Why an Independent Acoustic Consultant Matters
When a noise problem arises, most people do not realise how many different kinds of noise service exist in Thailand, or that each has a different role, purpose and limitation. Choosing the wrong one costs both time and money, and still leaves you without information you can actually use to fix the problem or cite as a reference.
The table below compares each type of provider so you can see the difference and choose the specialist that fits your purpose — particularly when the result has to be impartial and usable in a complaint, a negotiation, litigation, or a submission to a government agency.
Why free advice costs you more
In Thailand, most acoustic advice is given away, or priced near cost, by companies whose income is the material — a wall system, a ceiling panel, a pod. The survey is not what they sell. It is the first step of the sale.
That is not dishonest. It is simply a different business. But it has one consequence worth understanding before you accept it: an advisor who earns from the material cannot recommend that you do nothing, spend less, or move the machine.
The diagnosis is bounded by the catalogue. If the answer to your problem is a duct silencer, a resilient mount, a change of operating hours, or three decibels removed at the source, it will not appear in a report written by a company that sells wall panels. You get the wall.
A number that sells is not a number that stands up. A measurement taken to justify a specification never has to survive a regulator, a court, or the other side's expert. Ours does. That is the entire product.
The cheap advice is priced as marketing. It is recovered on the square metres that follow, at a margin you never see. You do not pay less. You pay later, out of a different line in the budget.
Nobody verifies the outcome. Materials are sold with a laboratory rating. Your building is not a laboratory. Without an independent measurement after the works, no one establishes whether you got what you paid for — least of all the party who supplied it.
Procurement is behaving rationally, and that is the problem. One supplier, one purchase order, one company to hold responsible. For a procurement officer measured on cycle time and vendor count, that is the sensible choice — and it is why turnkey suppliers win so many of these jobs. The cost does not appear in the purchase order. It appears eighteen months later, when the complaint is still there and the only remaining route is a legal one.
Only one party in the room profits from you spending less. We are paid for the advice, not for the solution, so the cheapest thing that works is a perfectly good result for us. Clients often do it in stages — fix the dominant source, measure again, then decide whether the rest is worth buying. A supplier cannot propose that. Their revenue depends on the whole scope going in at once.
The guarantee that guarantees nothing
A supplier guarantees “10 dB improvement.”
Ten decibels at what frequency?
Ten decibels at 1000 Hz is straightforward, and it is not what you needed. The noise reaching your neighbour is usually dominated by low frequency — a fan, a compressor, a chiller. Improve 1000 Hz by 10 dB and the overall A-weighted level may barely move.
Your complaint remains. Their contract is fulfilled. And they are right: that is what the contract said.
The wording that would have protected you:
“not less than 10 dB(A) reduction in the overall A-weighted level at [named receptor], measured to [named standard], verified after completion by an independent party.”
Twenty extra words. Worth more than the panels.
We review acoustic contracts and guarantees before you sign →
We sell no acoustic materials, no partitions, no panels and no installation. Our income is the engineering. If the right answer is that you need nothing, that is what the report says.
Four questions to ask any acoustic supplier
- Do you earn anything from the materials you would recommend?
- Is your sound level meter IEC 61672-1 Class 1, and which laboratory calibrated it?
- Will you measure again after the works and put the result in writing?
- If the cheapest fix is not a product, will your report say so?
Written to describe how the market works. It does not refer to any specific company.
| Criterion | Geonoise (independent) | Material / product seller | General noise-measurer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conflict of interest | None — we sell expertise, not products | Yes — revenue comes from selling the materials they recommend | Varies; usually competes on low price and speed |
| Measurement equipment | IEC 61672-1 Class 1, calibrated by an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory | Often not measurement-grade; measures to close a sale | Instruments not calibrated to the IEC standard, or calibrated at a single 94 dB point only |
| Standards referenced | ISO 9613-2, ISO 16283, ISO 1996, other international standards, and Thai law | Focused on their own product specs | Incomplete, or the wrong criteria applied |
| Report defensibility | Credible, traceable, and citable under the law | No independent party guaranteeing the result | Weak; hard to rely on as evidence |
| Guaranteed result | We set the spec and verify the result after the works | Sells materials but doesn't guarantee the acoustic outcome | No verification |
| Who profits | You — a real fix within a sensible budget | The seller — from material sales and installation | The contractor — from a one-off fee |
We present this factually so you can choose with understanding. It does not refer to any specific provider.