[Nezil]

I've been really surprised about the number of things that can affect exhaust sound. It's not just the downpipe / cat, resonator or cat back exhaust, the engine tune also has a HUGE amount to do with it.

Think about how the cold start sounds. It's quite different to regular running, and quite a bit louder. Sure the increased revs have an impact on that, but it's mostly the tune.

BM3 have recently toned down the exhaust burbles in their OTS tunes (v5.0 to v5.3) because the Stage 2 tunes, particularly 93 Octane, were incredibly load, particularly on overrun, and I have a Fabspeed SC and Stock cat back exhaust. The bangs it produced were like a gun fight, it was embarrassingly loud driving home in the suburbs.

I say all of this because the decision to go MPE or not depends not just on if you like sound or power, there is more to consider. If you're going to tune the car, it's not necessary from a free flowing perspective, and the tune will make things just as loud with the stock exhaust anyway. I'd actually be inclined to think that if you had MPE + SC + tune, you'd be deafened by the noise on overrun!