Mine isn't any louder than stock as I still have the suitcase on.
Are you concerned about the smell inside or outside of the vehicle? If outside, you're inside, right? As long as your recirc function works, you're good.
If you keep the muffler it will be quieter than without, but, you can absolutely hear the exhaust louder with the cat and dpf gone.
Using recirculation non-stop is a terrible idea. It creates stale air in the car and it causes mold buildup in the HVAC system. Only time I use recirc is when at a stop in traffic to keep the damn windshield clean of spot, once I'm moving recirc comes off.
If you think +100 tq isn't noticeable, I don't know what your frame of reference is... aerospace, probably. It'll shave about two seconds off your 0-100 km/h time, which is impressive to me.
There's a bit of smell at cold idle but for many it's not a big deal.
Tuning and not deleting is only prolonging inevitable failure of those parts.
To you...
To me, +64 hp and +95 lb-ft of torque should be very noticeable. That's for the Stage 2.5 for a 2013 TDI. For my 2010, +56 hp and +79 lb-ft for a Stage 2 is very noticeable. I likened it to going from D to S before the tune. Now, D is almost like S was and S is now a whole 'nother deal.
To me, though, the bigger deal was to get rid of the cancer parts and get better fuel economy. I got an honest to goodness +1 mpg for my daily driving. Trips are better than that. Having the 6-speed, we do good to get low to mid-20's on trips. The last trip I did with no trailer saw a high of 27 mpg (hand calc'd).
And you...
He's asking the performance difference between tuned with emissions equipment intact and tuned with emissions equipment deleted. The emissions equipment only holds up a couple horsepower total. I've compared my 0 to 60, 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile drag slip times to another guy on here who has the same exact mods but emissions equipment deleted versus mine intact and we are talking He was like 1/10 of a second faster in everything But he also had Joe's performance transmission controller unit mod which likely explains his faster 60 ft time and overall drag times.
Regardless, tuned or tuned and deleted these are very very slow cars and my Touareg would regularly get walked by bone stock pedestrian ass cars lol
My Touareg regularly did 26 and 27 mi per gallon with big heavy all-terrain tires, highway driving of course.