in no way am I having a go at you.
LOLS @ reference of treadwear rating... Its an american thing, so here how it works as it is meaningless to compare 1 tyre from 1 brand vs another brand, its not even useful for comparing tyres within the same brand...
A tyre with a treadwear rating of 400 in 1 brand is likely to last 4 times longer than a tyre from that same brand rated at 100...
Oh and hankook/Kumho is better in grip to the Achilles ATR sport/sport 2 as they are all designed for Asian roads that are smoother, etc. but will offer less grip than the Bridgestone RE050A\'s
The RE050 is a ultra high performance tyre, like any tyre it is a compromise to certain things. A ultra high performance tyre that gives excellent grip and handling is by nature going to be noisier. Also a tyre that gives very little noise is going to offer less grip etc and so on and so on, all tyres a compromise between noise, grip/handling and longevity, none of them go hand in hand with the other
now if it had been compared it to say bridgestone Ecopia or Firestone TZ700 vs the Kumho you may be surprised on what a quite tyre sounds like
Also Nitto NT5000\'s and their ilk are designed for Asian markets where the tar seal is smoother than our volcanic stone chip seal...
So inshort:
(1)A tyre that is going to last you a very long time (i.e. high Km\'s) is going to offer garbage handling/grip, it may or may not be noisy.
(2)A tyre with great grip/handling is going to offer you less milage and may be noisier than another from above.
(3)A quite tyre will offer you better ride but poorer handling/grip than say (2), but better than say (1)...
Anyway got to go bed, have children (ooops I mean employee\'s) to manage in the morning