Sound effects aren't as clear as a result, and the bass overpowers other details in the mix. With its customization tools, you can get a much more balanced frequency response to improve the sound if you wish (which would also improve its score for this test).

Subjectively, the bar does an okay job simulating an Atmos soundstage. Most of the sound effects are concentrated towards the front of the room, so you don't get the same immersive feelings as more premium models, and sound doesn't extend around you or behind you. Compared to the Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2Ch, the bar doesn't produce Atmos audio from its side-firing drivers, which explains some of the difference in performance.

Atmos content was tested in Dolby Surround mode, with Surround turned on. The Spatial Surround Elevation was set to 2, and the Music EQ was on.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has quite a few sound enhancement features on hand. Unfortunately, compared to other premium bars, there's no dedicated room correction feature with a microphone to measure your room's acoustics and adjust the sound accordingly. Instead, it has a 'Room' button that lets you choose between three preset acoustic environments: 'Small', 'Medium', and 'Large'. That said, you can still adjust its sound a bit to make up for this, thanks to its treble adjustment as well as its EQ presets, Music, Movie, Game, News, Sports, and DSP Off. The News preset doubles as a dialogue enhancement tool. Also, the 'Bass' button on the remote lets you control the subwoofer level.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC connects to your TV over Optical or HDMI connections. With three HDMI In ports, you can connect the bar to multiple devices and use it for high-quality passthrough. There's also a Coaxial input for older devices, as well as a USB port for firmware updates.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has incredible audio format support via ARC. It supports lots of different formats, including 5.1 surround sound like Dolby Digital, as well as lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos. Unlike the Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2, it supports eARC, too.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has outstanding audio support via HDMI In. It supports lots of different formats, so you don't have issues watching content on streaming platforms and Blu-rays.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC supports both Dolby Digital and DTS over Optical. Dolby Digital is most commonly found on streaming platforms, while you're most likely to run into DTS content on Blu-rays.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC has fairly low latency. When you watch videos over different connections, you don't notice a delay between the audio you hear and the video you see, even with lip-synching. That said, when watching videos over Optical and ARC, there's a two-to-three-second audio delay when loading the video, but as soon as the sound comes on, we don't have any issues. The TV you use as well as the app you're on can compensate for latency differently, so your real-world experience can vary. If you have any issues, the lip sync issue lets you adjust the delay manually, which is nice.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC lets you wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices to the bar via Bluetooth.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC can passthrough some of the highest-quality bandwidth signals, including Dolby Vision Passthrough. When you connect the bar between two devices, like a TV and a PC, text on your screen is clear and crisp. It can't passthrough 4k @ 120Hz, though.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC's display is on the front of the bar. It shows the settings as you adjust them on the remote, like the volume and the input.

There are a couple of controls on top of the bar. They let you power the bar on/off, change the input, and adjust the volume. The 'Demo' button plays the test tones for each of the bar's channels, so you can confirm that they're working properly.

The remote is pretty big and lets you control the bar's functions. It looks different from the remotes with other Nakamichi models, as it comes with more colorful buttons. Like other Nakamichi remotes, it's backlit, so you can easily see the controls in the dark.

The Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2 eARC doesn't have built-in voice assistant capabilities. You can connect a third-party device with Amazon or Google voice assistants if you want to control it using your voice.