Agreed - but in my experience even the worst EHOs will be more sympathetic to your situation if you've engaged with them. Many local EH departments are understaffed nowadays, so perhaps the 'big stick' solution looks increasingly attractive to some EHOs because it involves less of their time...

Also for most pub type 'venues' the bands are not a major part of their business, so given the choice between a simple traffic light system and making (possibly major) expensive structural alterations to improve noise isolation, they will go for the box from formula sound and half a day of a sparks time....
I do wish the pickups for these things would be placed a bit more sensibly, if there is a lobby between the performance space and the street put a level sensor in there, not in the space itself, interlock the PA mutes with the fire doors, so that an open fire door mutes the PA, keeping noise outside down, generally figure out where the noise is getting out and limit the levels at those points, not at the stage!

As to damage to kit, every one of those things I have run across has either a manual reset or a delay of some tens of seconds before restoring power, which really should be sufficient to avoid any damage (If it is not you REALLY need a UPS on whatever is that twitchy).

The answer is to not book loud bands into venues that have a noise problem with the neighbors, book the literally acoustic acts in those spaces instead and leave the venues with no noise problem for the loud stuff.

I am afraid that for the most part I come down on the neighbors side on this one, especially with so much modern home construction being ah 'lightweight'.

A big part of the issue is that simple electronics is very bad about telling the difference between correlated and uncorrelated noise, for shits and giggles take a SPL meter out on a noisy street outside a venue playing something loud, and note that the bass thump is probably not moving the meter while you can still clearly hear it. The bass might well actually be well below the broadband noise floor (even after the weighting filters) but is still clearly annoying.

And yea, talk to the EHO, most of them are sane but are between a bit of a rock and a hard place (Same goes for the licensing officers and fire department).

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

I'd echo the advice to get your EHO on your side but remember that they're rarely experts on sound - noise is just one of the many things they deal with. So advice from an EHO isn't going to replace advice from a good acoustic consultant.

James.

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JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

I maybe wrong - but I didn't see the OP mention that they had a problem with bands specifically.
Could just be their background music?
In that case it will be easier to control the output of the speakers and general level of noise.

If it is band-related noise then it can often be harder to control .. live drum kits aren't as compressed as commercial CD so leakage and "turn it down" tactics would be where I'd start. You're doing the right thing by getting a pro in though.

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Mac user; Logic and ProTools systems.