The waterfall is a constant, strong stream of water that just sounds like a running faucet. It is not soothing at all. It also looks much much cheaper and low quality than the pictures online. I will try to add something to break up the water stream and make it more pleasant. The single positive about this is that the pump seems to be pretty quiet which is a frequent failing of indoor/tabletop fountains but the water stream is so loud it may be drowning out any pump noise (pun intended). Do not recommend this.