This article, from the August 16, 1988 issue of The Chatham Record, touts the invention of the Phonozenograph. The phonozenograph could purportedly pinpoint the location of any sound it detected, but it apparently never caught on (I could find nothing about it online, under that name anyway).
Add the ability to throw sound and measure the echo, and this device resembles Radar, which appeared about the same time and had a much cooler name.