Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) has become widespread in wildlife research as a means for extensive data collection across time and space. With the rise of artificial intelligence and the increasing availability of affordable hardware, computationally intensive analyses are more accessible now than ever before, presenting unique opportunities for PAM research. This research, however, relies on the understanding of the physical limitations and parameters of recording equipment, which is an understudied area in ecological research, particularly in grassland ecosystems. Here we quantify signal degradation within our grassland study system using the Open Acoustics AudioMoth. In the summer of 2025, we conducted a playback experiment using pure tones recorded across a 250m transect at three grasslands in San Diego County. We found significant differences in signal degradation (as measured by the blur ratio) at 50m from the sound source across sites (p < 0.01) and across periods of the day (p < 0.01). However, we did not find a significant difference based on sensor housing treatment (p = 0.29). These results are study system specific and emphasize the need for more work exploring the impact of technological hardware and environmental factors in bioacoustics studies.