A sound focusing mechanism for generating a focused source of sound provides for identifying a transmission loss of an object, areas of acoustic or thermal leakage within or acoustic flanking paths associated with the object. The sound focusing mechanism includes a housing having at least one wall formed from a material having high sound transmission loss properties. A sound generating device for generating a sound is located with a central cavity within the housing. An actuator assembly is operatively connected to the sound generating device for selectively operating the sound generating. The sound focusing mechanism is used in a method of determining the sound transmission loss and flanking paths of an object, as well as thermal loss.