Many tyres change their noise characteristics as the tread wears - some get noisier, some get quieter others just change the noise frequency.

"age-related hearing loss" does have it's advantages !!!

The winter set that goes onto our Forester are quiet generally but make a whining noise on some surfaces, you'd swear there was a wheel bearing on the way out, its really notiecable as you slow for a junction in town when the sound reflects off buildings, on the plus side being 1" smaller diameter wheel (approved size) with higher aspect ratio the ride is much better.

I've scrapped tyres before for excess road noise, which is usally accompanied by a hard ride, a set of Toyos and a set of Fuldas.

The noise is obviously related to the tyre compund, but winter and to a lesser extent, all-season tyres are made of a softer compund and the tread blocks are designed to move more than summer ones because that's how they work well in snow.

What often makes at least as much of a difference to the noise level and comfort is the tread pattern type - asymmetric sumer tyres will be quiter than directional ones, and as most (though not all) all-season and winter tyres are directional, this offsets some of the sound deadening of the softer compound.

What also makes a difference is how many cars these days have lower profile tyres than 10-15+ years ago, and as a result many of them also have a very limited number of tyres (especially if the tyre size is unusal, as many now are), often performance tyres only, which are noisier the 'standard' tyres of the same size.

I changed my Mazda's OEM tyres from 205/55 R16 Dunlops to 195/65 R15 CC+s, and the ride quality has certainly improved, and I'd say that the noise is about the same, as the Dunlops were actually good all-around.

I only changed because the alloys were corroding, causing tyre leaks and the cost of replacing 1No. alloy and 4No. 16in tyres (they were ,1yr from replacement anyway) was only £50 - £100 less than replacing all four tyres and alloys with 15in OEMs and the CC+s.

Both the CC+ and especially the Goodyear equivalent at the time were rated as low noise. I have driven mine on concrete, and its not too bad. The worst was from the awful OEM Bridgestone ER30s (summer asymmetric tyres) which got hard after about a year and later on were very noisy (especially on concrete and top-dressed surfaced roads) and terrible in the wet, despite having a decent amount of tread left.