My gamer husband will always beat me in two categories: KDR, because I’m terrible at shooting games, and DPS, which I temporarily refer to as decibels per second. The man is noisy on an average night while talking on Discord, and even louder on a night of Rainbow Six Siege.
I was used to sleeping through the antics of my raucous gamer #2, but when I was shown the Metadox Ombra Soundproof Mask, a product designed specifically to muffle players’ screams on behalf of their roommates, I thought, “wouldn’t that be possible?” witty if…” nudge and he, ever the sports fan, said, “Sure, I’ll do it.” So I added a facial silencer to my husband. To my surprise, this device actually does dampen sound to the extent advertised, but I just can’t imagine that the cost – in dollars or comfort – is worth it.
Metadox Ombra costs $139 with a choice of two sizes (S/M or M/L) and a microphone port on the left or right side. It includes the sound-cancelling mask itself, a microphone magnetically secured on a 3.5mm audio plug, a pair of wired earbuds, a 3.5mm splitter for microphone/headset, and a second microphone housing for compatibility with your existing headset if you want. There is essentially no assembly and little configuration required, so everything is plug and play.
The Ombra mask really muffles the sound, I admit. Metadox claims to reduce 10-15 dB at low frequencies and 20 dB to 30 dB at mid-to-high frequencies. We found that this could reduce the average curse level of R6 Siege by a reliable 20 dB. Hearing it from the outside, Ombra’s mask makes it seem like he’s screaming from underwater, or like I’ve locked him in a house with a hunting ghost in Phasmophobia. The volume is definitely lower, but you can still hear the screams clearly.
To make matters worse, she’s on the Discord voice channel with him while he’s wearing it. The sound quality of the Metadox’s built-in microphone isn’t terrible – on par with most microphone headsets I’ve heard – but as soon as you attach it to your face mask, you’ll feel like you’re listening to an airline pilot’s garbled landing announcements. Metadox collected this feedback enough to publish a tutorial lowering the microphone volume to combat the effect. However, as this manual tacitly acknowledges, this is what microphones sound like when placed in a closed, sound-attenuated space. So customization helps, but only partially.
Regardless of sound quality, comfort is what really kills the prospect of regular Ombra operate. The straps are gentle and comfortable and do not interfere with other accessories you may need. My husband put on glasses, a baseball cap and a regular over-ear headset and didn’t think much of it. The real struggle is the mask itself.
Ombra is unlike the lightweight fabric medical masks we are all used to. It was built with sound deadening in mind, and it feels that way. My husband wore it for about two hours of R6 time before he literally needed a breather, and I chickened out about 20 minutes into a work meeting. The Ombra sits under your nose rather than above it, which functionally just means you breathe directly through the padded seal and when you talk, you steam the rest of your face inside the mask. He says it puts a bit of irritating pressure on your larynx, and if you have facial hair on your upper lip, it irritates it too.
I can’t understand what lifestyle Ombra actually fits into. For about five years, my husband and I have been using the increasingly popular two-bedroom apartment, where the spare bedroom becomes a shared gaming den with side-by-side desks. We usually chat with the same group of friends, and if he was wearing Ombra, I might be able to lower the noise gate a bit in Discord’s input settings. Maybe.
I just can’t imagine that the humiliation of having to silently address your teammates is greater than the embarrassment of having to put it on your face at night.
If I were in a separate conversation, meeting, or stream on Twitch, I don’t think I could in good conscience sit there and play while he was five feet away from me wearing his cone of shame. Not to mention that I’m most interested in the silence when I go to bed on a Friday night and leave him to hang out with friends, and wearing a huge face mask really isn’t compatible with drinking beer and snacks at the desk, which usually includes weekend get-togethers .
If you’re considering Ombra because there’s someone you don’t want to wake up – whether you’re playing after the kids are asleep or trying to respect the sleep needs of a roommate with a morning career – I’m not sure a muffled scream will suffice unless they also want sleep with a white noise machine. Furthermore, the Ombra Mask does not mute the sound of your hand hitting the desk after death, which is a common occurrence for most competitive gamers. At this point any benefit from the mask is useless.
If you regularly climb the career ladder while living alone in an apartment where you share walls with neighbors, this extra layer of sound insulation may reduce the noise complaints you receive. I just can’t imagine that the humiliation of having to silently address your teammates is greater than the embarrassment of having to put it on your face at night.
