This study from ATREE published in PLOS ONE introduces a globally applicable calibration framework to solve the growing “garbage in, garbage out” crisis in bioacoustic monitoring. While automated sound recorders are increasingly deployed to evaluate biodiversity recovery across India, key hardware and habitat performance limitations are frequently overlooked. By conducting empirical playback trials, ATREE researchers developed a 5-stage decision-support tool and deployment matrix that enables practitioners to accurately define detection spaces, standardize field data collection, and maximize the scientific impact of ecoacoustic surveys.