However, your tip about the cadence of Kestenbaum’s voice has made this much easier– he totally still does it, and Adam Davidson doesn’t! So that makes them easier to tell apart.

Neat — my random pieces of knowledge are useful to someone! And it’s interesting how this little voice quirk helps you tell the two apart. Now if I could just find some way to tell Ira Glass and Adam apart…

But David and Alex sound quite similar

Sorry, should have said David and ADAM sound quite similar.

Planet Money has four regular hosts (in rotation– most days only two are on the air): Adam Davidson, David Kestenbaum, Laura Conaway, and Alex Blumberg. Alex has a distinctive voice (at least, it’s distinctive on Planet Money– when I hear him on This American Life I sometimes have trouble differentiating him from Ira Glass.) Laura has a distinctive voice– not just because she’s the woman, but she just has a fairly unusual voice. But David and Alex sound quite similar– they sound like they are men of similar age and background. I often have trouble remembering which one of them is speaking (especially when they host the show together– which they do relatively rarely).

However, your tip about the cadence of Kestenbaum’s voice has made this much easier– he totally still does it, and Adam Davidson doesn’t! So that makes them easier to tell apart.