For right now I'm rating this fountain at 3 stars, however I just installed it, so I will have to come back for an update. It's a nice sturdy, heavy fountain. I was worried about it looking cheap and plastic, but it has a stone look to it. Setting it up was fairly easy. The directions show you which wires to plug into each other and where to place them. The top bowl came detached from the fountain, and it has the tube to the pump and an led light attached to it. The led lights were already in place, so I connected the bowl to the fountain, the tube to the pump and the lights to the short cable on the pump. Next I plugged the long cable into the adapter without plugging it into the wall and filled with water. So you can see it's not complicated. Next, and very importantly, I added scaler and algicide. Don't bother with any fountain without these, because you will end up clogging the pump with mineral deposits and algae and end up with a broken pump. The first try at plugging it in ended up with a motor sound and no water moving - in the setup process the tube had detached from the pump. Nothing was harmed, and I reattached them. The second try worked, and the water flows strongly on the highest setting. The pump has a dial that goes from "+" to "-" for flow. The water was very loud with no pump sound and all the way to "+". Midway was fine too, but lower than midway I could hear the pump working. You're actually changing the amount of water you allow into the pump, not the energy output, so I think it ends up working harder to pump less water. I think it's way too loud to be placed in any seating area, but nice in an entryway or maybe a large room. The condo I'm in has one kitchen, dining, and living area as one room with a few bedrooms, so it's not a large space for such a large fountain. If you have a similar space, you will probably want this to go in a corner or entryway, but literally in your seating area. If I walk into the bedroom with the door open the sound is very soft and nice, so it would be a great background noise coming from the other room at night for people who need noise when they sleep. I'm not knocking the fountain for being loud, that could be really great depending on the space you put it in, but I have to stress that this is not a little soft trickle. The reason for 4 stars is the pump being easily detached from the tube and they way the motor gets strained if taking in less water. Other than that it's great. In the photo, the table is 19"x19", it's daytime with the blinds closed for glare. UPDATE: It was too loud for my husband, too. We tried staging it in different places but it was still too loud for a such a small home. We weren't sure what to expect when we ordered it, but I'd say it's good for outdoors, not for indoors. The fact that it is loud is probably good for most purchasers wanting to put a fountain outside.
