Shockwafe Pro 7.1 eARC

Overview

The Shockwafe Pro 7.1 eARC is the 7.1 system in Nakamichi's 2022 eARC range. It is a complete surround system: a soundbar 1155.7 mm wide, 91.4 mm high and 76.2 mm deep (about 2.7 kg) with a matte black finish, one wireless subwoofer and two rear surround speakers. The soundbar and the surround speakers can be wall-mounted with the brackets, screws and wall-mount guide in the box.

Nakamichi lists 13 drivers in total. The soundbar has six 2.75-inch extended range twin-cone drivers and two 1-inch silk dome tweeters. The subwoofer has a 10-inch down-firing driver, and each rear surround speaker has a 3-inch driver and a 1-inch tweeter. Peak power is 850 W: 400 W for the soundbar, 150 W for the rear surrounds and 300 W for the subwoofer. The rated loudness is 108 dB SPL.

The soundbar has three HDMI inputs, an HDMI eARC output to the TV, optical, coaxial and 3.5 mm analog inputs, a USB port (firmware updates only) and Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX HD. The box contains the subwoofer, the surround speakers with their RCA cables, the backlit 43-key remote with batteries, power cables and the soundbar power adapter, HDMI, optical and 3.5 mm audio cables, and the wall-mounting kit.

The system is controlled with the remote, the buttons on the soundbar or the TV remote over HDMI-CEC. Sound modes are Movie, Music, Game, Sports, News, Night and DSP Off, plus SSE MAX processing (off or three levels), three room-size presets (small, medium and large) and separate level controls for the centre and surround channels.

What the specs mean

• 7.1.4 speaker setup: seven main channels, one subwoofer channel and four height channels. Nakamichi's manuals page names it "Shockwafe Pro 7.1.4 eARC" and the spec page lists "Up to 7.1.4"; the user manual's spec table lists "7.1". Nakamichi lists no up-firing drivers: its SSE MAX processing (Spatial, Surround and Elevation engines) mixes the height effects into the speakers around the room.
• Wireless subwoofer, wired surrounds: the subwoofer connects to the soundbar wirelessly (5.2 and 5.8 GHz), but it needs mains power. The rear surround speakers are not wireless: they plug into the subwoofer with the included RCA cables, so no cable has to run from the TV to the back of the room.
• HDMI eARC: the enhanced Audio Return Channel sends the TV's sound to the soundbar over one HDMI cable, including lossless formats such as Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos and multichannel PCM from the TV's own apps or devices plugged into the TV. Older ARC is limited to compressed formats.
• Audio formats: Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby MAT, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, DTS:X, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, DTS Digital Surround and multichannel PCM. Dolby Surround, DTS Neural:X and All Channel Stereo spread content with fewer channels across all the speakers.
• HDMI passthrough: a console or player can connect to one of the three HDMI inputs. Video passes through at up to 4K60 with Dolby Vision, VRR and HDCP 2.3. Nakamichi recommends connecting 4K120 devices directly to the TV.
• No expansion: every speaker the system supports is in the box, so there are no optional add-on speakers.