LinkNYC will never record street sounds and subway buskers like the payphones do, but this take from today gives hope. A full-throated ensemble like a brass band or a trumpeter could pierce the LinkNYC speaker, silencing or mostly muting the surrounding street noises. That’s why it is so hard to make a phone call on LinkNYC. The sounds of sirens and people talking flow through at the same level as your own voice. So to make a phone call you have to scream for the person you called to hear you. With certain street performers the sound quality of their instrument does the screaming.