Echolocation simulator in Unity

Good day.
I'm working on an simulator with a relatively high sound realism so an echolocation newcomer can use it to train without fearing bruises and such. I'm searching for an engine to work this out.
I'd like to know if the free full version of Unity can support, for example, an scenario with a sound source and a listener, where the sound's physics let the sounds rebound realistically so the listener can tell the position of the sound source. Since this is a prototype, I don't need a really complex sound system yet.
Thanks in advance.

 

The built-in audio engine in Unity is very basic and will not have localization capability that it sounds like you are looking for. However, there are ways using Unity to make it happen but it requires some other component plugins. Are you planning on using headphones or speakers?

For headphones, what you need at a minimum is HRTF/spatialised/binaural audio. That will give you proper localization of the dry source signal in true 3D space (horizontal and vertical.) The dry signal is the most important part of the audio signal for localization. Reverb is inherently diffuse. As far as "realistic reflections" of the reverb; it's sufficient to at least model the room/space reverb characteristics to emulate the early and late reflections of said space then balance that with the dry signal. Obviously, the more late reflections the more diffuse the audio signal will get and the harder it will be to localize. This technique combined with headtracking gives very good results. Add in a AR/VR HMD and you've got proper immersion.

For speakers, the best you will get is a properly setup ambisonic multi-speaker setup. This is very difficult to get right and the sweet spot is very narrow. Next to that, will be the basic 7.1 / 5.1 surround setups.