I was at the Eastern Sports and Outdoor show in Harrisburg yesterday. I was on the prowl for any info I could get on new archery stuff and got to shoot a few bows. Take if FWIW or totally ignore it at your discretion.

Bows:

Mathews - saw, handled, and drew the Legacy, Icon, and the "old" Q2. They wouldn't let me shoot one. The new cable guard looked pretty tight to me, as far as unwanted stuff getting in there to cause trouble. I did wonder about attatching the string silencers at the tip of the limb though. The Icon is a very smooth bow to draw with the concentric cam. No sharp drop off into the valley.

Bowtech - I was able to shoot a Mighty Mite, and a Patriot. Both had Bowtech's own limb and string silencers. The Might Mite had a little vibration which may have come from the arrow rest (no sight). The Patriot was more
"dead in the hand" with less recoil and vibration. Both were pretty quiet and fast (naturally)

Hoyt - not much of a presence on the main floor. I did draw a few, and liked the new Command Cam +.

Darton - Saw and drew the new Rampage. Very nicely balanced bow, and very smooth on the draw.

Bear/Jennings had some interesting bows, and a new accessory which was rubber mounted, thick brass washers attatched to the riser near where a two piece quiver is usually mounted. I don't have a clue if they really work or not though.

Martin - had a similar accessory to the Bear, but it fit into a triangular hole near each limb pocket, and had real Limb Saver donuts on each side of the riser.

They had a 3-D shoot going on, and I observed that for quite a while too. I saw many shooters with Mathews bows, some Parkers, Hoyts, a few Dartons including a Rampage, and a few Bowtechs including a Black Knight 2 (option 2?) with the higher brace. I don't really know what weight arrows they were shooting, although most were carbons. Some bows were set up for hunting, but most were pure 3-D bows with long stabilizers and no string silencers. As far as I could tell, and I listened for quite a while, there really wasn't too much difference in noise or shooter reaction to the shot from any of them. From reading posts on this, and other forums, I expected there to be a much bigger difference in noise between the different brands, but there simply wasn't. Two bows stood out to me as quieter than any of the others. One was a Firebrand Intensity, and the other was a Hoyt Cybertec.

One other item of note (to me at least) was that Game Tracker came out with a tree climbing system that looked like a copy of the Lone Wolf climbing sticks. I don't know if they are paying to use the patent or not, but they were very reasonable in price, and I am definitely planning to get some. They looked like they should work well and be much lighter and easier to carry than my present stick ladder.

I'm sure I missed some important things, but that is what I remember.

Avoid the inevitable until it is absolutely unavoidable!