Y'know, just about every character I've had chooses to take flare comp and sound dampening for obvious reasons, but I've failed to find any in-game modifiers for not using a sound dampener in things like gunfights. Did I miss something or is this up to the GM's discretion?

You can use it to protect you from loud noises...like if somebody cranks up the stereo and you have super-hearing of some sort, it keeps your ears from bleeding.

Yeah, most people ignore that.

That's "damping", not "dampening". A damper reduces the effectiveness of something. A dampener makes something damp, as in slightly wet. Sorry, peeve of mine. A "sound dampener" would be a device which attempts to make compression waves that are commonly percieved as sound slightly wet.

Bleh, whatever.

However cool a damper might be, I'd be willing to bet that more than a few GMs have missed its importance.

Main Entry: damp·en
Pronunciation: 'dam-p&n
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): damp·ened; damp·en·ing /'damp-ni[ng], 'dam-p&-/
Date: 1547
transitive senses
1 : to check or diminish the activity or vigor of :

Dampener works fine...

Its main use is to protect you from the damage potential of the other advanced hearing modifications. We all know how annoying nails on a chalkboard are; now if you had high freqnecy hearing, youd have a similar sound on 24/7 only louder. And if someone had a *really* high pitched sound, like maybe ultrasound, it could serioulsy hurt your ears (theyre not made to handle that kinda vibration). So, this piece of cyberware keeps you from exploding into so much goo form hearing stuff.

If you wanna add applications outside of that, such as hearing fine after leaving a troll trash concert because it keeps the sound to a reasonable level, go ahead. Id say its well within the function of that piece of cyber. But be sure that you dont overlap into the area of the Select Sound Filter, which would actually let you here people talking in said troll thrash concert, not just avoid the numbing hearing when you leave it.

Am I the only GM who pulled out the experimental Knight Errant sonic rifles during a riot? There safe! 99% of the people hit by a sonic rifle get their hearing back within 1 hour.

...i assume you're talking about a concussion grenade.

Well, just my 2 cents here, but:
-Damper protects against sound spikes. It "dampens" the effect. If you envision a sin-wave, a damper would level out all the peaks. Hence no game effect (like tn mod or bonus dice), just a saftery feature that says it proctects you from "damaging sound levels"
-Select Sound Filter can actually filter out sounds completey. It could eliminate the other voices in a room, one specific sound at a time, until you hear the one you want clearly. Thats why this gives you bonus hearing perception dice.
-Neither of these, nor the cyberear itself, say they can be turned off. I understand that with cybereyes you can toggle the non-standard vision modes on and off, but you cant toggle off normal. Id imagin the same goes for ears. While you can dampen or filter the sound, it makes little sense for the sense you had ears installed to replace to be turned off. Eyes dont come with an off switch, why would ears.

Yep, as much as I have to dislike it as the GM (evil GM grin), thats exactly the kinda thing its meant to do. Id prolly just give them the bonus perception dice to the resistance test, as they try to filter it out, rather than immunity. I mean, differetn people talk on different frequencies, I would imagine barghasts are within a range too. But still, at level 5 thats pretty much gonna double most peoples resist dice .. good stuff!

You might consider a TN mod for gunfire in confined spaces because of the noise. +1 maybe. Hearing damping would negate this.

Cybereyes, like natural eyes, can be turned off. Just close your eyes.

Also, anywhere where you have a device in your head that has sound, like a headware radio, you can turn it off. Even cyberears, it's just a microphone afterall.

So wait, what about unsilenced gunfire? That's why my characters use it: gunfire is LOUD.

WHAT?! ....WHAT!!?....SPEAK UP!

Agree w/ fortune. Turning ears off makes no sense at all unless you found it printed that doing so is possible. Eyes turning off by shutting them, well fine but some things are bright enough to at least show through eyelids as light or no light. The ears thing though ... cant take that without a reference, its too counter-intuitive.

It seems it's completely up to GM discretion. In my games: Negligible hearing loss from Flashbangs, lower Stun from Flashbangs (6M vs 3M). Also protects you from other similar threats, e.g. no hearing modifiers after coming out of a gunfight (normally up to +4 or more), no hearing modifiers for having been close to a grenade going off (normally anywhere between +1 and +6), etc. To actually hear things during a gunfight, you'd need the Select Sound Filter.

Regarding turning off Cyber-senses, I have to throw in just a quick opinion/observation:

Cyber-eyes are not explicitly stated to be normal-eye-replacements...many of the examples of Cyber-eyes in the books are more like high-tech eye-patches that cover the whole socket from the outside. You can't close your eyelid over that unless you're some sort of uber-freak, and so a "shutoff" command would only be reasonable, to allow you to sleep comfortably. The same should apply to ears simply for the matter of sleep, if nothing else.

Otherwise, maybe every Sam should have a Sensory Deprivation Chamber like in Daredevil..