Dragon 11.4.6-Ch Surround System w Dolby Atmos/DTS:X Pro (Pro Cinema Engine), HiFi AMTs, Dual-Opposing 8" Subs, Bipolar Surr, 6 Discrete Height Ch, 3000 Watts Max Output. AVR-Grade Soundbar

I’ve owned a lot of audio gear over the years, and this is hands down the most impressive system I’ve ever experienced. The Nakamichi Dragon doesn’t just sound good—it completely transforms your environment into a true cinematic space. The immersion is on another level. You don’t just hear the sound, you feel it move around you. The bass is deep, controlled, and powerful without being muddy, and the clarity across vocals and highs is crystal clean even at higher volumes. What really surprised me is how well it performs even in a non-traditional setup. I’m running this in a truck cab, and it still creates a massive, room-filling soundstage that honestly feels bigger than the space itself. That says a lot about how well this system is engineered. Movies feel like you’re in a theater, music feels alive, and even regular content sounds upgraded. Once you dial it in, it’s hard to go back to anything else. If you’re on the fence—don’t be. This is not just a soundbar, it’s a full experience. Worth every penny.

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.

Nakamichi support personally reached out to see how things were going and if there was anything I need. I had one of their prior systems and they have always had very good and friendly support. Below is my response. “The system has been absolutely amazing. I have it paired with my Valerion VisionMaster Pro 2 projector with a 120in screen and it makes for an absolutely phenomenal theater like experience. Haven't gotten an opportunity to use it for gaming or music (except for music in movies) but I imagine it would do just wonderful. I haven't had any major issues; initially the update was being a little finicky but I got it to work. The ui is a little cumbersome but I appreciate all the options for adjustments.” Pros: Sound is out of this world Appears to be of great quality Amazing service if you need them Wide range of support that will keep it relevant for quite a while. The remote. Might be one of my favorite remotes. Cons: The UI does leave a little desire for something more user friendly but does have plenty of adjustment options. The companion app for your phone is slightly unreliable and doesn’t give the better adjustment options so I kind of just avoid it. Price, but worth it, specially on sale like I did. If you really want a top end sound system and can spend the 2-3k to get a proper modern theater sound system I’d recommend this unless they come out with something even better in this price point, which I imagine will be a few years or so.