This hunting season is also coming to an end, twenty years after the first license! The emotions were numerous, the satisfactions too, many things I learned and many I discovered that I had to learn. But in the balance that, more or less, we all do at the end of the season, the most significant note concerns the net improvement of my hearing functions and, consequently, of my ability to concentrate and react. No miraculous medical intervention has allowed this, but the use of a particularly effective technological device: the Shothunt earphones. Over the years, plagued by my sensorineural hearing loss, the result of repeated youth acoustic trauma in shooting and hunting sessions always with poor protection, I have tried various devices to at least partially restore the irreparably lost hearing sensitivity.
The headphones amplified well, but gave me a sense of isolation and dullness. They had a considerable bulk and little adherence to the head during movements. Pleasant on cold days, I tolerated them badly in the heat and they were greatly affected by the rustle of the wind, which was amplified together with the other sounds, covering them. I then tried earphones, an American product that looked promising. Lighter and more comfortable than headphones, always in wireless connection with the radio, however, they had the defect of mounting the microphone only on one side, to the detriment of the directionality of the sound. Furthermore, the amplification in this case too was not customizable, so that the noises were amplified in a homogeneous way, making those at low frequency excessive, which are generally perceived normally by those with this type of “noise-induced” hearing loss. My search for the ideal aid did not stop, being hearing, especially in the wild boar hunting, a key sense not only to carry out a killing, but even more to follow the dynamics that take place in the thick scrub, the main theater of this type of hunting.
"Boars kill themselves with their ears"Used to say our old people, and each of us will have experienced it, especially in those territories, such as the Maremma, where I mainly hunt, dominated by low and intricate trees. In Maremma there are very few areas with tall trees, and wild boar hunting often takes place in scenarios where a rustle, a roar, is the only sign of the presence of the hirsute before those precious tenths of a second in which it is possible to aim and shoot. In territories of this kind it is useless to hope to catch a wild boar that has been seen to arrive: generally you point at a hole in the thick and pull the trigger when at the point where the hearing has guided the gaze, you see the animal and it is concluded that it is a boar.
- Shothunt earphones that I used this year have given me back the opportunity to fully experience these emotions.
Small and very light, these earphones are wireless, with the possibility of being wirelessly connected to the radio. Comfort in wearing them is ensured by the possibility of choosing the right size rubber pad for your ear canal. Once worn, you forget you have them. Each of the two earphones has its own microphone, and this gives the transmitted sound the same directionality as the natural one. The innovation that I found particularly exciting is that of being able to customize the amplification so that, starting from the audiometric curve of each one, it is possible to amplify only the sounds that are perceived worse (generally the acute ones, at high frequency) without increasing the volume of those naturally perceived (such as vibration or thud), eliminating the annoying "bass" effect of traditional amplification systems. The only defects that I found in my little one, if they can be defined as such, are the not very long duration of the batteries (whose life ends once they are housed, regardless of use) and the sensitivity to electromagnetic fields (which manifests itself with a slight rustle when hunting close to high voltage sources, such as electricity pylons).
- Shothunt they are not only useful in replenishing lost hearing, but they have the precious ability to preserve the residual one. They are, in fact, able to instantly and automatically muffle sounds exceeding 82 decibels, ensuring exceptional protection from the acoustic trauma of the shot. Maybe in the wild boar hunting it is not so immediate to correlate the trauma of the “few” shots fired with the sensorineural damage they cause but, in migratory or clay pigeon shooting, where the shots are numerous and close together, protecting one's hearing is fundamental. All the more so for the youngest, to whom I never tire of repeating how essential it is to keep good hearing and not let it be stolen by the silly superficiality of those who believe that noise is not dangerous.