Walker’s Silencer Bluetooth Series

During the recent NRA show in Indianapolis a salesman delivered a high-pressure pitch to buy his in-ear hearing protection for $2500 claiming insurance would reimburse me for them as hearing aids.  I don’t need hearing aids yet, but I may be headed in that direction.  Once it was considered tough not to wear hearing protection while shooting or in loud environments, but now we are smarter about the permanent damage done to our ears without protection.  Many ranges are urging shooters to double up on hearing protection with in-ear protection under cup style muffs. 

I have been shooting competitively since I was fourteen years old and have owned dozens of sets of hearing protection both passive and electronic.  Electronic hearing protection is generally designed to use tiny microphones to enhance soft sounds such as voices or game walking through the woods, then disable the microphones for loud noises such as shooting to let the plugs or muffs block the sound. 

While I walked away from the high-pressure sales pitch, later I had a much better experience at The Walker’s Game Ear booth.  At the Walker’s booth they gave me a demo focused on product features rather than scamming my insurance.  Walker’s, of Grand Prairie Texas, has more than 25 years’ experience in hearing protection and with the Silencer series they have hit a sweet spot on the value and feature continuum. 

The package contains two ear plugs, the innovative recharging case, three sizes each of foam tips and plastic wings to fit your ears, a USB to mini USB charging cable, and written instructions.  The recharging case contains a lithium ion battery that can recharge the ear plugs up to four times without a power source, and a magnet to help pull each plug into proper charging position.  Walker’s website claims the Silencer ear plugs can run up to 14 hours and have a Noise Reduction Rating of 26. 

Each plug has a button to increase the volume and another to decrease the volume.  The volume buttons are independent allowing you to push more volume into one ear if you have greater hearing loss on one side.  They each have a multi-function button to turn them on/off and link them together via Bluetooth.

I’m not necessarily a fan of connecting everything to my smart phone.  Usually the Bluetooth function is turned off on my phone for security reasons, but I got talked into the Bluetooth capable version of the Silencer at the very last second.    Making the initial connection was simply a matter of turning Bluetooth on via my phone and holding down one of the multifunction buttons on the ear plugs.  Then selecting ‘Silencer BT’ when it showed up on my Bluetooth menu.  As soon as I made the connection I was able to play music through the ear plugs.  I do like simple.

Walker’s has an App for the Silencer ear plugs.  I found the software to be pleasantly simple and intuitive.  There is a volume slider for ear plug, four buttons for each of the four different pickup modes, and four buttons to tell the ear plugs how long to stay on before they automatically shut off.  I do like simple. 

Actual Use

As impressed as I was by the plugs, charger, software, and ability to play music, that’s not why I bought the Walker’s Silencers; so off to the range I went.  I had to turn up the gain slider past the halfway point to start to hear the amplification.  It was a very fine line from the point where I could just hear the microphones kick in and before I could hear the addition of white noise.  The white noise was not obnoxious but if you turned them up too high after a few hours in a deer stand it would start to get to you. 

The rain started while I was working with the new plugs and the drops hitting the metal roof were easily picked up by the microphones and could be clearly heard.  Of the four possible microphone modes the HF Boost and Power Boost turned the rain into thunderous noise.  While shooting the plugs blocked sound well.  This range has the shooter in a metal and concrete house and I usually wear double hearing protection.  The Walker’s Silencer did their jobs and attenuated the sound down to a tolerable level but would have worked perfectly in an open field with a shotgun.

Overall, I’m impressed.  The MSRP on the Walker’s Silencer with Bluetooth is $299 with street prices usually under $250.  The ear plugs, charger, and accessories are close to perfect and the Bluetooth capability and easy to use software are excellent bonuses.  To me the rechargeable batteries are the way to go over models with replaceable batteries.  If you have an interest in electronically amplified in-ear hearing protection you should at least check-out the Walker’s Silencer.