You still get an idea of the difference. I wish some of those videos would put the microphone in front of the gun.
Gunfire reports can be quite damaging to microphones at close range.
Would 20-30 ft. be far back enough? ( I know very little about microphones) I just think it would give a better comparison between bare and suppressed.
I should have my new milling machine and lathe within the month…it would be so cool to make stuff like this.
But then again I live in NJ, so I won’t be producing any silencers.
One can dream though.
It is not illegal to manufacture one, as long as you have all of your paperwork and fees taken care of. Here is a pretty cool series that the guy from NYC CNC did, using Fusion360 and CNC machines to make a very nice silencer.
DIY Silencer! Machining a Monocore
If you aren’t into machine shop porn, skip to the end of part 4, where he test fires it outside.
Should be; but gunfire is really loud, “sharp” and very high-pitched and very bass-y so I’m not sure if most microphones (such as you’d have on a phone, camcorder or non-really high end setup) can adequately capture it.
Since I’m a gun owner, I’m familiar with gunfire. 
A lot of consumer grade recording devices automatically adjust recording levels to what the software thinks it should be. Makes it difficult to compare sounds without professional level equipment.
The second part of the paragraph you quoted was the bit you would find more helpful, I think.