Thanks all for the replies, they are all much appreciated. The clarification on synchros was great, I love learning about terms I'm unfamiliar with.

Taking off in second is solid; no noise at all, just smooth power delivery and exhaust.

 

So then it is not the engine and most likely in the tranny, 1st-reverse syncro/band/solenoid/whatever being the likely culprit as surmised.

 

Yea, I had figured it'd have to be tranny related because if it was something with the engine, it'd do it through all the gears.

The synchro suggestion makes sense though, a while back (havent tried it again in a while, been avoiding doing this) if I was pulling up to a stop sign, my habit was to pop it into first as I was coming to a stop so I could just take off again, and a couple weeks ago I noticed that when I would do that, it would sound like I was grinding gears but the clutch was fully in but if I wasn't fully stopped yet, it would just make a gentle grinding sound that slowed as I came to more of a stop and now that the function of synchros has been explained, that seems like a likely culprit given what I just said. Like I said though, I have been avoiding putting it into first without being fully stopped since I noticed it doing that so I don't know if it's still doing it or not.

 

Not really, starting off from a full stop puts the most load on the motor. Just wanted to rule it out.

 

I see. That makes sense. Well, I guess I'll just have to live with the sound for now. Sounds like its not an uncommon sound as per CCA4, and if it's something in the transmission as has been seemingly determined, it's not gonna be cheap for me to have the problem traced and or fixed, but at least now I know its not something in the motor.