As for individual air cleaners (pods), the induction noise on this Kawasaki (pictured earlier) is absolutely annoying and painful at certain rpm. I believe the original air cleaner would have muffled much of that....wish I had it.
When really romping on this bike, first you get a roar of the engine itself......then the induction noise....then the scream off the pipe...all in seperate stages, sort of like how the early test planes would go through stages as they broke the sound barrier. Guess it would be real cool if I was still 18.......