A practice mute is a must have if you want to practise without disturbing your neighbours or other people in your house. A practice mute drastically cuts the volume of sound to a more sociable level. When testing a Dennis Wick Practice mute I found that it cut the sound by about 20 decibels. The Yamaha Silent Brass was a little quieter and cut the sound by about 22 decibels. The way I tested this was I played loudly into decibel metre with a without a mute. A trumpet without a mute 100 decibels, Dennis Wick Practice mute 80 decibels, Yamaha Silent Brass (Old Model) 78 decibels. On the same test I measured a classical nylon strung guitar playing an open chord at about 90 decibels and a flute at also about 90 decibels. Brass instruments are one of the few musical instruments that can be muted effectively making them potentially one of the quietest which goes against popular opinion.