Truglo Pro-Tune Stabilizer.

A variety of products will dampen string vibration, including yarn, rubber "cat whiskers," and muskox fur. All of them will quiet a bowstring to some degree, but I would recommend a style that does not hold moisture or burrs.

Three other factors affect bowstring noise: If your bow is set at or near its maximum draw weight, it will shoot more quietly than if set at a lower poundage. Also, most bows will shoot more quietly with heavy arrows than lighter arrows because the heavy arrows absorb more of the bow's energy. Finally, a well-tuned bow will be slightly quieter than a poorly tuned bow because a higher percentage of energy goes into the arrow than through the bow.

The Bow Frame
The next steps, in no particular order, are to soak up the vibration of a bow's frame and limbs. Since Mathews installed Harmonic Dampers on its bow risers, other companies have followed suit to deaden what is essentially an aluminum "tuning fork" holding bow limbs in place. Most bow makers who haven't developed their own riser-dampening products, like Hoyt's RizerShox or Martin's Vibration Escape Modules, now install products from other companies.

Sims Vibration Lab Hunter Modular Stabilizer.

To some extent, adding weight helps to quiet a bow because a heavy object transmits less vibration. That was the original purpose of a stabilizer. Today, stabilizers have become high-tech devices filled with various substances, or engineered in some way that will increase their ability to reduce vibration and noise without adding excessive weight.

The options are many in the stabilizer market. Sims' S-Coil Stabilizer is actually quite light, but the integrated NAVCOM material absorbs shock. Another top stabilizer is the Doinker, which features proprietary ITP (Interrupted Transfer Poly-mer) technology.

Other quality stabilizers come from Fuse Accessories, Alpine Archery, Bow-Tech, Carolina Archery Products, Vibra-check, TruGlo, NAP, Carbon Express, Stealth Archery, and Martin.

Truglo Deadenator Stabilizer.

If you don't believe stabilizers are beneficial, screw one on your bow and shoot a couple of hundred arrows. Then take it off. You'll notice the difference. I prefer a stabilizer in the six-inch range because it's big enough to make a difference yet isn't cumbersome.

Parallel limbs and new cam designs have reduced limb travel, which helps reduce vibration and resulting noise from the limbs. Aftermarket limb-dampening devices, such as Sims' Limbsaver Ultra and BowJax's Monsterjax (or Slimjax for narrow limb bows), work very well. Some bow manufacturers have their own designs. Hoyt equips its split-limb bows with AlphaShox. Ross Archery and Al-pine Archery have their own limb dampeners, and CSS Archery offers Tunerz, tunable dampeners for limbs and other bow parts.