It does get on ya tits and I have never had loud exhausts but what really does piss me off is the Harley boys have some sort of dispensation and can run open exhausts and it be perfectly fine. Some bike exhausts are stupidly loud but there is almost an expectation that they are like it and therefore by default an acceptance of the volume.
Get yaself to Maplins and buy a db meter - quite cheap. Mount it on a pole 1 metre / 1.2 metres in length and there you have your db meter reading. Obviously it can't do drive past but a good static indicator.