Picked up my copy Saturday afternoon and went straight home to dig in...........almost 2 hours later (lol), I finally got to racing.
Sounds are generally greatly improved over previous GT games. I have a Mazda RX-7 which I fitted with some racing parts that absolutely screams with anger. It is so loud from the rear view that I have to switch to interior view to save my ears (I use headphones). And, there are some other cars I noticed that sound pretty good also. The transmission whine is evident when using the cockpit or hood view. And, the sound from behind the vehicles is mostly exhaust sound as I would expect.
However, the American V8's are not right. Specifically, I bought the '71 Mustang as it is a car my Dad owned when I was a youngster. I remember how his sounded. And, GT's version is lacking. After fitting the car with a semi-titanium exhaust and some other upgrades the car seems to sputter at different revs. At low revs, it sounds great. But, anything over 2.5K rpm sounds like the car isn't getting enough air or too much fuel is being dumped into carburator. It's hard to describe. I've tried different exhausts and different matches of upgrades but it still sounds like it has a cold. I'm not done swapping parts but so far I've yet to find the sound.
While running the first Muscle Car Championship (think it's in the Amateur A-spec class), I noticed the sound of the '65 Mustang 350GT as it passed by. It sounds like some kid put a 6 cylinder motor in and installed one of those bumblebee exhausts that are popular on rice rockets. Simply awful. Very disappointing. Some of the V8's in the race sounded tolerable (the Tempest sounded nice). But overall, the classic V8 sound isn't there.
The NASCAR cars have a very synthetic sound (to my ears). I've been to four NASCAR races in my life: three trips to Talledega and one to Daytona. And, what I heard in person hardly resembles the sound PD assigned to these cars.
In spite of my complaints, I am still fairly pleased with the improvement in overall sound. There is enough improvement in this aspect that I'll play the game for a long long time. It is just disappointing that some sounds did not receive the treatment they deserve. In my opinion, if sounds more closely replicated real life, this game would appeal to a much larger audience and help to sell more PS hardware. Maybe the PS4 will be better suited to supporting the sound we all want so badly to hear in a GT release.