Wave field synthesis is nearly always generated synthetically, not from real recordings.

Evidence

Usually, WFS is used to synthesize virtual sources by specifying the location of the source in the virtual world and using the loudspeaker set-up to generate the wave field. The use of actual recordings for WFS is very rare, probably because setting up the hundreds of carefully equalized microphones required is technically very demanding. This is the reason why WFS is discussed in this book in the section on virtual source positioning and not in the section on microphone techniques. In practice, the microphone techniques discussed in the Section 14.4.5 are used for recording, and the recorded signals are then reproduced with the appropriate system. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1906

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why has no one built the hundreds-of-microphones rig required for actual WFS recordings? The cost/engineering barrier seems ripe for eventual technological disruption.