Abstract. A method to perform measurements of microphone responses directly in the array of a sensor system is described. It can be applied in reverberant environments and does not require high instrumentation effort. Due to the use of internal hardware of the sensor system, the whole signal chain of microphone–preamplifier–analogue-to-digital converter is characterized. The method was successfully tested for calibration of two types of planar arrays constructed with micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) microphones. Presented experimental results illustrate achieved performance, and possible application scenarios are discussed.