I am on my third set of the Sumitomo HTRZ III. They will cross your budget by a hair...tirerack.com has them for $592 before shipping. I keep going back to these due to their good handling, dry/wet traction and low noise level. I got 15k miles out of the first set and 18k out of the second. Not much life but that is the down side of running a staggered set up. These are directional tires so something I will be doing this time around is swapping from side to side to see if I get more miles out of them.

My personal experience on the Bridgestones...I have run both the OE Turanza and Potenza and while they are grippy and handle, they are loud and only get louder as they age. You wont get too many miles out of them, either.

The Hankook V12 Evo is also a highly recommended tire on here as well.

Click on the link below and select "tests" to see tireracks.com's video comparing the Sumitomo, Hankook and others:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....el&tab=Reviews

 

I used to work for firestone. The pz900s weren't bad tires. Sure, they weren't Potenzas... but they perform decently. I think the major downside is that they are noisy. Probably no noisier than BFG g force kdw 2 Nt. Those are the noisiest tires I have owned in this life.