Home defense and hearing considerations

[chances R]

If time permits, electronic muffs are not only protective, but also a tactical advantage indoors and out.  Keep 'em with your flashlight and SD gun.

[S&WForty]

If time permits, electronic muffs are not only protective, but also a tactical advantage indoors and out.  Keep 'em with your flashlight and SD gun.

What brands and models are proven?  Any recommendations? 

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I dunno nothin, but if one had time to put on muffs and the electronics happened to fail, then the muffs would still protect hearing even without the tactical advantage of enhanced hearing?

 

Also just guessing, stereo muffs with the mics right on the muffs would be desirable to maintain directional hearing.

 

I suspect that most or all conventional stereo muffs would "slightly" compromise directional hearing, but directionality still works and it would be good to have the super-sensitive hearing. Humans have several auditory sensory directionality cues, all but one of which would be maintained by stereo muffs. There are relative amplitude cues, and high-freq impulses such as "snapping sticks" if a human or animal steps on a stick, the ear seems capable of detecting the slight time delay of arrival to each ear.

 

But the shape of the outer ear contributes another directionality cue. The outer ear acts as a comb filter changing the timbre of sounds depending on whether the sound comes from front, rear, above or below. Muffs would need rubber "fake ears" on the outside of the muff, with the microphones embedded in the middle of the "fake ears" in order to maintain that cue.

 

So possibly active hearing protection plugs would be better for directionality than stereo muffs, assuming that the active plug is small enough that the plug doesn't "mess up" the natural comb filtering of one's own outer ear structure?

Edited January 11, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[moondawg]

Not an issue for me.  I sleep with earplugs in my ears, so I'm good to go.  :rofl:

 

Truth is, I don't have great hearing to begin with, so I probably won't hear much anyways. 

[TGO David]

I'll agree with this. I've fired my M4 inside a house in which several other rifles were being fired with no earpro in. I don't recall any pain or anything like that. Of course, I have real bad tinnitus, but I wouldn't attribute it to one occasion alone. I'm sure if you have the once in 20 lifetime experience of shooting an intruder inside your home you will be fine without earpro. This is one of those things I wouldn't sweat.

 

This is what i was about to post.   But as our co-admin MacGyver posted a while back on the subject of running a suppressed home defense weapon, I'd at least like to be able to hear what the police are asking me once they arrive.

 

I'll be running a can on both my nightstand gun and my shorty AR soon enough.

[williamsburg]

I fired an XD9 inside the house once. My ears rang for a few minutes. But I was still able to hear my wife talking even with the ringing. Our cats though well they hid for a long time.

[TMF]

[quote name="SuperFair92" post="883407" timestamp="1358051130"]I fired an XD9 inside the house once. My ears rang for a few minutes. But I was still able to hear my wife talking even with the ringing. Our cats though well they hid for a long time.[/quote] Was it a spider?

[chances R]

I fired an XD9 inside the house once. My ears rang for a few minutes. But I was still able to hear my wife talking even with the ringing. Our cats though well they hid for a long time.

 

From now on always wear your muffs cleaning your gun.... :rofl:   Your wife was probably yellin',    To answer a previous post, I routinely use the Howard Leight electronic muffs.. Long battery life, auto cut-off if you forget.