Update
I started this thread and would like to provide my feedback 1.5 years later. In spite of the fact that I wanted to go with an aftermarket set-up for a deeper tone, I ended up having a stock replacement installed with minor pipe work done by a local muffler shop that I’ve used in the past. I just did not have the time at the time to order anything more interesting. It sounded fine initially (nothing exciting). In the past 6 months or so, it got louder and louder to the point that it sounded the way I wanted it to sound. Fast forward to last week, and it was suddenly noisy. After checking underneath, I saw that the muffler had split open. Seeing some additional rust on the piping behind the muffler is what pushed me over the edge to order a Gibson stainless steel cat-back system as I did not want to deal with this again. It was installed on Saturday and I have been thrilled since. To bring it full-circle, I took my daughter (now 2.5) out shopping in it. Her response was “What dat sound?” but I didn’t hear anything about it after that. We’ll see how it affects my 1-month-old, as she is mostly driven in my wife’s 4R and hasn’t been in mine yet. She says “What dat noise?” when in my 370Z (stock exhaust) and I put her in the passenger seat to move the cars around in the driveway. I’ll take “sound” over “noise” for the sake of argument. Startup (cold or warm) sounds incredible now, almost like it is ready to swallow something. There is definitely a deeper tone at lower RPM and a little more sound at highway speed, but nothing that is annoying or distracting. I highly recommend it for the v8 guys who want a more aggressive tone but nothing over the top. I wish I had done this years ago.
