Sonos has quietly begun installing store within a store...

Sonos has quietly begun installing store within a store sections as part of a plan to have 20 locations throughout North America, Consumer Electronics Daily has learned. Several are already in place, including at an Abt’s Chicago-area location and a P.C. Richard & Son store in New York, a Sonos spokesman told us. Sonos is eying 20 stores nationwide to offer a way for “critical custom installation and specialty channels to have more presence with Sonos” and to showcase home theater and music solutions, the spokesman said. Meanwhile, Sonos filled in the entry level of its amplified speaker lineup Monday with the $199 Play:1, a round, compact solution for “nooks and crannies where you want a bit of music,” the spokesman said. Sonos is under siege from a host of audio companies looking to grab a slice of a pie that Sonos has owned to date. In the past month, Bose, Samsung and Phorus have launched multi-room streaming audio products, and Lenbrook is on deck to unveil its Bluesound multi-room audio products Thursday. The timing is purely coincidental, the Sonos spokesman said. Play:1 has been in the works for two years and is the “smallest, most aggressive form factor possible” while maintaining the company’s sound quality standards, he said. “It just happens to be launching at a time when all the others are coming in,” he said, “and it validates what we've been doing all along.” The future is “wireless and streaming,” he said. Although the Play:1 resembles Bluetooth speakers on the market, it doesn’t need Bluetooth due to a software upgrade Sonos added in December that enables users to stream music from an iOS device or Android tablet to one Sonos speaker “or a whole house of speakers,” he said. New software features that launched with the Play:1 and Sonos 4.2 include the ability to use a speaker’s Mute button for play, pause or skip functions without the need to use a smartphone or tablet, according to the website, and social networking song tagging. Also with the new release, a Connect:Amp and Sonos speakers can be configured for use as left and right rear speakers in a Sonos surround-sound setup. The feature was designed for custom installers, Sonos said.