Well that's fairy tales.When it first came out it was the quietest diesel around, you could barely hear it dag dagging, and they were nice and smooth, much better than most opposition back then. The VAG diesels still sound like tractors! Still wouldn't buy one though, diesels are yuck.
Not in the civic it's not - in the Accord, from inside the Cabin the engine is impressively quiet. In the civic it's always there, but as I said above it's comparable with the other tractors of the time.