I think these manufacturers in general, including Ferrari need to stop putting mufflers on their turbo engine'd cars. The turbos themselves and the catalytic converters muffle the sound of the engine enough.
Case in point, the Fiat Abarth. 1.4L 4 cylinder Single Turbo engine that comes from the factory with no resonators and no mufflers and sounds like a mini Ferrari. In many ways I think the stock exhaust note on the Abarth sounds much more exotic than the F10 M5, even though one is an Italian Hot Hatch and the other is an German Sports Sedan, but my point being that with the right exhaust setup a turbo car can sound good. I kept the exhaust on mine stock cause it doesn't need an exhaust and I daily drive it and get pure enjoyment from the stock exhaust note every day.
I think that if you opened up the exhaust a bit on the new California-T, you would find an exhaust note worthy of a Ferrari. From what it sounds like Ferrari went through great lengths to try and keep that Ferrari exhaust note with the flat-plane crank shaft and equal length exhaust manifolds. It's just a shame that they have to bottle up that sound due to EU and U.S. db sound regulations. I think there's the great sound of a Ferrari engine hidden behind the mufflers on the new California-T. So far as I can tell from the videos there are hints of some Ferrari flavor sound from the new California-T engine, but it's just too muffled to tell. I will say that most of you are right, compared to other more natural Ferrari's, the California-T pales in comparison.
I will never give up hope that a turbo engine can sound every bit as good as a NA engine, you just have to design it right.
The performance of the engine seems legit too.
