I have a 5" system on my truck and never ran it straight piped only with a muffler, but I don't have any trouble running down the road with it. No noticable noise till about 2300rpm when accelerating, otherwise I never hear my own exhaust. Over that it gets pretty stupid loud though, and I love the deep tone it has. Toyo MT's humming away might have a part to play in not hearing the exhaust but even when I had my terra grapplers on the truck I still never heard it when cruising around, or running down the highway at 2k rpm