There is an issue where if the soundbar is connected to the TV via EARC it causes a 2 second missing audio at the start of every playback. Lots of people complaining about this. Any apps built into the TV or anything connected to the TV will have the issue. Its very annoying when watching Youtube videos and every commercial or resuming a video from pause causing 2 seconds of missing audio.

This was connected to a Samsung Q70T then a QN85C and both have the same issue when playing anything connected to the TV. If connected directly to the soundbar there is no audio issue.

Nakamichi says this is normal as whats happening is the TV is doing the processing then sending video before it sends audio to the soundbar. But if connected directly to the soundbar the soundbar does not send video to the TV until the audio is ready as well so there is no missing 2 second audio.

It instantly caused WIFI issues in my home. Took me 3 days of googling to figure out it was the speaker system causing my WIFI to have connection issues. But after following the instructions on their website to change the channel on the router all issues went away.

Also, 3 months later im throwing out the box an I find the full manual, demo disc and wall mount guide, on taped to the back of the Styrofoam on the bottom of the box. When i opened the box and just saw a quick start guide I though that was all the instructions that came wit the unit and everything else was online so i went online to download the manual.

Update 24 DEC 2019:

-- All is basically forgiven, the sound is that good --

It's sorta of complex to get perfect sound, but this thing can make great sound; see long discussion of what I did to get that sound at the end...

At this time I can say this thing sounds awesome. Like it brings me joy to listen to this soundbar. However was a pain to get to this point. Nakamichi service, Alberto, was extremely professional and efficient.

In retrospect it was all clear. One of the two HDMI inputs the soundbar that supports Dolby Atmos (must use either #2 or #3) was broken. In particular it was intermittent. This was infuriating and really hard to debug. It also has an aggravating quirk (when soundbar is reset, the two memories get set at super loud, you will be shocked how loud it is when you accidentally hit "M1" or "M2")

-- but All is basically forgiven, sound is that good --

Nakamichi Makes great sound, but you'll be need to be an enthusiast to realistically be able to get it all set up. Or just spend a $100 and have a "geek squad" person install it.

=== Getting rid of the no sound problems

I was also real disappointed like some reviewers, however after a lot of debugging it turned out the constant rebooting came from several things related to it takes the sound bar about 10 second to sync up with the input signal. Any glitches (e.g. change channels, Netflix buffers) cause some failure and then no sound. So have reported changing the volume while waiting for the sound to come back will reliably cause the problem

I did several things to make "no sound" largely a thing of the past. Key was getting the Netflix streaming device (Apple TV 4K) on a wired ethernet connection. That keeps the time buffering way way less, and sound bar is now rock solid streaming. Yes that was a pain because I had to get room wired. Try it and see with a long ethernet cable...

Secondly I moved the old TiVO DVR from the sound bar input to the 2019 LG C9 tv, which appears to give the sound bar a solid signal, even when changing channels on TiVo and so on. In the end I have the Apple TV and a Blu-ray directly connected to sound bar, and the DVR connected directly to the TV. That is in the manual BTW

Third I found that when the now rare glitches does happen, and no sound happens, rather than reboot I j switch the soundbar input to something else, e.g. optical or other input for a second, and then immediately back to the desired input. Works every time. Yes that is a pain, but after fixing the first two things, its so rare I do not care.

=== Getting amazing sound? Here's what I did.

As far as poor quality sound/music I was also disappointed at first. Here are some of the things that fixed that. I love the sound now.

The most important is that the sound quality is hugely impacted by the placement of the speakers.Boviously. Way more sensitive to small changes than I expected. I'm talking about a few inches. Height makes a surprisingly big difference. I placed these their sides, but which side, etc. It all matters a lot. I was casual about this, but just for fun/desperate I followed the placement suggestions on the large setup guide EXACTLY.

First make sure all 4 surrounds are exactly ear height. I initially had the Backs on a shelf at wrong height and place. === Height really matters! == I finally used a tape measure, sounds silly, was a big deal.

Next I use all 4 speakers, 2 back 2 front. No dipole. I have them on their side in what Nakamichi calls "Elevation". This means all four are on their side and the speakers are pointing up towards the ceiling at a 45 degree angle. Key to great surround sound. Trust me.

Location matters. A lot. In particular I moved the surrounds to exactly 2m (6.5 feet) away from center of FRONT of couch, pointing exactly down the front edge of couch. Exactly as it says on the huge folded setup guide, but they don't make it emphatic that --you really need to do this--. The backs and the surrounds all point to the center of the front edge of the middle of sofa. The surrounds need to lined up along the front edge of couch and backs at 135 angle from front edge. The backs are also 2m/6.5 feet from the front edge of couch. Use a tape measure. It matters.

--> Suddenly great spatial effects.
--> Great music.

Sounds silly; try it and see! Keep everything at ear height 6 feet from center of couch. I think you will be amazed.

Next part of this puzzle, use the demo disk "Helicopter" sound track to adjust the volume of the surround and back and center speakers until the helicopter sound is at constant volume and therefore sounds like helicopter is always a constant distance away. It should sound like a helicopter circling you at a constant speed and distance.

I needed to fiddle with the location of the back speakers to get constant speed from helicopter sound.

I needed +8 on the back and +7 on surround and +4 on center to get constant volume. Obviously you'll need to fiddle for yourselves, but "Helicopter" really shows what this thing can do when adjusted just right.

Almost done and this is easy. Make sure all the DSP stuff is OFF. No stereo, no night, not native, not game, not music, SSE is off; get rid of it all. No easy way to do that. Just cycle thru "info" on remote and see what is turned on. Then get rid of it.

You want ONLY "movie" and "dolby surround". Now the fun! Fiddle with room size and SSE. SSE has 4 choices (0-3), and size has 3; try all 12 combs (easy). I find small room SSE 2 or 3 works WONDERFUL for TV and music. You might prefer SSE 0 for music.

SSE makes it seem, for example like the saxophone player is standing up, and it changes how tall he is. It also changes the sensation of how far apart sideways the musicians are. Makes the stage seem bigger. When I got it just right? I can stare with my eyes at the sound bar and it still sounds exactly like Coltrane is 6 feet tall and about 6 feet from the piano. My sound bar is 24" off the floor. I find most of "stereo imaging" stuff like this doesn't work if my eyes are open. This sound bar does this wonderfully using my Apple TV 4K to play music.

Lastly I fiddled with the subs. I was amazed how critical it is to get them at the right place and pointing in the correct direction. Other wise I got nothing but room resonance or "boom". This makes bass guitar sound like a thud; you know loud but cheap stereo in a car. I moved, and turned and fiddled with the subs while listening to John Coltrane music; key is prominent acoustic bass on a quality recording. Try his song "I Want to Talk About You". That sort of music usually causes a sub to resonate with the room making bass sound like drum; it "booms". I tried moving the subs out of the corner, into the corner, away from the walls, point the port on the back towards corner, towards side wall, or the back wall. etc etc.

Hint: turn the volume way down and the bass up to say 8 and move the sub around. At very low volume you know the sub is not distorting from lack of power and so on. You may or may not like booming bass, some do, (but you'll know it when you get what you like).

Slowly but surely I got clean, deep bass with little booming. In my particular case the ports point away from the couch, the subs are near the couch but a foot away, and the couch is about 2' from wall. That was to get the back surrounds in right place. I expected very low "spouse approval" for subs in room, but we have small end tables. And sounds so amazing, this is not a factor.

Sound really is almost perfect. Last key step, the sub crossover frequency on setup menus needed, in my case, to be turned down from 180 to 110.

Hint: while fiddling with this crossover setting, nothing happens till you exit the setup menu, and there is a few second delay when you change it; etc. $%&# , but try it and see if the boom goes away.

Whew. Watch something with clean sound on Amazon that I thought had bad sound; I found "Seal Team" dialog amazingly clear. A first! Explosions do NOT boom! Music? Bass sound like a bass, not a drum. Listen to some techno and you'll see most techno is all drum, no bass! And so on. Clear Clear Sound. And when the people down stairs are away; crank this bad boy up. Lots of clean power + clean sound = wow.

I'm telling you this thing started like a nightmare and now makes sound so clean, it brings me joy. Obviously you going to have to fiddle with your subs location and orientation and the couch's position for the back surrounds, and so on; but keep all the surrounds and back at the exact same ear height, and at the correct distance from a very unlikely place, (aka center front edge of couch), and I think you will have awesome sound too.

I've only had this sound bar a day and have mixed feelings about this. Here's the short story... it is a complicated device that requires lots of fiddling with to get the sound you want. Fortunately the company provides half decent documentation that explains how to access and change the settings though ends just short of telling how the changes affect the way the system performance changes. They give recommended settings for configuration except don't tell why I should use them other than it gives the best performance. My old vizio unit was full configuration through the app which allowed me to change from 2 presets (movie/music) and surround/no surround. I could also change the bass/treble of the bar while also separately changing the sub level and also the rear speaker level to compensate for how close they sit to my head near the couch. this shockwafe unit lets you do all the same things except through a complicated remote design pushing buttons while watching the bar closely to make sure you have to right options set and then confirm the change. some changes cause the sound to drop out for 3 to 5 seconds while they take effect which is annoying but reminds me of my old onkyo receiver. I've found the best settings so far for myself is to use NATIVE mode which allows the system to decode all formats directly without any special upmixing of the content. I really encourage anyone to go through all the different settings with multiple sources to find the one you like best. I might end up changing my settings later on. Also DSP I disable which are the preset EQ configs like music/movie/game/clear voice. I find these to cause the audio to sound un-natural and less clear/crisp.

Most important thing to do is the firmware upgrade before connecting the bar to your tv/components.
My unit came with a USB drive with files already on it however they were not the most recent files available on the website. Just download the firmware zip file from their support page and replace the files on the flash drive and follow the instruction page.

I chose to wall-mount this bar because my old vizio bar was also mounted up on the wall. I got lucky and was able to line up the brackets to allow the cables to bend and come thru the access hole I have in the wall while keeping everything well hidden, see pictures. Look at how the plugs are setup on the bar and compare that to how many components you want to have directly attached to the bar vs. what you want going to your TV.

I have a nvidia shield going into hdmi-4 port right next to the ARC port that way both cables can go straight into the wall. the power adaptor plug cable has to go all the way over to the opposite side of the bar so some people might want to drill a separate hole in the wall just to hide this wire... I have mine tucked floating behind the bar and run it through the same cut out for the hdmi cables.

CEC power and volume control works great regardless of whether I'm using the TV remote control or my shield's remote.

mounting the rear speakers is a chore because they technically should have both mounting plates used to hold them to the wall, at the moment I'm only using one because of trial and error for placement.
my couch sits right up against the wall in a section recessed against windows so the speakers are literally a foot away from our ears. manual recommends mounting these AT head level for best sound however I might end up mounting these higher and either angled down at us or up for ceiling reflection effect because even at the lowest volume level they are still a little too loud for my listening pleasure at times.

finally keep in mind that the sub and rear speakers talk to the sound bar wirelessly over a 5ghz channel which has the potential to interfere with a WiFi router and cause audio drop out at times. this sound bar has a setting to enable a direct frequency (DF) to help alleviate this issue. because routers are also equally complicated to configure the average home user may get frustrated to not end trying to fix this, just contact their tech support. I have a google router which doesn't allow you to change the channel because it auto senses interference from competing channels. their help page will walk you thru difference solutions for this type of setup. you can use the wifiman app by ubiquiti which shows lots of detailed info about your home network and networks around you.

so far this sound bar has recognized all formats I've thrown at it both from my sony bravia's built in apps over the ARC and from the nvidia shield pro running kodi. each time new content starts the bar will display which codec it is playing and you can hit the info button for verification. this is awesome for me because other sound bars will simply either not tell you this information or flat out refuse to decode it leaving you in silence.

good news is despite the settings being a little on the complex side, it does allow you to save your preferences to memory.

Setup:
Bedroom
LG OLED65C6P
Samsung UBD K8500

When looking for a sound bar, I had a few requirements.
1. It had to have 4K and HDR options
2. It had to have something better than basic Dolby/DTS processing
3. It had to fit the space requirements

Initially, I was going to just get a sound bar without surround, but I grew to like the sound from my LG OLED. It wasn't bad. However, my C6P has fantastic 3D, while my home theater tv has crosstalk issues that make it unwatchable to me. This left me having to choose between watching a movie in 3D or watching it with 7.1 surround. So I decided to look for a sound bar with 5.1 to 7.1. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of options in that group that have 4K, HDR, Atmos or DTSX.. Well, there are if you want simulated surround.

Originally, I had listed the Nakamichi Shockwafe 7.1 as one of two sound bars I was interested in. So when I started looking again, the Ultra 9.2 was listed... Certainly there was a catch! No, there's no catch. 1000W system, 4K HDR passthrough, Dolby processing and DTS:X. Checked the measurements to be sure I could fit this all in the bedroom... Requirements met!

While in transit, I noticed the lack of Atmos/TrueHD and the lack of Dolby Vision. An oversight on my part. Perhaps I'm used to home theater receivers... When I recently bought an Onkyo RZ920, the flagship model, there was no question about HDR, Dolby Vision, Atmos or DTS:X. A flagship audio component should be be just that... The model that does it all, no questions asked. So, when purchasing the Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2, I assumed no questions asked. After all, this is Nakamichi, a brand that years back was considered one of the great audiophile brands. Still, having read posts on AVSForum, it appears these things (7.1 TrueHD decoding and Dolby Vision passthrough) can be added via firmware updates, should Nakamichi decide to do so. Not likely though seems to be the general feeling as sound bars take sides in the Dolby vs DTS war.

One other thing of note is that this system is intended to have the subwoofers at the rear since the rear speakers also plug into them with RCA plugs. You can place them at the front and run the included cables, but they're about 16ft long. The cables are also about the same thickness of the cable to your phone's wired earbuds. I replaced mine with heavier 25ft RCA cables.

No regrets though. Despite the lack of native 7.1 TrueHD or Dolby Vision, I would still be searching for something if I wanted everything. That's just the way sound bars are.

Setup was simple enough. Unpack, plug in the HDMI cables and power cords. Connect the rear speakers to the subwoofers (be sure to connect left rears to the left subwoofer and right rears to the right subwoofer) and turn it all on. The subwoofers automatically pair (via bluetooth) to the sound bar.

First impressions were not what I expected. I played Guardians of the Galaxy 2 via the LG Netflix app. It seemed muddled. Turns out there were a few things going on, but after tweaking the settings and sitting a little further back, everything was good!

My primary movie settings are...
DSP: Off (Movie setting adds more bass, but the clarity of the sound gets taken out back)
Pure: Off (enables DTS Neural:X processing/upmixing)
Bass: 7 (after a lot of testing with Passengers, 6 or 7 seems to be about the highest setting before voices were affected)
Treble: 7 (just to match the Bass setting)
Center: 10 (helps with the voice clarity)
SR: 7 (I noticed almost no change between 1 to 10 while watching movies, but while listening to music, it was night and day)
SB: 7 (I noticed almost no change between 1 to 10 while watching movies, but while listening to music, it was night and day)

Now, you might be wondering, what do I compare this to.
Well, that's not easy or fair to answer... My home theater system is an LG 86UH9500 tv, Onkyo RZ920 receiver, Oppo UDP 203 4k player, with Klipsch Forte speakers (front), Klipsch KSC-C1 (center), Klipsch WB14 speakers (surround), Acoustic Research M1 speakers (rear), and a Velodyne subwoofer. This is like comparing a soccer mom's mini van to a Porsche 911, and thus not a fair comparison. What would be fair though is perhaps to compare to the Logitech Z906 system I have connected to the computer.

The Logitech Z906 is a true 5.1 surround system that at full price will cost you $400. Now, the Z906 has flaws. It hasn't been updated in years, and it doesn't have HDMI inputs, so it's not a good option for a home theater setup unless you don't mind using optical/coax and being limited to basic Dolby and DTS processing. Despite all that, used it for years to watch movies on the computer in the bedroom. That being said, if Logitech had ever updated it with HDMI and 4K HDR passthrough, I would have bought that without a second thought since I'm familiar with it.

Coming back to the Ultra 9.2, the sound quality is good. I'm not going to spend hours comparing apples and oranges, but with years of the Z906, I'd say the sound quality of the speakers here are just as good, but technologically, there's more of them, and they do a lot more with DTS:X and Neural:X supporting it. I've spent a bit of time with it watching the first 2 Hunger Games movies in 4K (as well as testing a bunch of movies while setting up the audio) and I've been pleased with the results.

The only real weakness I find is the subwoofers. There's 2 of them, and I expected a lot more room shaking punch. They're really about the same as the subwoofer that comes with the Z906, except they're downward firing while the Logitech is front firing. The impact is right about the same when I gave it the Jurassic Park test. T-Rex won't scare anyone or anything with either. Safe to say, the home theater Velodyne makes things fall down, but again, that's not a fair comparison. Also the placement could be a factor. Firmware updates since the original release also make them a bit heavier sounding.

I have experienced some odd issues since setting up the Nakamichi. The UHD player sometimes appears to have a stroke and believes it no longer has an HDCP 2.2 connection and reverts to 1080p. Twice now has my TV had a stroke and just starts turning 3D on and off for no reason. And a few times now my Roku 4 picture looks like it was put through a blender and reprocessed in 8bit pixelated gaming Minecraft blocks, and the issue appears to be with HDCP 2.2 going AWOL. The last issue is related to startup. I use a Logitech Harmony remote, and when turning everything on, the Nakamichi input will change as intended, but then it will for no reason decide it wants to be on ARC (HDMI 1) and switch back. This is an issue after starting up, and it doesn't always happen. It seems I need to wait at least 15 seconds before changing the input, otherwise it will always go right back to ARC or won't change at all. I'm hoping this gets worked out with firmware.

Lastly, I mentioned a lack of Dolby Vision and 7.1 TrueHD. Dolby Vision isn't on a lot of components. If you happen to have an LG TV and an Oppo player, you can simply use the HDMI audio out of the player to plug into the player, and leave the HDMI video to the TV. In the case of 7.1 TrueHD, you can set your UHD player to PCM instead of bitstream to maintain lossless audio, as suggested on AVSForum. However, you'll want to change it back for DTS:X audio. Personally, I say just leave it on bitstream, and disable Pure mode so that Neural:X can just do its thing. Yes, it's lossy audio then, but I'd be amazed if anyone could tell the difference on a sound bar system. Just the same way 192 bitrate MP3s work fine on your phone with earbuds, but you'll notice it if you play that same MP3 on a high end audio system.

So let's end this. The Nakamichi Ultra 9.2 is a one of a kind. It's a real 7.2/9.2 surround system with DTS:X, and 4K HDR passthrough. In the sound bar market, there's nothing else like it. It achieves what it set out to do, and Nakamichi should be proud of it. Yes, there's room for improvement, and I'm sure Nakamichi knows this, but only time will tell what comes next.

I would probably give this 4 out of 5 because of the lack of lossless TrueHD and Dolby Vision since this is the flagship, and it is Nakamichi. However, I'm going to let it slide because you can work arounds stated above. There's the issues I've run into as well, but I'm confident firmware updates will resolve it. A few interactions with support have left me feeling Nakamichi really wants to be liked the same way they were long ago. It's under warranty, so I have time if firmware fixes are not an option. For what this is, a 7.2/9.2 sound bar surround system, there's currently no equal.

UPDATE: November 12, 2018
Nakamichi has announced an update that will now include Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. This update will be available for those of us who already own the system via firmware. This is a big deal! Nakamichi already had a superior soundbar system here, but now it's going to even better.

I've lived with this system for nearly a year now, and the Shockwafe 9.2 has remained everything I hoped for as a bedroom system. I stand firm in that if you can afford a real surround system that includes an A/V receiver, and stand alone speakers, and the technical knowledge to set it up, that THAT is a far superior experience. However, for ease of use, space saving, and lower cost, THIS will obliterate whatever speakers your TV has, and give you a home theater experience from a soundbar system that no other can provide.

UPDATE: February 2, 2019
Nakamichi for the last month has been providing owners of the 9.2 with the firmware upgrade. After the announcement, I purchased a Panasonic DP-UB820 4K player since Oppo went out of business, and I wanted a good player with Dolby Vision.

With the Nakamichi 3.0/3.1 firmware, it does indeed let you use Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision now, however there's problems, and it's a problem with ARC, Roku, and 4K discs.

With the new Dolby enabled firmware, there's a 5~7 second audio delay. I've also had issues with audio suddenly sounding like it's coming out of a tin can. Nakamichi has stated there could be random audio drop outs as well, and users on AVS Forum have complained about it.

That said, I downgraded back to the 1.0c firmware, the last update before the Dolby upgrade. If Nakamichi fixes the issues, I'll return to it. With or without the Dolby Atmos/Vision update, I still say the best soundbar you can get, and the best you can do without getting a real home theater system.

PLEASE READ!
Hello everybody this is a review update after getting the new 9.2 eARC for 2022 and using it for a few a bit now. The new eARC setup is mindblowing and definitely worth the upgrade!
The first thing I noticed when i got the new system out of the box was that the whole system now has an all matte black finish and bronze logos which looks very sleek but most of all I was very impressed by the much improved look of the subwoofers and the new remote. On top of that the soundbar also has a new LED screen!

Another good thing about the Nakamichi soundbar system is that it is much more balanced than a lot of the other major name brand systems because the others either don't come with any surround sound speakers at all or they only come with barely 2 and they only come with one subwoofer if that. And this Nakamichi system comes with 4 surround speakers and two 10" subwoofers! The bass is much more balanced and fluid throughout the room and so are the surround sound effects!

I'm really happy with the new soundbar system and I think Nakamichi has really listened to their customers and made some dramatic enhancements to an already great system! Which is why I do want to first comment on a few slightly negative comments on the price upgrade that I have read already. I do understand that your comments are before you have experienced the new system and I do understand that for some people every bit of money can mean a lot but also you have to understand how much prices have gone up these days and how much this company has probably dumped into new research and algorithms and drivers and a new remote and more to actually do what people and customers had asked of them! So as a consumer here is a company that is doing what customers are asking! And yes the center channel is much more powerful much! And the bass and subs are louder and stronger! Most importantly I can tell they have a brand new audio algorithm into this thing and it makes it such an impressive upgrade! I would obviously also think new and more powerful drivers. I would totally recommend the new system first of all for sure as it took the place of the previous model and took my home theater to the next level (again). If you are undecided and came to my review, do yourself a favor and buy it and try it out as you will not regret it!

Looking at the bass, the previous 9.2 was already the best option in the market in my opinion but the new subs on the 9.2 eARC have blown me away and I'm really happy. Bass is deeper, clearer, louder, more accurate, and it just hits harder, and I actually had to do some more soundproofing to my wall art after testing it out. The surround sound, ambient sound and algorithm they put into this new model is over a 50% upgrade and has surround sound effects going crazy around my room. It has way more sound coming from the surround speakers and going around the room and has taken my home theater experience to a completely different level! Rewatching Unbroken and Dunkirk and many more movies that I watched on my previous sound bars, I heard many new details that I really never knew existed and the directions of where the sound effects were moving towards were much clearer and way more directional. The part in the opening scene where the fighter jet flies from left to right felt so real as though I was in the cockpit. The explosions and gunfire felt much cleaner and harder on the new subwoofers like I was in a warzone and it got me more excited and tensed up I was loving it more than ever.

I dont usually listen to music, but the music scenes I heard in my movies were so clear that it felt like I was actually in a concert, especially the vocals and everything sounds richer and more vibrant and much better than before. Music playback performance is definitely on another level as well. I would mostly think this is because of a new algorithm of how it reads and outputs sound and new drivers to do the work!

The new remote is probably the best remote control I've seen in a surround system and many of you will probably want to know more so here are a few answers. Over the past couple years I've noticed that some owners have had to point their remotes at a certain angle towards the bar to get it to respond. With the new remote, there is a significantly larger glossy area for the sensor at the top of the remote and I can now control the soundbar even from the corners of my living room. The responsiveness is much improved as well. Also, the new remote has larger buttons with colors making the controls more instantly recognizable without having to scan through all the buttons to find the right one. Feels more modern with larger buttons and brighter and cleaner backlit keys, making it more user-friendly. The backlit keys are also brighter so controlling it in the dark is a breeze.

Thanks for reading my review as I put a decent amount of time into it as well as the review that I had for the previous model. Also, I plan to upload a small homemade video soon about my new system and I just took some new pictures of my new setup as well. I'm pretty excited and really liking it so much.