Help - Need New Tire Advice - anybody gone taller?

[dr_gille]

Hey gang - I'm the proud new owner of a old car - an 01 "S" with 54k miles.

It has a worn set of extremely loud YOKELHAMA AVS 17's on there.

These things sound like a set of JC Penney Road Ranger studded snow tires.
(in case there's any other old guys out there that remember...)

They are AWFUL and my ears are bleeding.

I've been lurking the boards and discount tire sites, and the quality and price
choices are just about simply overwhelming.

I can spend $50.00 ea for some Chinese "Sunny" tires (does that sound
scary or what) or north of $300.00 ea for some variants of Michelin/Pirelli.

Which seems like highway robbery.

Stock - the 2001 S has 205/50/17 Front, and 255/40/17 Rear.

So, now to the question phase.

Has anybody put taller tires on the Boxster?

I have no interest in going 18" or 19".

Rather....

What I was thinking is going up one size in the series -
from 205/50 to 205/55 and 255/40 to 255/45

My nifty tire calculator indicates the fronts would be about 0.800in. larger
in diameter, and about 3.22 percent larger, so, 70mph indicated would
actually be running about 72.3 true. Not a super big deal.

These also would be about 0.61 percent different in diameter front to
back - not enough to confuse the ABS and whatever else is lurking in computer land.

Why?

It might seem sacrilege, but I'm after a slightly softer/quieter ride, and maybe
some longer treadwear.

Any favorite tires out there? I live in AZ - so the car will probably see rain 4 times a year, never be running below 45F.

Other than the occasional burst to 100, I'm never going to be running at felony speeds for extended periods, so the ZR rating is overkill too.

The taller tires might make turn in a bit more squishy, and ultimate skidpad numbers a bit lower, but truthfully, that's going to be hard for me to measure in my normal driving profile.

Thoughts?