Alt3rEgo

Wow I thought the sound in cabin is perfect for the car. My 2yr old covers her ears when I'm in dynamic mode. She tells me "mommy's car too loud" so We tell her to cover her ears when mommy is accelerating . Couldn't ask for a better sound IMO.

John P. (TT 225)

I wish my 2018 with Sport exhaust was louder than it is. I thought it would be. And yes--even in Dynamic + Sport.

ken-yyz

I am more than thrilled with the exhaust tone of mine (with sports exhaust and Sport mode), even compared to my B7 RS4 with its V8 grunt. Love that I can calm it down when appropriate too.

RezaWrex

Seems like impressions are all over the map. For me the sound in dynamic is perfect under hard acceleration and could be even a bit quieter under lighter throttle at low RPM's. Comfort is perfect if you want stealth. I've never had a loud exhaust before and my last car (RS5) was fairly quiet even with flaps open, unless you were over 4k.

Flying Scotsman

The 2017 S3 has a soundakator

eyedoc88

For as much as I'm excited about the noise from this car, I'm thrilled to hear that it can be tamed as well. I'm ok with my neighbors envying my car (once it comes in), but since I leave for work before 7am they'd probably get a little annoyed by a full-blown Audi-eruption every morning.

vwman111

Looks like I will be not purchasing the RS3 and getting my refundable deposit back. Beautiful car. main reason to upgrade of S3 is exhaust. So if you can't hear the exhaust when you are sitting in the car, not much point to make the jump. A disappointing end to months of anticipation.

akraev

Yup, we 100% have the Soundaktor even on the 2017's.

You can switch it off via VCDS or OBDeleven if that's your thing.

russbert

I think you may be missing the point. When you are driving the RS3 in Comfort or Auto (Normal) mode, the exhaust note is very nice but also quite reasonable. When you put the RS3 into Dynamic / Sport mode, you can definitely feel the car firm up, the engine begins to idle at a higher rate, the throttle response is remapped and is definitely more aggressive, the transmission stays more aggressive, AND the engine note becomes EXTREMELY SWEET (not super "ricer" loud) but very engaging for lack of a better word at the moment (see the many YouTube videos for examples as they are quite accurate IMO).

That way when you want to be stealthy (cops around) or be a good neighbor (early in the morning), the RS3 can perform quite nicely in that regard. OR, when you want it to sound and drive ANGRY, it will do that as well. I think it's the best of both worlds. So basically the car is BI-POLAR! ;-)

You definitely need to drive one with the Dynamic package if you're on the fence as the S3 is a very good car as well. Tough choice; good luck.

ns2g8tr

I have a couple of clips on my IG account @ns2g8tr_racing I took this past weekend. The car sounds much better outside than inside to me. I guess I am more accustomed to louder exhaust.