These speakers are tuned in a way that makes high frequencies sound impressively clear and quite realistic, but one the other side the overal sound is rather too polite to be considered realistic. Impressive it surely is though. I am sure this has been on purpose by Canton, bearing in mind that the dearer Reference 9 model, that has quite the same dimensions and looks, offer-in my opinion at least- the closest sound to the real event i have ever heard from a compact speakers-period!!!