Here's where I am coming from.  I have noticed that lots of pictures i see of Fred Bear, Bob Lee, Glenn St Charles, Ben Pearson, etc. have no string silencers on their bows; and, those bows sounded like a stand-up bass when shot. The bows that Chuck Adams shot to get his Super Slam sounded like a car door being slammed even with silencers and our trad bows today probably shoot almost as fast as those.   Therefore, I question the crazy ends we go through and analysis we subject ourselves to in the name of "necessary" or "ethical" or whatever else someone makes us belieeve is most important this month.
I've only been shooting trad for about 12 years.  Shot compounds before that and back then they were LOUD!  If I shot at a relaxed animal, it died.  
Please don't miss understand me, I'm not trying to promote loud bows for some rediculous reason; but, probably just convince myself to just shoot my bows, hunt more, and forget about obsessing over the little noise my bows make.    :D

My favorite silencer is a heavy arrow.

Any advantage or minimizing the margin of error is an advantage.  BTW my favorite silencer is a Hill bow.

In my mind there is no debate. Quiet is important. Granted noisy stuff still sometimes works, but often, it does not. Why take a chance by deliberately ignoring this major component of stealth? We will never eliminate all noise, but the quiter, the better in my opinion.

I've never really worried much about how quiet my bows are as long as they aren't too loud.

Hey if you think noise works for you-great! To each his own-Right?

I like getting that 6 th shot. LOL

I personally don't think a deer or whatever jumps the string.  I think they jump the arrow.  Stand by the target and have someone shoot an arrow.  You can hear it coming right down your throat.
But I can't stand a harsh noisey bow.  It just ruins the moment.

When I hear guys and gals getting second shots at the same deer....I know it's not because their bow was loud! I have seen self bows with nothing on the string with a heavy, heavy arrow that were silent!

Sam, thats my point!  When did it become so important?  When the technology allowed it to happen? Now your totally wrong and unethical to not make your bow super quiet?  Nonsense!  
Sixby - now that is a good point! I have taken second and third shots with my Navaho Caddo longbow at deer.  Would not have believed it before I did it.  Heavy arrows and longbows are the best I've NOT heard.
I shot over quite a few deer from a tree when I first made the switch to trad equipment.  What kept me going was seeing that I did not spook the game when I missed.  Oops I'm startin to give away my true position on the matter.
Anyone else wanna chime in?

I like having any advantage I can get.  A silent bow is just another tool. Is it necessary? Maybe not! But I know it doesn't hurt.

Its kind of like asking, If my broadhead is kinda sorta sharp but I hit the heart, Is it necessary to get it as sharp as possible?

I shoot longbows with 620 gr. arrows which by default makes them pretty darn quiet.  I use the volume of the noise as an indicator of tuning and form.  If the bow is noisy it tells me my brace is off or I torqued the string, etc.  how important it is in hunting, I don't know for sure, but I love the soft "thump" so much that I switched from shooting 3 under back to spit finger just because I couldn't stand the harsher twang of the bow.  I do however like the sizzling hiss of a snuffer heading down range!

I'll take quiet every time. I have missed deer and they didn't pay attention to the shot. I've even managed to kill some with the second shot.

2nd shot?  I thought you were the killingnest, bestest hunter of the Bishop Boys        :p    !!

 

I'll take a quiet set up every time....but I don't obsess on it.  If it sounds quiet to me it's probably still going to be loud to what ever critter i'm trying to shoot.  As long as it's an accurate shooting set up and sounds quiet go with it....(P.S. my new silencer is a Northern Mist Baraga     )

Hmmmmmm.   :rolleyes:

The way I look at it is if there are quieter bows available take advantage of it

I want my bow as quiet as I can get it.

My little Debbie snack cake wrappers will give me away before my bow        

My experiences have convinced me that quiet is important...some deer have dropped 12" or so at the drop of my bowstring. So for me seeing is believing, so I do what I can to limit the noise as much as possible.Yes, not all deer have ducked my shots but lest one use that as a reason to infer it doesn't matter... well it matters to me as I like some measure of predictability for shot placement.