John,

Shooting suppressed is a revelation. It's certainly not what is depicted by Hollywood but it's really nice. The elimination of the muzzle blast is the best part about it. The only time you will hit Hollywood levels of suppression is with subsonic ammo in a manual action (bolt, lever or break). The autoloaders can still generate a lot of noise (at least from the shooters perspective) due to the action. Check out YouTube for examples.

Some people look at the noise level measurements for suppressors and choose to forgo hearing protection but I find that to be stupid. The crack of the shock wave on supers is hard on your hearing and the maesurement method is misleading as it's based on averaging instead of actual peak levels. Anyway, I always use hearing protection on supers and usually for subs if shooting an autoloader.