As a Chinook driver (rtd) with hearing loss, I can only confirm they are noisy.
Huh....what?
Almost two thousand hours in the Chinook and it did not hurt my hearing one bit....other than the High Frequency part anyway.....and it is gone..gone....gone.
If all that noise got piped outside the Chinook would be banned world-wide.
What we are talking about is outside noise and the reaction of a few folks who are quick to complain about helicopter generated noise.