When you drop the cats, regardless of the muffler set-up & midpipe, you will get a less-deep tone. I've bounced all over the place with various set-ups and questioned many people on their set-ups and it seems that the cars I tend to like the most have high-flow cats. What really tends to make a difference in sound and will allow you to keep your car legal (in some states) are some longtube headers, catted h-pipe, and some Magnaflow mufflers. The cars with the most muscle-sounding exhausts tend to have a similar set-up IMO. An O/R X of H-pipe tends to sound rather raspy until you are wide open in the mid to upper RPM range. Not that they don't sound good, but it is a different kind of sound good. I'm currently running an O/R X-pipe with Magnaflows and it sounds pretty mean....until I hear someone with some JBA longtubes, JBA highflow catted midpipe, and some JBA mufflers at which point it sounds like my car is falling apart in comparison.