I agree to a point, lol. The frequencies of pretty much any bow on the market are fairly similar. All of them are un-natural sounds in the woods, which IMO is what causes them to react. At shorter distances deer react more than at long distances, most likely because the sound is deadened and they (like humans) have a the ability to tell whether a sound is close enough to put them in danger. My point is that regardless of whether you have a loud bow or a quiet bow, the deer will have time to react to the sound of the bow. The only thing that may differ is how much they react. At close differences, this reaction will be greater than at long distances. At 20 yards, deer will still react to the slowest and quietest recurve on the planet.
Bingo. I am wondering how silent a bow would need be to be silent enough at say 25 yards for a deer to not hear it. Or, another way of saying that, is what is the maximum sound a bow can make that the sound in the frequency generated will have dissipated enough so it is below the hearing threshold. Another thing, the guy with the Bowtech Insanity was roughly the same as mine, but the sound i heard was the arrow zipping down range. It really hummed.
That would be interesting to find out. But then again it will differ for each species. If you have a noisy bow you can shoot at 300ft/s and an Impala or Warthog will jump you at 25y, enough to miss or just shave the hair of its back. With a quiet bow you can make the shot with ease. On bigger game the weight of the animal restricts it from reacting fast enough. So a new question can be, "How quiet is quiet enough?" There is an big sound difference between plastic vanes and feathers. The Feathers are much more noisy through the air but work just so much better than their plastic counterparts.
The range I shoot at has a arrow proof mesh between groups of lanes. The first time I was down there a guy was shooting a bear with feathers. Sounded like a beehive moving down range.
That is why the animals don't stringjump when shooting with feathers... It is a natural sound to them.:p
Think about this... When your arrow hits the target, it's about 90 dB. If you can keep your bow quieter than 90, it's quieter than it probably needs to be. I have a few bows and all are pretty quiet. Here's the breakdown... The quietest bow I have is my dad's old compound bow. It's a bear lights out, and when I shoot a 370 gr arrow it's about 80 dB. The draw is whisper quiet too. It shoots about 225 fps. My best hunting bow is my diamond black ice. It is a good balance of speed and low noise. It's extremely quiet on the draw with a whisper biscuit. On my iPhone says that Its about 60 dB when I nock an arrow and 83 dB when I shoot it. I think it's shooting about 240 fps, so it's fast enough to be relatively silent from 20 yes and in. Beyond 20, it's hardly loud enough to register on my phone with a recording. My newest bow is a PSE madness 30. I shoot it with 370 gr arrows and it's about 265 fps. When shot, I think it's about 87dB, so it's certainly louder, but when a bow is faster, it's louder. The draw is very quiet too with a trophy ridge revolution 2.0. When measuring the sound from 20 feet, it's less than 80 dB. The fact is that I just don't think that from within 25 yards, the reaction time of a deer wouldn't be fast enough to matter, and beyond 25 yards, its less likely that the sound would be more audible than wind or a bug or many other natural sounds. So yes I am certain that those people who are shooting 500 gr arrows at 200 fps is quieter than my faster arrows. It's a trade off. For every 5 fps you are going to gain about 1 dB. That's just the facts, so ultimately faster bows are the loudest, but I don't want to go back to the days of shooting 650 gr arrows out of a recurve. That's my grandpas game, I want speed and high KE.
