The early Soundstream stuff was great!!! The d-series and MC-series were good, then the came out with the Reference series and Class A series and it was the shit!!! I have a first gen Ref 500 running my front speakers and it sounds great. Later they went the cheap route like so many other companies go just to make a profit. The later Ref series ending in SX (ex. Reference 500SX) started to decline and then the Rubicon series declined a little more. The later stuff is not bad, just not as good as the early stuff. They recently were bought and supposedly are making good stuff again but I have not had a chance to test it.