Maybe I should have went with Borla or Magnaflow rather than Carven, but when it does not drone, I love the sound and the only thing that make it drone is when the MDS is operational. My wife says the Carven is too loud anyway. Maybe I will look into Borla. Who knows... I may have a Carven cat back kit for sale soon.
Borla has an awesome sound/tone!
To me the rumble of a big V8 through a quality exhaust system is one of life's pleasures. There's a few flavors, and they all have fans, deservedly so.
So to be fair, that XR1 muffler was loud. Drone level
to me was liveable, but it was loud at wide open throttle and cold starts, juust like I wanted it to be!
There were times leaving the ex-girlfriend's house at 2am where I would wince as the hemi
ROAAAAAAAAAARED on cold start, echo-ing on the icy streets.
I'm thinking the debate for what you're looking for is between the Magnaflow setup, and the Borla touring system.
I havent heard the borla touring setup up close - but that's their most tame of the 3 systems. I love their sound profile.
The magnaflow system has their large 22in muffler. It's mellow but I can hear that hemi rumble and still enjoy the truck.
With the windows up it's a distant thunder cloud. Give it wide open throttle? A little more noise.
Windows down? A good rumble! And why I chucked that stock unit.
At wide open throttle windows down it has noise, but the noise level hits a ceiling and stops far short of the XR1's
TOTAL-DEAF-SHOUT.
While I miss the borla sound profile, I think from a pure sound level and drone management perspective? The magnaflow makes sense in an "I don't want to wake the kids in the morning or upset the wife" environment.
It's actually why I lean toward keeping it - that the exhaust will be perfect for my wants/needs 7-10 years from now. I've heard (but can't verify) that the borla touring was a little louder than people expected.