Money no object
We love to give practical buying advice about the latest gadgets here on TechRadar. But sometimes what we love more is to indulge in the most ridiculous, high-end, cutting-edge, luxurious tech on the planet. That’s what we bring you in these Money no object columns – you can read the whole series here.
Sometimes even paradise isn’t perfect. Picture the scene: you’re watching a movie on your $3,500 Nakamichi Dragon Dolby Atmos soundbar with its fourteen speakers and 3,000W of amplification. It’s loud, of course. But where are the cataclysmic rumbles of thundering subsonic energy? Where are the tidal waves of bass energy? What do you do when 3,000 watts just aren’t enough?
Nakamichi has thought of that, and wants you to enter the Dragon once more – this time by beefing up with not one, not two, but four 12-inch subwoofers to deliver a total 5,000W of earth-shaking audio that’ll have your local movie theater looking on with jealousy.
Nakamichi Dragon: what is it?
The Nakamichi Dragon has been all kinds of audio devices, most notably a legendary tape deck launched in 1982, a 1983 turntable and most recently, a powerful competitor to the world’s best soundbars, offering 11 surround channels, six upfiring channels, and four bass channels. But that was with four meager eight-inch subwoofers. Now there’s a new addition to the range, enabling you to add four 12-inch subwoofers instead, capable of delivering frequencies as low as 19Hz with power of up to 750W each.
Nakamichi Dragon: what makes it special?
The drivers here are 12-inch aerospace-grade aluminum, backed with a wafer-thin layer of carbon fiber. Together, the aluminum and carbon fiber are promised to deliver fast response times and powerfully driven bass without also introducing unwanted resonances that would make the low-end indistinct. Nakamichi says that it reproduces low-frequency effects “with authority, just like your local Dolby Atmos theater”.
In addition to the driver, there is a long-throw 12-inch passive radiator with a carbon-infused cone that pushes the bass downwards, sending bass waves through the whole viewing and listening space. With the full complement of subs, that’s likely to be quite the experience.
Nakamichi Dragon: is it worth it?
If you don’t already have a Dragon soundbar, the flagship configuration here includes the main soundbar, two Omni-Motion Reference Surrounds, and four subs to deliver 5,000W of power for $8,499.
If that power and price feels a little extreme, a two-sub version delivers a still mighty 3,500W for $5,599.99.
And there’s also a two-sub option with 8-inch subs rather than 12-inch ones. That delivers 3,000W and costs $3,999.
But of course, power and price don’t tell the whole story. What about the sound? The Dragon soundbar is, ahem, divisive in Reddit audio groups where things can get hotter than any amp. And our colleagues at What Hi-Fi rated it three out of five stars for its “harsh and aggressive” sound and “big, shouty nature”.
That means whether this is worth the price tag really depends on you, but we can say that this system is designed to fill a larger home theater space in a way that most soundbars can only dream of. The point of four subwoofers isn’t just power, but an even spread of bass where no part of the room is left behind, and what some may call shouty, others will call broad and far-reaching. Subtle? No. But you didn’t come to an article about a four-sub system for subtlety, did you?
However, the more practical among us who still want something with incredible surround effects, but that’s realistic for most people’s homes, should look to the Samsung HW-Q990D.
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