i know what you are saying with the crackling vs exhaust sound. i have had flowmasters (american thunder cat back) with...
-stock mid pipe & stock manifolds -- sounded decent but way too quiet
-
bbk long tubes w/ bbk o/r x-pipe -- sounds good at WOT, but at part throttle from 1800 to 2200 rpm sounded like crap *crackling*
-bbk long tubes w/ bbk catted x-pipe -- sounds good all around, but too quiet for my taste.
-bbk long tubes w/ bbk o/r h-pipe -- sounds absolutely amazing, but i swapped it because the sound is too common...
so, i put a
magnaflow magnapack cat back on the car, with...
-bbk long tubes w/ bbk o/r h-pipe -- sounds like a 1978 rusted out dump truck , its loud as f*** and sounds like the devil at 5-6k rpm
-bbk long tubes w/ bbk catted x-pipe -- this is my current set up -- from inside the car, it still drones a little bit around 2.2k rpm and honestly i did not think it was loud enough... that is because I had never heard it from the outside of the car
from inside its quiet but sweet lord baby jesus, when you crack the throttle, from the outside it sounds down right nasty. it has just enough rasp and none of that crackling noise. its raw sounding for having cat's. I want to sway my mid pipe for an o/r (non chambered) x-pipe to see what it sounds like, but i dont want to drop the coin. I have this feeling if i were to do that, it would probably crackle and i would just switch it back to the catted x.
on another note, i was on my way down to south carolina today and there was a murdered out new edge that sounded pretty damn good. if i had to guess, he had an o/r h-pipe with two chamber flows that were dumped. personally i like tail pipes, but damn it sounded great. it was super deep and throaty. i laid in to mine a lil to pass him and let him hear the blower whine and exhaust. anyway, good luck man. i bet you would be happy with an o/r h and some flow's either two chamber or 40 series