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Yet another Bay Area audio retailer has defied industry trends by moving from home-based business to a storefront and simultaneously revamping its product line. Audio Video Integration (aka AVI Marin) celebrated the Grand Opening of its new San Rafael 6000ft² retail store and 3000ft² warehouse on April 2, 2015 via a ribbon-cutting ceremony officiated by San Rafael Vice Mayor Andrew McCullough. Even before the ceremony got underway, and for several hours thereafter, a host of loyal customers, friends, and well-wishers began to ogle the store's capacious layout and multiple audio and AV installations, enjoy food and drink, and discover anew the glories of high-end sound.

AVI Marin is the brainchild of 30-year industry veteran, Tony Probst. Probst, whose advanced training in audio and video calibration has seen him set up the video for David Dolby's home system and consult for Lucasfilm's scoring stage, founded Sonoma Sound Masters in 1996. His original Audio Video Integration showroom opened in Santa Rosa in 2004.

Before people started pouring through the door, I had ample opportunity to sample multiple systems. First stop was the iMac computer audio niche on the Main Floor, in which Tannoy Definition DC8 loudspeakers ($3700/pair), poised on Primacoustic RX-7 speaker stands ($240), competed for supremacy with Audeze LCD-3 headphones ($1945). Doing the rest of the honors in the system, quite wonderfully, were a Chord Hugo DAC ($2599), VTL IT-85 integrated amplifier ($5500), Nordost Qb8 power distribution system ($1899), and the most modestly priced components of the lot, van den Hul speaker cables and interconnects ($650 total) and power cables ($369 total). Most striking were the LCD-3's smooth and evenly distributed depiction of full-range sound.

I also greatly enjoyed one of the other lobby systems, in which Tannoy Precision 6.2 loudspeakers ($2400/pair), performing at their limit thanks to two sets of Nordost Sort Füt ($350/each), stood at one end of a chain that began with a modest NAD 516 BEE CD ($299) and Linn Sneakey DS ($1999). The system got its juice from a VTL ST-150 power amplifier ($6000) via at VTL TL-2.5i preamplifier ($3000), and was held together by a combination of Nordost Tyr and Frey interconnects and speaker cables ($10,942 total), a Nordost Red Dawn power cable ($450), and, due to a shipping delay, a few generic power cables. I thought Kat Edmondson's teasingly tongue-in-cheek "Forever Will We Never Be Together" sounded delightful on this system.

After taking peaks at a conference table covered with headphones and portable hi-res playback devices from Astell&Kern and Pono, a Linn system consisting of a Linn Majik DSM and Majik 140 speakers, and a Meridian system consisting of Meridian 5200 SE loudspeakers (alternating with Meridian M6 loudspeakers) connected to a Meridian/Sooloos Control 15, it was time to move into the first of four fully enclosed, gratifyingly quiet showrooms.

First up, in the medium-sized room where I was able to snap a photo of VTL's Luke Manley (left), Probst, and Nordost's Jon Baker (right), was a system consisting of Magico S3 loudspeakers ($26,350/pair), VTL S-200 power amplifier ($12,500) and VTL TL-5.5 II preamplifier ($8000), an Arcam UPD411 Blu-ray player ($1995) and Linn Akurate DSM ($9200), Nordost Valhalla 2 interconnects and speaker cable ($27,050 total), Nordost Tyr and Heimdall power cables ($10, 229 total), Nordost Qx4 Quantum field generator ($2699) and Qb8 power distribution system ($1899), Nordost SortKones ($2400), HRS M3x Isolation Base, Nordost Sort Kones, Salamander amp stand, and Quadraspire Sunoko Vent T.

As fine as the system sounded from the get-go, most interesting was how much more substance and solidity the sound of an orchestra had, and how much more connected and unified the presentation of individual instruments became, once we added a Qx4 and upgraded the power cable that went into the wall to Valhalla 2. Further improvements came when we progressively switched the position of the Valhalla 2 from the wall to the Qx4 to between the Qx4 and Qb8, added three Bronze Sort Kones under the Qx4, and added three Titanium Sort Kones under the VTL preamp where no footers had gone before.

I'll spend less time describing the small and large Wisdom Theater rooms, other than to say that I was blown away by how good Wisdom in-wall loudspeakers and subwoofers can sound. I recall a huge Wisdom demo from a show maybe four years ago, and was surprised by how much better AVI's rooms sounded. I'm told that the store used a Datastat pre/pro ($20,000) in the large room to tune out all wall vibrations, which is near impossible to do in a quickly set-up hotel system. When it comes to home theater installation, Tony Probst really knows his stuff.

The price for the small system was $20,398; multiply that by 5 and some and you end up with the large system's $104,298. Or, if you're as enamored of the sound as I was—the sound of AVI's three AV systems was hands up and down the finest I've ever heard, and even topped the breathtakingly expensive, mammoth overkill MBL system I heard at the Newport Beach show in 2014—and you've got the resources, you'll end up with $104,298 less in your bank account and a big smile on your face.

But there was one more showroom to go, and it was a whopper. 22 x 28 x 12, with a few of its feet hidden behind acoustically transparent curtains, this amazing room is a partnership between Grimani Systems (Anthony Grimani (above left), Manny LaCarrubba (above right), and Tony Eckert) and AVI. For the record, LaCarrubba was the Chief Engineer at The Plant for five years, Grimani spent five years at Dolby and 10 at Lucasfilm, and Eckert spent many decades deeply immersed in recording and audiophile pursuits.

Probst explained the floating construction of the walls, floor and ceiling to me (see video above). I don't want to begin to imagine the cost of room construction plus acoustic paneling.

For my first two-channel audition in this main room, I focused on Magico Q3 loudspeakers ($46,650/pair), powered by VTL Siegfried II power amplifiers ($65,000/pair) and TL.7.5 III preamp ($25,000), and fed by a Meridian 808v5 ($22,000). Everything was connected by Nordost Odin and Valhalla cabling, with the Nordost power distribution/power treatment discussed above enhanced by Nordost Qk1 Resonating Coils ($250/each) and Qv2 Line Harmonizers ($350/each). I've discussed the sound of these components in numerous show blogs, so I'll simply say that the system's total cost was $295,343, and it sounded it.

The big surprise, however, came when Grimani and LaCarrubba, both of whom were originally involved with recording and producing music, put their system into play. "We want to create an environment that faithfully duplicate what we engineers want to hear from the music we record," Grimani told me before two active Grimani Systems Alpha loudspeakers, each of whose 1.4 annular-diaphragm compression drivers is mounted on LaCarrubba's Conic Section Array™ used their built-in amplification and DSP to create a vast soundstage whose height and breadth I have never before experienced from two widely spaced hidden speaker systems that measure less than 6' in height.

"There's a difference between 'it sounds good' and 'it sounds like it's supposed to'," Grimani continued. "Our goal is to create a high-quality home system that's reference neutral." While I didn't hear the full Grimani Systems CinemaOne 7.1 set-up, whose suggested retail price is $340,000, if it sounds even more convincing than what I heard from two loudspeakers, I expect it to fill many a mansion in Marin and beyond.

One final note. Probst spent his formative years, from ages 6–21, sailing around the world with his family. At age 13, he got his first piece from the HMS Bounty, and began to assemble what may be the world's most comprehensive collection of memorabilia from the Titanic, Bounty, Lusitania, Andrea Doria, and other ships. He's even visited Pitcairn Island, where he stayed with Tom Christian, the great great great grandson of Fletcher Christian, the leader of the 1789 Mutiny on the Bounty. When Probst handed me a chunk of the Titanic to hold in one hand, and of the Bounty in the other, he told me I was one of few who have ever done so.

A good sampling of Probst's amazing collection can be viewed in the store, including copies of historic photographs too valuable to display. Add to that autographed checks from the likes of Mark Twain, Frank Zappa, Sarah Vaughan, Rudy Valle, and others, and you have a collection to amaze. Between it and the opportunity to hear music and enjoy video on so many superb systems, I can't imagine why any audiophile visiting the Bay Area wouldn't want to pay a visit to AVI Marin.