Real-time feedback during audio recording, and related devices and systems

An audio appliance, comprising:

• a microphone transducer configured to receive sound from an environment and to convert the received sound into an audio signal;
• a display;
• an audio analytics module configured to detect, in real-time, an impairment in perceptual sound quality of the audio signal compared to a lower threshold of acceptable sound quality based on an estimated distance of the audio appliance from an intended source of the received sound;
• an impairment module configured to emit a user-perceptible alert responsive to the detected impairment, in real-time;
• and
• an interactive guidance module configured to output, in real-time, user-perceptible guidance to move the audio appliance relative to the intended source when the perceptual sound quality falls below the lower threshold of acceptable sound quality.

A method of recording audio, comprising:

• receiving sound at an audio input device;
• converting the sound to an audio-input signal;
• detecting, while recording the audio-input signal to a media file, an impairment to perceptual sound quality of the audio-input signal relative to a threshold of acceptable sound quality corresponding to a distance from an intended source of the sound;
• and
• presenting a user-perceptible output responsive to detection of the impairment, wherein the user-perceptible output is indicative of a user-implementable action to move the audio input device closer to or to move the audio input device farther away from the intended source of the sound.