Help me pick an exhaust!

[Blau]

Sounds clip of a cold start for those who are interested. Berk Race on a 128i.

128i Berk Race

[Snakevenom]

I am in the same situation as you and have looked at 100s of videos its between Dinan and Berk street. Dont want a loud and raspy sound ...going for Berk because the Dinan is twice the cost and you have to cut your stock exhaust instead of sell it ...

[Zach477]

I personally think this set up sounds great, but might be on the loud side. I will say it sounds much better after than before, much less rasp. I'm in the process of a full motor rebuild on a project 135 I picked up this fall and wont get mine on the street for prob another month. I'm going to start with catless DPs, stock cat back (secondary cats and resonator) and replace the stock muffler (axle back) with the Vibrant ultra quiet resonator. If this ends up being too tame I'll try the set up in this video and add another resonator in my 3" straight section if it becomes too obnoxious.

[blue135]

Exhaust tones/sounds are very much an individual taste in my mind. And I am believing that as we age, what is pleasant and acceptable does change. Love my Dinan because it is not load under Norman circumstances, but one make pretty sounds with it if one tries.

[Grimm5698]

You can have your stock exhaust modified to PE mod I believe they just open it up and weld a pipe inside. I'm in Texas so I skipped the PE mod and just did a 3" electric cutout right before the muffler, I can have it loud whenever I want and if I get tired of the loud I just close the valve and it's back to stock 😎 But if you're looking for a specific sound that's not too loud a street muffler would be best Active Autowerks, Rouge, Berk maybe Corsa but those tend to be a bit louder

[battlecorgi]

I have a n54 135i and the Dinan axelback has zero drone and civilized when you need it to. Enjoyable sound in higher rpms, think it will be prefect for you.

[CharsadehBEAST]

You won't find a new PE anywhere, don't bother looking. I went to the local BMW dealer to get a quote for new N54 midpipes and they had 1 in stock in the entire country for ~$3,000! For mids! Try scouring the classifieds on here, and if you are extremely lucky you might come across something on eBay, CL or FB marketplace.

I ran Injen intake + VRSF catless DP + stock mids + PE with y-pipe. For reference, I have a N55 with DCT.

Not obnoxious IMO, very little drone on the highway and with music even on a low setting not noticeable. The smell from the catless DP was too much for me, so much so that I didn't drive the 1er for several months. I wanted to get N54 mids because they have cats and thought it would clean it up but could not find a used set locally so I went with plan B.

I just got it back from the shop today; he swapped the catless DP with a catted one (also from VRSF) + Berk mids so my setup is now:
Injen intake + VRSF catted DP + Berk mids + PE with y-pipe.
Zero drone, way too tame for me but given your comments I think it's the perfect setup for you. Going from catless to catted DP quieted it down significantly and I thought the Berk mids ($615) would make up for it but not worth the $. If I could do it all over again I would've kept the catless DP and paid a local muffler shop to install high flow cats on the mids. The positive is that the exhaust smell has been reduced by 80% and I'm hoping that improves further in a few hundred miles after the new DP and mids are broken in.

I don't have any sound clips and if I did it wouldn't mean much, you need to hear different exhaust options in person to know if it's acceptable for you.

With N55 you can swap out both the mids and axle back without causing smog issues. I suggest you get the Berk street + Berk mids or just the Berk race axle back. I think just the Berk street axle back will be too tame.

I'm in the East Bay if you want to swing by and go for a ride.