I like the twin sound and even the raspiness of a monster ... along with the air cooled lack of sound deadening. What have to say though, twin yes, V twin, no. Parallel yes.
Seriously the monster and most twins would have benifitted from being parallel IMHO.
Cool.
Buddha.

I think parallel twins sound like lawn mowers(or a street legal dual sport at best)... gs500 included. I don't mind the sound of a Harley, but the reason I usually can't stand them is because there are so many that are SO loud that it actually hurts my chest when they ride by, and that's messed up, and takes some kind of deficient personality to be willing to do that to people around you. In general I don't think the sound is that bad, just the volume. The reason they sound different is because it's not an even balanced rotation like most parallel twins where one cylinder is going up the same exact time the other is going down. They're slightly off as far as the rotation timing is going, so when most bikes like the GS go *-*-*-*-*, the Harley twins are going **-**-**-**. The faster normal twins spin, the goofier they sound too. I think the GS sounds ok in the 3k range, but once it gets up near 7k I think it looses any good sound it had. I know bikes make more HP the faster the engine is spinning, but that's one reason I like the Thunderstorm engines in the Buells as opposed to the new rotax engines. Even if they're not making the same power, they're still only revving to about 7k rpm, and you don't have to deal with that normal characterless noise that high-revving twins make.

Either way, when I was referring to the noises ducatis make, it wasn't so much the exhaust noise, as much as that metal against metal sound then give off from the clutch. It's like nails on a chalkboard.