Late at night, when there is no sound around and you are watching a video, ideally something with speaking rather than just music the speaker/s sound fine.
During the daytime, and playing music, the speaker is totally rubbish.
Or let me put it this way, the speaker on a transistor radio 30 years ago was 10x better.
What I think is a shame is the stupid rip off prices of iPad speaker docks.
When you consider you can get some great multi speaker units for the PC for what, 20 or 30 dollars.
All you need a bit a bit more moulded plastic for a stand and a connector and you would have a iPas sound system 1000x better than what's built in for a low price.
As with all things I feel they are taking advantage of iPad users with high priced add-ons