Acoustic evidence for disputes, arbitration and litigation

When you need an expert, not just a measurement

A measurement report answers "what is the level?". Expert evidence answers the question the dispute is actually about, which is usually harder: was the limit exceeded at the time in question? Did this defect cause this loss? Would the recommended mitigation have worked? Is the other side's report reliable? A technically correct measurement can still answer the wrong question entirely — and in a dispute, that is the most common way a well-intentioned report fails. Correct instrument, correct method, correct calculation, wrong question. It gets dismantled in ten minutes.

What we do

• Expert reports — a written report prepared for proceedings: scope, method, findings, opinion, limitations, and the qualifications behind it. Written for a reader who is not an acoustician, with the technical annex behind it for one who is.
• Forensic investigation — establishing what happened, often after the fact and from incomplete information. Reconstructing conditions, testing competing explanations, identifying the actual mechanism.
• Review of the opposing report — we read the other side's acoustic evidence and tell you where it is weak: method, instrument, positions, timing, indices, assumptions, calculation, or the gap between what it measured and what it concludes.
• Defect and performance investigation — where a completed building, product or installation does not achieve the performance specified or guaranteed: what it actually achieves, why, and what remedy costs.
• Testimony — attending hearings and giving evidence, in Thai or English, and being cross-examined on it.
• Pre-action assessment — before you commit to a case, an honest view of whether the acoustic evidence supports your position. Sometimes the answer is that it does not, and that is considerably cheaper to learn now.

Forensic reconstruction — the event has already passed

The most common difficulty in an acoustic dispute is that the event is over. The party finished, the piling stopped, the plant was replaced, the tenant moved out. Nobody was measuring at the time, and now everybody has an opinion. The work is to establish what can and cannot be determined after the fact, and to be clear about the difference.

• Reconstructing the source from equipment specifications, comparable measurements, and what the site can be shown to have contained at the time
• Establishing propagation from the site geometry, which does not change when the event ends
• Testing the complainant's account against physics — some described experiences are consistent with the alleged source and some are not
• Bounding the answer with stated uncertainty rather than presenting a single fabricated number
• Identifying which contemporaneous records exist and are worth obtaining — maintenance logs, production records, delivery times, weather archives, complaint logs

Reviewing the other side's report

This is frequently the highest-value work in a case and it is rarely offered as a service. Most acoustic reports in circulation contain at least one exploitable weakness. The measurement position was not where the affected person actually lives. The survey period missed the operating condition in dispute. Background was determined at a time that flattered one party. An index was used that does not correspond to the applicable limit. The instrument's calibration record has a gap. The measured data supports a narrower conclusion than the one stated. None of that requires the other expert to be dishonest — competent people produce reports with these problems routinely, because the report was written for a different purpose and then repurposed for the dispute. Finding it early changes what a case is worth.

Independence is the entire product

In everything else we do, independence is an advantage. In expert work it is the product itself. An expert who sells the mitigation has an interest in finding that mitigation is required. An expert retained repeatedly by one party has an interest in continuing to be retained. Both are the first things a competent opponent will raise, and neither has anything to do with whether the measurement was right. We do not sell noise control products, we do not take a share of any outcome, and we act for claimants and defendants alike. The opinion is the same either way, which is the only basis on which an opinion is worth having.

What an expert report contains

• Instruction and scope — what we were asked, and what we were not
• Qualifications and the basis of the expertise
• Method, instruments, calibration records and traceability
• Measurement conditions, positions and timing, with the reasoning for each
• Findings, separated cleanly from opinion
• Opinion, with the reasoning shown rather than asserted
• Uncertainty and limitations, stated rather than buried
• Materials relied upon, and materials requested but not provided
• Statement of independence

The limitations section is not a weakness

An expert who claims more certainty than the data supports is the one who does not survive cross-examination.

Acoustic evidence, not legal advice

We are acoustic engineers. We establish what the physics and the measurements show, and we express an opinion within that expertise. We do not advise on the law, on liability, on quantum or on strategy — that is your lawyer's work, and an expert who strays into it damages their own credibility and your case. We work alongside your legal team, take instruction from them, and are comfortable with the constraints that come with it.

Standards & method

ISO 1996-1 · ISO 1996-2 · ISO 16283 series · ISO 717-1 · ISO 717-2 · ISO 9612 · IEC 61672-1 · DIN 4150-3 · Thai National Environment Board Notification No. 29 (B.E. 2550) and the Pollution Control Department calculation method (B.E. 2565) · contract and specification terms as written

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