While it’s possible to hear a Sonos speaker in a store like Best Buy or Target, it doesn’t quite capture anything resembling the experience you would have at home, because until something truly borderline apocalyptic happens, you don’t live inside an abandoned big-box retail store. The shape and acoustics of your home are very, very different from that of a Target.
For that reason, Siegel and the Sonos team, with some outside help, designed a space that is made to feel—and sound—more like a home than a store. Indeed, when you walk into the fairly minimalist, two-story retail space, you won’t see a row of cash registers with lines of people flowing from them. Instead, after walking by the enormous portrait of famed record producer (and Sonos board member) Rick Rubin on the wall, you’ll see a row of seven listening rooms, each one sonically isolated from the outside world with a steel-framed door made of thick, beveled glass. Inside each of the rooms—which are separated from one another by multiple layers of acoustic sheet rock—are comfortable furniture, bookshelves, knickknacks, and design details meant to make prospective customers feel right at home, even if most of us don’t live in homes that look like we went on a high-end Etsy shopping spree with an interior design snob. Oh, and there are speakers, of course.
