Here is the voice of experience.

My wife recently bought a 686. She prefers standard pressure .38 special ammo and that is what we load in her bedroom defense pistol. She had a accidental/negligent discharge in our house, a few weeks ago. Thank God, no one was harmed (other than a door jam, drywall and older TV).

The .38 round she fired was subsonic and we could definitely hear just fine immediately after the shot was fired.

Now, the pucker factor for a AD/ND is a 10+, appropriately it will scare the living **** out of you and hopefully teach you a lifelong lesson, without any loss of life or limb.

Since that incident, I have reloaded all of our HD weapons with heavy for caliber rounds that are rated by the manufacturer as being subsonic.