I'm working on a vague understanding from about a week in Physics I, but I think it's possible to focus sound. There's a kind of speaker someone told me about that's only audible if you're directly in its path, rather than the regular sort that allows sound to diffuse and diffract. Sort of a like a sound "laser", a focused beam of sound.
Anyway, that's not the point of this at all; the point is, there's no range on the ability, and that's dysfunctional. Sonic effects are largely magic, and that's good enough for me.