Yes there is a happy medium. Get a shorter Magnaflow muffler

 

I finally got tired of all the noise in the cab and put a 24" Magnaflow muffler 5x8 oval and its perfect now.. dead quiet on the interstate and it still has a good note to it around town..

but its after the turbo so the turbo acts like a small muffler some how.. haha

 

I like running cherrybomb extremes for loud and cherrybomb vortex for quiet. I have no drone with either.

 

thats what I was thinking. 24" long oval muffler is a huge muffler.

 

Why yes it is very huge!!

 

i love the flowmaster sound too, just not worth the 3-5 hp they rob. i just took mine off for some flowtech afterburners. i've ran them on several trucks of mine. they sound a lot like flowmasters at idle and like a straight thru muffler at throttle. quiet at cruise. flow numbers are right at the top. best part is they are under $50. i'll try and post a sound clip. i think dozerdan had them on his truck.

 

I like the Hooker Aerochamber... we put on on my buddys transam and it sounds good!!

 

here dozerdan w/ afterburners
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnvkK...e=channel_page
i don't know why they aren't more popular.

 

If you are running stock manifolds and cats, the perfect medium is the SLP Loudmouth I series. Loud and aggressive outside, you can hear it inside but its the sound of rumble, not resonance. Cruising on the interstate you can hear perfectly fine. Now if you plan on longtube headers and no cats, look elsewhere.

 

You just described a single 3 inch dynomax bullet. Believe it or not they sound fairly similar to a flowchoker other then they don't have that hollow dropping a rock in a bucket sound at idle. My exhaust guy couldn't believe how much mine sounded like flowchoker 40 series. They are insanely deep toned though, typically no drone, they are cheap, and they flow good.