Interesting thread but the combination of exceptional and realistic is not a particularly natural one as can be seen in some of the responses. They both tend to lean towards a perceived feeling and away from a dry well informed one.
Personally I look for good value for money at the quality level I have settled on (can be difficult given the disappearance of pretty much all reliable sources of information about home audio hardware) from a company that appears relatively healthy and so likely to be around in the future for both support and to maintain the value of what has been purchased. Examples today might be Neumann, Genelec, KEF and one or two others that don't have their price raised too much by a strong brand appeal and where the companies are large enough to have their own genuine engineers (many don't even some of those that use "engineering" in their marketing) and a leaning towards technical performance rather than developing a strong specialised audiophile appeal.
As an engineer I can't recall seeing anything that was exceptional for the money which is probably to be expected in a low tech manufacturing sector that became well developed many many decades ago. There is a slow and steady improvement though in terms of the level of performance achievable at a given price point due to evolution in materials, design and manufacturing methods. This may not stimulate much passion among audiophiles but can be readily appreciated in the technical performance for the price of the better consumer, prosumer and professional audio products. Less so home audio products where the price asked tends to be higher and the interest in technical performance lower.
As an example, a few of the better mass produced in Asia active 2 way prosumer monitors costing a few hundred pounds offer good technical performance for a low price. This is possibly around the peak in terms of the ratio of performance for the money. Nonetheless for those with a job or hobby interest in technical sound quality one would tend to move higher in price to gain a bit more technical performance, support, build quality and accept a lower value for money.