It was probably louder than he remembers. Sensorineural hearing loss rarely, if ever, would occur at noise levels lower than about 85db (about the noise of a lawn mower), and even then, less than 8 hours per day would protect about 90% of the population.
Auditory exclusion might keep you from being disoriented by loud noise in a stressful SD situation, but it won't protect from hair cell damage that might contribute to some hearing loss later in life, nor would it protect against temporary threshold changes that might manifest as transient tinnitus or transient hearing loss.
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