Whew! UPS guy just dropped mine on the doorstep (guess I just made it.)
For the folks wondering about the "Mazdaspeed" vs. Mazda vs. RacingBeat issue: it's the same one (with MazdaSpeed etching) as the one in the posted pictures AND is a "Mazda genuine accessory" part #000-8M-C10. I got it from Mazdastuff.com.
It's a whole lot more pipe and less muffler than the factory one - the muffler's only 11" long X 6" in diameter and it's got almost 2 feet of 2" stainless pipe in front of it. (Doesn't the Vibrant web site mention something about doing cat-back vs. axle-back dyno tests and deciding to develop an axle-back system? That's pretty much what this is.)
Now I just gotta put it on... Looks easy, though - I don't even think I'll have to jack up the car.
If you could post sound clips, that would be excellent. I happened to have found a few sound clips off a japanese P5 site, it had the stock muffler, and the "Autoexe" muffler.
Wow. Easy install. Didn't even jack it up - just reached under and unfastened the old nuts, pulled the bars out of the rubber hangers and put the new one in. On the other hand, I think it's the first time I ever removed a muffler that hadn't pretty much become one with the rest of the exhaust (the car only has 1K miles on it)...
Anyway, in a word: Nice.
It's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. It's got a nice low "putt" to it (hey - you're just not gonna get a big-iron gurgle from a 2-liter 4) and I like the sound when you get off the throttle. It doesn't seem to get much louder as the revs go up, but as has been mentioned, there's a pretty solid resonant drone in the cabin. If you want a quiet interior it might not be your bag - I guess I've just never had a car that was quiet at speed, so I don't mind.
Anyway - I could try a recording, though without a "before" version I'm not sure how useful it'd be. Things just don't sound the same when recorded.
