In Episode 2 of "The Specialist," we meet Jared McDaniel and Jordan Roberts, acoustics consultants — otherwise known as "the noise police."
"That's not really our title," McDaniel points out to me.
"We don't have guns," adds Roberts.
What they do have are sound level meters, accelerometers, and a mission: to make it a little bit easier to live with noise.
Living near the train tracks in Berkeley, I have my own problems with noise. And in the middle of the night when those horns are blaring, I often wish I could call the noise police.
To find out how they do their work, I accompanied them to one of the noisiest places we could find: a windy vacant lot in Fremont, near a backhoe doing road construction and underneath an airplane flight path, between a busy four-lane road and those very same train tracks.
How loud is too loud to take? You'll have to listen to find out.
We’d love your feedback, and your ideas. Do you know any specialists? Are you a specialist? Email me and tell me all about it at specialistpodcast@gmail.com.
Thanks! More Specialists coming your way soon, right here on KALW.