One of the Starships was based at our local airport for a few years. Very impressive looking aircraft. As I recall, it was a strange sounding beast; much noisier than you'd expect. Haven't seen it around in quite some time, though.
See also the Piaggio Avanti. http://www.piaggioaero.com/ One use to land at the airport near me (I have not seen it in a while). It also had a very distinctive sound (and was quite noisy).
I first found out about the Piaggio Avanti when I downloaded X-Plane 9 for the iPhone. The whole body creates lift and as a result it handles very differently from other small aircraft.
