We chatted about approaches to microphone testing, recording impulse responses, simulating distant sound, and other topics. I need to email Curtis as a follow-up (get in touch with SMAART team, ask about crazy localizing mics, etc)
People are developing crazy microphones with many nodes for directionality (1000?).
People traditionally pop a balloon. In a large outdoor space, need a starter pistol to activate the space acoustically. But, since birds are not that loud a baloon is probably fine. Once, Curtis used a yacht cannon in a stadium.
There are some protocols and standards that microphone/speaker companies use to measure performance. Asking Curtis to point me to these.
The right thing to do is to use an impulse response.
You can model the attenuation of different frequencies over distance, plus the decay of sound amplitude with distance. This would be a decent model if you assume there is nothing but air in the world.