Patent-pending technology, super-enthusiast expertise and the noble cause of hearing protection separate TETRA Hearing devices from all others.
Greg Tinsley
Of all of the pieces of gear accumulated to increase effectiveness and enjoyment afield, of all the shooting tools and accessories we buy, it does seem that the sporting press rarely mentions equipment that is designed to protect and/or enhance our hearing. Editorially, these are big-time misses when one considers that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) lists hearing loss as America’s third most relevant health problem.
Further, the cracking report of a firearm sits alone atop the list of sound events that cripples one’s hearing. Number One with a bullet, to turn the radio term for a chart-busting hit song and into an “effective” quip.
Old timers like me were once ignorant to the degree and to the permanency wrought by unprotected shooting, and we represent the increasingly expanding bulk of the group, the one-third of adult Americans, who the CDC suggests is currently living with some hearing damage.
Moving into the present, most outdoor mentors and their students now understand that a few minutes of casual skeet shooting without hearing protection is a serious – potentially life altering – mistake. Foam ear plugs are cheap, as are protective ear muffs. In this instance, dirt-cheap prevention being worth 10-billion pounds of cure, because there is no cure. Once the delicate hairs and the nerves of the inner ear have been smoked by muzzle blast, the shooter’s natural ability hear is perpetually compromised and left to worsen.
Several year ago, Dr. David Gnewikow and Dr. Bill Dickenson, hardcore hunters, embarked on a partnership – TETRA Hearing – to redefine the audio experiences of traditional sporting enthusiasts. The award-winning result is three classes of new and improved products: the Shield, the AmpShield and the Custom Shield – each represented as super-comfortable little electronic marvels.
The Shield series is for high-volume shooters – the helice-, the skeet- and the pistol-and-rifle range sets. Think: West Texas dove hunters who know why they are saving for blue pigeons in South America; sharpshooters changing the weather above towns of prairie dogs. The good doctors, well-lettered audiologist by trade, did literally change the national narrative when the TETRA Shield was named Best Technology of 2019 by the editorial crew of Guns & Ammo. Most comfortable, clearest sound in normal conversation, no wind noise, were the top remarks of the G&A judges.
Dr. David, particularly, is a keen duck hunter. The rub with straight-up hearing protection for waterfowlers has been the need for the caller to hear how he/she is blasting compressed air through the call. That’s according to my son, Brooks, who by every measure is a championship-caliber caller.
For me at least, a set of TETRA AmpShields, factory tuned for duck hunters (Really? Yes!), projects to completely solve the question of what birthday present to give to the duck hunter who has two of almost everything. Loud calling, followed by audio-crippling barrages of gunfire, position the TETRA AmpShield to the top of every waterfowlers needs list.
Pure hearing enhancement, and/or enhancement with measures taken to rebuff infrequent muzzle blast, is perhaps the most underutilized – yet super important – tool in hunting.
Was that a gobble? Where? On cue, like from a bad comedy skit, I point south and my partner points west.
Was that a bugle? Maybe. I point west as my partner points east.
In so many hunting situations, hearing well is essentially everything. And there are many hearing-enhancement products for hunters on the market that cannot complete with TETRA’s patent-pending Specialized Target Optimization technology (STO). Dr. David and Dr. Bill analyzed the acoustical properties of game vocalizations – isolating, enhancing and baking that new capability into the TETRA Amp Series. Greater volume, improved distance, more acute directional awareness – who doesn’t need that on a bowhunt for bulls or a run-and-gun for gobblers?
I find Amp STO technology to be at its most interesting, for the most number of enthusiasts, while posted in the dome of silence that defines the great whitetail woods. How many times can one man be handcuffed and humiliated by creeper does and shadowy, soft-stepping bucks? I ask myself.
The superior adage “readiness is all” seems to have been created for whitetail hunting with TETRA Amp STO technology.
The TETRA line of audio products is broad and deep. The work of Dr. David and Dr. Bill is highly specialized and of noble purpose. The company is organized to serve you personally online, moving you towards the affordable, all-day comfort of the right Amp hearing enhancement for your primary quarry, shooting Shields for the firing line, or into a set of custom-fitted, do-it-all AmpShields. You’ll need cruise through www.TETRAHEARING.com, and speak directly with the professionals, to start hearing what you’ve been missing afield.
Author Greg Tinsley is the former Editor of Texas Outdoor Times, Petersen’s BOWHUNTING and HUNTING and Fair Chase by the Boone & Crockett Club.
