<< Is there a noticeable difference (besides prestige) between high end Ti and budget Ti ??
i am riding a Tru temper OX III gold steel frame for my mtn bike and could not really tell a difference between a high end Columbus Steel. >>
I certainly think so. My own experiences are at least partly a function of the fact that I am a larger guy (6'3", 185) with a slightly brutal riding technique that will reveal whatever flex exists in a frame. Since ti is inherently a more flexible material than steel, a poorly-designed frame will exhibit undesirable ride qualities much more readily than a steel one. This is at least part of the reason that high-end ti bikes have such disparate designs, often oriented around maximizing drivetrain stiffness (e.g., the oversized chainstays used by many builders, or Serotta's wonderful Colorado Concept tubing, in which the downtube and seat tubes are swaged and externally butted to very large dimensions near the bottom bracket shell). Seven and Serotta also use custom tubesets to optimize the stiffness and ride for each rider's dimensions and riding style. To their credit, Airborne have tried to jump on this bandwagon as well, by throwing in some external butting. To my eyes it is a rather clumsy design, and their bikes look poorly welded compared to high-end American bikes, but they are obviously much cheaper and I don't doubt they are plenty strong. I DO doubt, however, that they offer ride quality similar to quality American bikes.
My own experience with steel has been that ride quality and handling do vary considerably (my De Rosa is MUCH nicer than the production steel bikes I have ridden), but the basic designs and tube dimensions are much more homogeneous than titanium. Notably, your MTB uses a very high-quality tubeset, so I'm not sure it makes sense to expect it to ride much differently from other high-end bikes. As I said before, my own experience has been that steel is probably the nicest-riding road-bike material, but the shock absorption, resiliency, and durability of ti makes it optimal for MTBs. I know my Serotta rides much nicer than the two steel MTBs I owned previously (a Bridgestone MB-3 and an MB-0), though that must be partly due to the Colorado Concept design, which I feel is one of the best ideas in all of bikedom.