Embodiments of the disclosure include hearing protection earmuffs, which generally might have two earcups providing passive noise reduction (e.g. an effective NRR to protect a user from a damaging external noise environment). Disclosed embodiments include systems and methods for transmitting external sounds to a speaker within the earcup, blocking transmission of sounds that are higher than a hearing protection threshold, amplifying sounds that are below the hearing protection threshold, and reducing or filtering undesirable background sounds by determining the frequency of the transmitted sounds.