If you remember the classic Monty Python fish-slapping sketch, you can imagine the surprise this set of speakers delivered unto us. All reviewers worth their salt like to think they are impartial and unbiased, but when we clapped eyes upon these tiny enclosures, we were convinced that they might well perform to some degree, but would be limited severely by their size.

As it turned out, they left us as stunned as if we had been walloped by a 30lb salmon. In fact, there is one easy-to-spot physical reason why these speakers can do what they do, and we'll come to that in due course. Its a double-edged thing though, for while the construction elevates these tiny satellites way up above their fighting weight, it also causes a bit of a mismatch elsewhere.

The speakers come in two basic flavours, which can be configured in three main recommended ways, that are sold as complete systems. This one, the middle-sized job, comes in at around £750, and comprises four CS-S1 sats, a centre enclosure, and a 10in (rather than 8in) classic ported subwoofer.

The sats use a 10mm tweeter and two 50mm cone drivers. The centre speaker uses four of these 50mm jobs. There is a speaker in the range called Left/Centre/Right, housed in a long under-plasma style slim enclosure. Featuring the same array as the satellites, it can be used for the whole front stage and yet not look like lots of speakers.

Each of the five surround speakers features small ports that exit each side of the tweeter housing. The sand-blasted aluminium enclosures reach back at least three or four times more than their narrow width, in a teardrop-taper shape reminiscent of certain high-end designs of mid-high enclosures from other brands.

Very sexy to look at, with their natty grilles in place, they each bear a single set of screw-down speaker wire connection posts underneath, with a cable guide, but are really best wall-mounted using the supplied well-designed brackets. Notably, the system comes complete with a long hank of thick wire for each speaker.

The beautifully-animated Studio Ghibli flick Howls Moving Castle is an all-time fave, with some huge low bass that we found suitable for our test. We duly connected up the five speakers, after removing the big banana plug fittings from our wires, as these smallies do not allow for bulky plugs.

In fact, to guarantee you are using the right compromise between lightness and thickness for power handling, Audica thoughtfully supplies the aforementioned speaker cables.

The whole style of the imagery and soundtrack of this film can be described as lush; the computer and hand-painted matte work is rich and textured, while the orchestral score is superb. The movie sounds gorgeous. With the Audicas, the impact and sheer scale of detail utterly astonished us.

Of course, if you have heard a tiny set of Bose speakers, or the ridiculously clever wee Acoustic Energy eggy things, or even some bigger podules like those by B&W, you will have heard small speakers sound good - but possibly not this good.

The difference took us a moment to put our ears around. In the end we decided it was speed and detail, edges and rise time. Sounds that are meant to hit suddenly, do.

Even when the orchestra was playing its socks off, if there was something new, like the eponymous castle heaving into view, these speakers had loads of oomph left to deliver - so long as your amplifier can do it.