A man of my own heart! I've been doing these type arrow sound tests for years, but not as elaborate as yours. As I did some of the tests, a friend had a 'sound recording machine' (not sure of the proper name) which shows the sounds on a graph type display. I do not think you'll get quieter than the unfletched arrow. Air friction is what makes sound. The less things on the arrow, the less sound. I was surprised on how I couldn't tell a big difference on your tests either. I thought the feathers would be hawwwable loud, but they weren't. I was also interested in the Silent Knight claim. You did a great job keeping it unbiased. In my 54 years of bowhunting, I've come to a conclusion on the arrow in flight to an animal. Doing lots of video tests, I believe for example, a deer, sees and hears the arrow coming to it. I think the bow gets blamed too much. Stop and think how deer are geared, to stay alive. Their hearing is amazing and their eye sight (key point here) is 270* or so, they don't want to die from predators. White or light fletch is more visible to the deer than darker fletches. Anyone can do these tests with a fairly good camera/video and put it at the target, I used a 3D deer target and my video camera is under the chin. Maybe a test for you in the future? I have some tests on my channel. Thank you for going thru all the work to do this, it is a very important part of bowhunting. Edit: I tested lighted nocks on the receiving end, and the animal is unable to see it. It is hidden behind the arrow as it flies toward the animal.

Great test. Something I’d like to see tested is the claims of Arizona EZ-fletch that says their max helical is quieter than offset fletching.

Why bother doing this!?!? Because you are doing this for the people! And I can’t thank you enough. Thank you! Mike in Tosa WI

Was LITERALLY just looking this up last night.

Great vid! Looking forward to the slower tests

I really appreciate your videos! Thanks for all the hard work!

Thanks for taking the time to do this. That was a lot of work.

Thank you for your test. I appreciate the time you invested! Keep in mind that this test was recorded on cameras. The cameras are most likely applying audio compression which will level out most differences in volume. If you still have all those arrows around and are interested in a definitive answer, I would suggest shooting past a db-meter and a studio microphone. Any way: Thanks for your time!

Great video. Thank you for all the time and effort for both yours and our benefit. Always wanted to do such a test.👍🏻🏹💪🏻

Great job. Keep us posted on your ongoing testing.

Amazing, thank you for all the effort and time put into this study.

God bless you and thank you for spending time to do all this Angelo Gee

Great videos! I’m really glad your channel came across my feed!

The Banana and Griff X seemed to be quieter*** than the rest. Great video.

Great video, this is something that i wrestle with every year, but never tried 20 types at a time!! Nice work

Banana was the quietest to my ear, then the silent knight and TAC driver. Was surprised how loud the AAEmax were. Great testing!

Thanks for the testing it was very interesting and dispelled some common myths. Your bare shaft tune was great to see. I will be interested in slower speed testing and four fletch testing for reference. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for doing the work. It’s actually surprising the noise the arrow makes.

Wonderful work!! Something that is always questioned. Many thanks.

You always make awesome content! Thank you!

Thank you for the testing

I'd love to see you repeat this with a decibel meter. Great work!

Great test brother. Thank you!

I think that the Flex Fletch vanes were the quietest to my ear. I had just come in from recording the sound of my arrows, man do they sound loud. Probably change the fletches on my hunting arrows. Thanks for the test, it helped me out.

That was a lot of different fletchings! Even if there were no huge differences, there were a few and bare shaft that were a bit less noticeable. Thanks for the good work!

Great video bud!

16. Q2i Griff-X vane was the quietest by my ears. 12. Flex Fletch banana cut vane & 13. Flex Fletch Silent Knight vane were very close second place for me. I currently shoot the AAE Hybrid vane. I'm happy with it's performance. Thanks for taking the time to film, edit and post this! Good luck on your trips!! Take care. -Love from NH

Great test! I was surprised at some, and it did seem like the bulk were fairly close in overall decibel, maybe some lasted a tick longer. I felt the Silent Night was the quietest, close behind was the Zinger Fletch

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Great video

#11 & #12 both quieter than the rest to my ear and very similar to each other

Imagine the noise coming from a UNTUNED bow.

Excellent video and your hard work is much appreciated. I did a similar test with a decibel meter (Reed R8050) and iPhone app several years ago (2017), which I discussed in an episode of the 9-Fingers Chronicles Podcast (05/28/2017). I shot the arrows inside to eliminate environmental noise. The Reed could be set to give peak numbers, and I had to place it in a large insulated box to shield it from the bow noise. The iPhone apps would give a graph and peak readings. I found it very difficult to get accurate and reliable readings, and all the fletching types I tested (AAE Pro Max, Stealth, and 4” plastifletch) were very similar. In addition, 3 vs 4 fletching were also similar. However the 4 fletch with the smallest vanes seemed to have a slight edge. The problem I feel had to do with the sampling frequency of the Reed and iPhone, as well as having to exclude the bow noise at close range (10 ft indoors) despite shielding. I feel that recording and listening to the audio may provide the most info, like you have done. Also, I think that frequency is likely to be the most important factor, with high frequency sounds being more alarming than lower frequency louder sounds. I may try my experiments again by placing an audio recording device and decibel meter at 40 yds, and shielded behind the side of a wall to reduce any possible bow noise. Great work and best wishes. Mike D

I think your assessment is correct, the bow noise is the problem, not fletching. Bare shaft is the surprise and the answer. Thanks.

Number 11 I think was the quietest

Great video Sr. Your cardboard big ear is awesome...haha. I think silent knight bully tac and zinger are the quietest because are the stiffer too and less wind involved but is a guess not an absolute true. Thanks for your time

Really wished you shipped to Canada. Looks like an excellent product.

Thanks great video.

I thought 8 and 19 were the two quietest. I cannot lie, in the beginning when you showed the fletchings, I said hell the extra glue alone will make all of them loud. Good test my guy.

#11 and 16# were the quietest.

Many years ago I bought some firenock aerovane fetches and was testing their claims with my wife safely behind a tree. It was a little quieter but out of curiosity I tried a 4 fetched aae pm 23 staggered. Wow night and day difference. I also had Another Arrow With the same fetching same right helical and it buzzed. Since that day I hunt with staggered vanes.

Some how I started using the aerovanes from firenock years ago. 50 lb bow, 500 to 650 gr arrows. Really never had pigs or axis deer dip from the impending arrows.

Thanks for the video Ronald. I agree. Not much difference .

Great review and appreciate your sound logic, no pun intended. Surprised you didn’t use aerovanes in your test

The frequency on #11 was lower pitched to my ear as opposed to the rest

The sk-2 vanes are one of the quietest vanes I've ever tested.

nice, thanks

Great video man. 4 fletch is not really quieter from my testing. One extra leading edge to generate noise. But 4 fletch lets you run small profile so frequency/pitch is different I think which may offer some advantages. Assuming same RPM outer edge of low profile vanes are moving slower. So I think in general a low pitch noise is created. All just a guess though. If I get a chance I will put up a really rough video of 4 fletch mini blazer vs Easy Vanes 3FP70 and Easy Vanes 4FP65. The 3FP70 (3 fletch 70mm) is much quieter than blazers and the 4FP65 (4 Fletch 65mm) is still quieter than the blazer.

Sure confirmed what I’ve heard about shield cut feathers.

Q2i Griff X seemed to make the least noise to me. The flex fletch 5" and silent knight were pretty quiet as well. Those 3 stood out the most to my ears.

Try test again with a turbulator 1/4" before fletching to disrupt wind.

I think 2 and 3 were the loudest and the rest were essentially the same to me. Changing the amount of helical and/or offset will affect noise too.

Hi everyone, Big Ear was a good call 👂Thanks for the nice test and good configuration for it. I don't have as keen hearing as I used to but with my headset on I think for me I came up with 2 choices I would claim to be the quietest ones. # Q2i Griff X and Flex F5" with these I could not make out which one was better and third was probably BTV. I think these 3 had the softest sound and no whistling sound in them and the duration was also a bit shorter than the others. If possible in the future, maybe db sound meter could also give some idea and the duration with slow motion? I do not know,, but maybe? Have a good one everyone.

Cool test thanks. The difference in frequency (pitch) from the different fetching was huge and not so much the sound level. Deer have the ability to hear higher frequencies much better than humans thus the deer whistles on cars. This test with a device to measure the frequency would be beneficial I imagine?

I shoot heavy and I've found that the shield cut 2in feathers are fairly quiet as well as my bow.

After 40 years I have found that feathers is the way to go

Great video, would it be possible to test for noise with a decibel meter and see what set makes the more noise, as it passes by or gets to target?

What I noticed was that most were similar but some did have more of a high pitched sound. I think a high pitched sound is more alarming than a "whoosh" sound. Great video... Question: if an bow, arrow and broadhead are well tuned with each other... Would/could fletching be eliminated? That bare shaft was way quieter. Just throwing that out there?

great video!...wrt noises: my hearing is pretty good and the difference in noise pattern is dramatic (with some training I would recognize the type of the fletching just by the sound). I don't believe that more vanes will improve noise - I believe it is just the opposite as it is more surface thus more friction in the air. To back this up: listen to the bare shaft! I think noise can be improved with smaller arrow diameter (again: less surface, less friction, hence likely less noise), so that might be an idea for a follow up on this video. Some manufacturer (Victory for their VAPs) put a special coating on - it is meant to be less sticky, I recall they call it ice-coating? ...so this (special coating) could also be something that could improve noise (although I understand that was not Victory's task here).If I would have the job to develop "silent" vanes, I would look at mother nature: think about owls - you can only see them flying - you can't hear them, then compare this to a swooping crow or something similar!

Easily the two quietest to me are: #11: 11:09 13:25 (Flex Fletch 5") #16: 11:16 13:30 (Q2i Griff-X 3") Then potentially: #13: 11:12 13:27 (Flex Fletch Silent Knight SK-300 3")

BTW I do think the the silent knight amd tac sounded a bit less noisy

To my ears it's mainly the pitch of the WIZZ. Imo shoot the vane that shoot the best. My set up is 3" bohning x vanes, 3 fletch, on a 2.5-3 degree helical

19, 7, 11, 13 were the quietest to me, in that order.

I shoot the aae hybrid 26 and I like them

How much FOC do you have in the bareshaft? For me it was the Flex Fletch 5” and Q2i Grif X that seemed quietest.

I wish you would have tested the Firenock Aerovane2 an Aerovane3 in this test.

it seemed like the gateway rayzr feather seemed quiet

7, 11, 12 were the quietest

Not to tell you how to spend your money Ron, but have you considered buying a decibel monitor and having the camera watch the reading at 20 and 40 yards. That way you have a "scientific" number to apply to each fletching repeated the test 2 to 3 times per fletch and take the average?

I think it was a great test, but to be fair, like you addressed, the trad vanes is meant for trad bows, not compounds. I think you would’ve had a clear winner if you shot that one cane setup from a recurve around the 170-190 fps mark. But overall it was a good test. For what it’s worth, I shoot the trad vanes 4” 4 fletch from a Hoyt Satori 53#@29” 550 grain arrow around 196fps.

Long-ish, low profile 4-fletched owl feathers? Not treated / painted so that the microscopic properties that make owl feathers so silent remain?

The first hearing loss is high pitch. I can assume you’ve lost your high pitch hearing. The biggest difference I heard was the whistle. I think three of them had a very bad whistle. One thing I didn’t hear you mention is offset vs helical. I’ve not tested personally but have noticed some agreement on that being a big difference. Helical being the louder of the two

You should try to get your hands on a decibel meter to have actual numbers to compare

They all sounded the same to me .

The initial bow and string noise is so loud that i doubt the fletching matters much.

5,11,12,16th...seemed the most silent....think one was an AAE

I thought the last two were quite impressive

I thought the Flex Fletch sounded the quietest #11

I thought 5 and 10 was about the quietest? Alot of the same sound

only meaningful difference I heard was bareshaft. which led me to believe the arrow itself going through the air oscillating makes some noise. but fletching vs vanes or differences in them made no difference

Worked better without the cardboard ear

Yup, always believed in parabolic rather than shield. You proved it.

not enough difference to make any difference.

8 and 19 sounds the best.