Nakamichi Dragon 11.4.6 Home Surround Sound System with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X Pro. Soundbar Meets AV Receiver

This is my second Nakamichi Dragon system! I bought my first one last year with quad 8" subs. This new Dragon, with its two 12" subs, paired with the two 12" subs I bought last summer, makes it a true 11.4.6 surround sound system. Additionally, the new firmware 3.9 update introduces Inferno Mode to the system, greatly enhancing low-end bass and sound pressure in the room. You don't just hear the bass, you feel it in your chest and under your couch, even at low volumes. Installation and setup are about as straightforward as you can get, within 30 minutes as advertised for a simple install. Planning, wall-mounting, and experimenting with surround and/or subwoofer placement may take more time if you have challenging installation requirements. There is no auto-room calibration. You can choose from default room configurations, but for best results you should manually enter the room dimensions. Not terribly time consuming, but you'll need a tape measure. The results are well worth it. Wiring won't be an issue. The Surround Satellites and 12" Subwoofers pair wirelessly and automatically to the Main Unit. I paired my components manually because of the additional subs, and getting a replacement Main Unit sent to me. The display on the first Main Unit was slightly crooked, which made it difficult to read. Nakamichi Concierge replaced the Main Unit immediately, and the replacement had no issues. Quick aside about the Nakamichi Concierge Service that comes complimentary with purchase of a Nakamichi Dragon. The service is nothing short of first rate! Nakamichi is really proud, and rightfully so, of this product. And nothing shows that pride more than their Concierge Service. Agents are attentive, knowledgeable, and eager to make sure your experience with the Dragon is all it should be. A true value all its own. Features of the Dragon are plentiful as the Main Unit functions the same as a high-end AV Receiver, complete with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X Pro (Pro Cinema Engine), and enough inputs and outputs to meet the needs of any contemporary home theater set up. I do find CEC control a bit hit and miss with my other components, so I have it turned off preferring to manually select my input devices when I use them. Adaptive Height Dispersion technology, shared by upfiring drivers in the Main Unit and Surround Satellites, create an expansive soundscape above you. The Dragon is large! The Main Unit will require a substantial credenza to support its 58" width and 8" depth. It also stands about 4.5" tall, so best to plan for some clearance between it and your screen. It will block the bottom of your screen if it shares the same table as your TV. I planned for this system when mounting my TV, so no issues for me. I also mounted the Surrounds, which are the size of mid-sized bookshelf speakers. The 80 lb 12" subwoofers are what truly eat up real estate in your home theater. They're massive, so plan accordingly. And I recommend furniture slides if you expect to experiment with their placement at all. The remote control is attractive and lets you tweak every aspect of the unit, primarily by accessing the On-Screen Display (OSD). In addition to master volume, it also allows you to adjust bass, individual channel volume, and digital signal processing effects on the fly while enjoying your content. It also has two Favorite buttons, so you can recall your two most-preferred settings quickly. Usage is where the Dragon will make you rethink your desire to go out to the movies. This system is aimed at the home theater market, and home theater enthusiasts will truly appreciate its cinema-centric focus. When properly calibrated, music sounds great too, especially in surround. But the Dragon was built for movies! Movies of every era, genre, and format sound utterly fantastic through this system. You'll want to revisit your old favorites and experience new adventures with sonic authority. The AMT tweeters are bright and focus dialogue and effects with pinpoint accuracy. Midrange is healthy and natural, blending smoothly and seamlessly between the Main Unit, Satellites, and 12" Subwoofers. Bass, as you'd expect, is effortless and deep, the kind of downstairs seismic extension that celebrates both attacks and rumbles with precision and heft. Nakamichi's reference volume for the Dragon is 35 (35% of its total potential output of 100). In my space with Inferno Mode on, I can only blast the latest Dolby Atmos or DTS:X spatial audio releases with the cleanest sound designs at this volume. With lessor tracks (the Dragon will reveal to you which ones they are), and with DTS HD-Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD channel-based tracks, I either scale the volume back to a max of 25 or turn Inferno Mode off depending on the source. In general, I ride with Inferno Mode on, and simply bathe in high-quality, bass-grounded, immersive audio bliss. The Dragon is an unapologetically expensive surround sound system, but Nakamichi more than delivers the goods by way of design, performance, and power. For my money, the Dragon not only looks amazing, but 11.4.6 channels driven by up to 3000 watts are all the channels and peak power I expect I'll ever need in a home theater. And the Pro Cinema Engine, anchored by Dolby Atmos and DTS:X Pro, makes the best use of those drivers and power that I've ever heard at home. The Nakamichi Dragon is, by far, the best home theater sound system I've over owned. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Wait wait wait wait. If you’re even thinking about not buying this thing. Well too bad. One of the Worst decision you would have made in your entire life. This thing rumbles my room and I’m three stories up on the third floor. This thing is in my basement and wow wow wow. It is a beast. Guys I have the nakamishi 9,2.4 and yes it was awesome no lie. Didn’t need to change. But when I read the reviews about this dragon 11.4.6 I was like I have to get same. So I watched it for about 4 months trying to see if the price would drop on Amazon. Unfortunately the price didn’t drop the item just sold out and I was like Wednesday Thursday Friday ( WTF). Devastated so I waited again and then thought to myself I can check eBay and there it was the dragon on eBay. So long story short no waiting this time around pulled the trigger on this over 2.5k beast. Then I decided wth go big or go home. I bought the 12 inch sub to go with it. BRUH BRUH BRUH!!!!! I will not be setting foot back in any theater as it stands. This thing rumbles the third damn floor of my house. With all doors locked. Don’t even think I need to get another 12 inch sub trust and believe that. But I got OCD and I have to get the pair. Guys please if you have a Dragon surround. Get the dragon stand for the surround speakers and get this 12 inch sub. Told my other half I’m going to get another 12 and she said when you get it you and them subs are gonna be out in the streets. Because things are falling off the wall. Well guys I have already located a cool little spot on the street because I’m getting another 12 inch sub. So wish me luck. 😂😂🤣😂🤣😂 But all honesty guys. This thing is a beast guys. Just get it you won’t regret. I have no more reason to set foot in a theater. Real Talk!! 5 ⭐️ is not even a good enough rating. This thing is awesome. Be careful as this thing only works with the Dragon. Please be advised that this only works with the Dragon.

The Nakamichi Dragon doesn't get featured in many soundbar showdowns because at its quality, performance and price it has no peers. It's more expensive, but it still offers great value. I acquired Nakamichi mounts for the soundbar and the surround speakers. The soundbar mount has versatile mount points, and once mounted there's still some lateral flexibility to center the soundbar. The mount is discrete and feels solid with the heavy soundbar in place. I mention all of this here because it's also the best wall mounting solution for a soundbar I've seen. Make sure that the HDMI cables you get (for any soundbar) support 48Gbps and have smaller terminators because they need to start bending close to the HDMI ports on the soundbar. The mounts for the surround speakers feel solid and are discrete, but the surround speakers are heavy enough that I recommend hitting a stud. I mounted them on the side walls. The mounts are very easy to use and provide routing for the power cable. The vertical speakers in the surround speakers are angled to reflect off of the ceiling and rotate so they can be aimed at the primary seating area, providing flexibility in where they can be mounted. The room I set this up in has an 8 foot ceiling, the speakers are mounted at seated ear height, and this is the only environment I can speak to. Connecting the surround speakers and subwoofers required pressing one button, and there have been zero connectivity issues. Audio sync has been flawless. (The TV must be plugged in the HDMI port one and whatever port the TV uses for its HDMI ARC/eARC port.) The system doesn't have an automatic calibration feature, but the on-screen menu is easy to use. Just pick the matching physical configuration of the speakers and enter the distance from each speaker to the primary seating area. Sitting off center still provides amazing sound effects' localisation. Some of the setups I've experienced can't maintain this, but the Dragon's speakers and processing shine here. I had to move the subwoofers a few extra inches away from the wall to eliminate some boominess. It eliminated the reflected sounds bad timing and sharpened the bass. There's enough power to drive all of the speakers and maintain clarity throughout the entire frequency range at all volumes, so you don't have to turn it up if you don't want to. But you'll want to. I adjusted the subwoofers' crossover frequency for my preference, but I liked the default levels and settings of all of the other speakers after calibrating for distance. I switch between the Music and Movie modes based on what the source material. I use an Oppo UDP 205 Blu-ray player, Apple TV 4k, PS5 and Nvidia Shield Pro (through the Oppo HDMI IN) as sources. DTS X Pro through the Dragon is amazing, and is currently much, much more expensive to get any other way. Dolby Atmos positioning is so smooth and clear that my dog spins while looking up and around in time with birds circling. Music in surround sound, including Dolby Atmos depends on the quality of the remixing. Sometimes it's more natural sounding or broadens the sound stage wonderfully. Sometimes the positioning of instruments and sounds feel like the artist's intention. Some mixes are distracting in ways that I don't prefer, but this should get better as the industry gains experience with it. When it's done right you feel right there. (The Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense, Taylor Swift - The Eras Tour.) Metallica's Black album is better in stereo in my opinion. Upmixing of movies and music is done really well by the Dragon. It can play and handle anything, and everyone you know will hit their limit before it even gets close to its own. My unit came with the latest firmware, so I never experienced the lower bass mentioned in some reviews. I love it. I love how easy it is was to setup and calibrate. I love how well it handles the variety of sources I throw at it. Most of all I love how it sounds. There's one thing that I wish it did better, which is transition from source to source with less delay before the audio starts. It's definitely not a deal breaker for me. I don't channel surf or constantly switch sources, but I notice the delay when I do. I tried to find comparable setups using separates or soundbars, and they simply don't exist. If this is reasonable for your budget then you can buy it knowing that you can't find anything that can compete with all that it can do so well for anything close to its price.

Purchased in July 2024 and no issues so far. Physical appearance and build quality looks excellent and feels solid. Setting up was very easy. The only signal cable I had to connect was the HDMI cable from the soundbar to the HDMI EARC input at TV. All other speakers including soundbar requires plugging into any 120v outlet, no other connections required. I did purchase the Nakamichi soundbar and rear speaker wall brackets separately as it was needed to facilitate my installation. Programming was very easy following the on screen set up guides, even the Bluetooth app was a breeze to understand. Once setup, I didn’t need to use the wireless remote as much as I expected . The soundbar automatically synchronizes with powering on/off with tv as well as volume up/down using existing tv remote. The sound is amazing. Sounds like a concert hall with ground shaking bass. The highest volume I’ve turned it up was approximately 35 of 100, sounds clean and no distortion to bass and high’s despite high volume settings. When I heard this thing for the first time I was blown away and up to this day I love it as much as the first day I got it. No regrets whatsoever. I have family and friends with different soundbars and none can come close to this. So whether I’m watching a movie or having a house party, this soundbar has definitely surpassed my expectations. I got the quad 8” subs before the 12” subs came out. Given the chance at that time, I would have gotten the 12” subs since I love heavy bass. Don’t get me wrong, the existing 8” quad subs still makes ground shaking bass. I will purchase the 12” in subs in future and integrate it to my existing system. I would recommend this to anyone and if need, would buy again without hesitation.

This subwoofer is an awesome addition to the 11.4.6 setup. It has size, it has heft, it has an awesome driver and radiator, and has the wireless technology. Yes, it’s expensive, but worth it if you value getting sound out of the dragon. I would definitely recommend this subwoofer!