Originally Posted by Tye_Defender

Due to some hearing loss, I am now a big proponent of hearing protection but since I bring my young kids I also feel the need to hear what's going on. I bought "active" ear muffs, not sure what they are really called but they amplify sounds around you but then cut out when a noise above a certain level and provice noise reduction similar to regular ear muffs. I wear the cheap foam earplugs and then put ear muffs on over them. This allows me to turn up the ear muff so I can hear what's going on around me pretty well (almost like not wearing any) but get twice the noise reduction when a gun is fired.

This works pretty well for me, but is a little weird. The ear muffs I have cut out the sound very quickly but are not real quick at turning back on (maybe half a second after the noise is gone). This does give me a "lost my hearing" feeling for a short time after each shot but I am used to it now. The ear muffs were about $35 so they aren't top-of-the line or anything, which probably explains the delay. But they still work fine for me and I spend the money I saved by not buying the super expensive ear muffs on ammo. (Probably spent the money I saved a couple times already but I don't want to add it up, denial is a wonderful thing!)