***UPDATE***
In case anybody cares--it appears that my initial assesment was incorrect. It was not the tires that was driving the drone that I described above, rather it was a bad wheel bearing. I had thought about this earlier and put my winter wheels/tires on to check it out--the sound was not as noticable, but still there. I changed out the front RH wheel bearing and I am back to uber-quiet. So, to set the record straight, the Yokohama AVS ES100s are a quiet tire with decent performance--and I would reccomend them.
--flyer