Reflections On A New Normal – A Musing From Scott

I’m sure by now that, like me, most of you look forward to and thoroughly enjoy reading Jon’s occasional “musings” on any and all subject matters related to good art, good recorded art, and the best possible ways of experiencing the recorded arts in our homes and lives. Since penning my 2004 review of Fleetwood Mac’s eponymous debut album (which review may still linger in some nook or cranny of our website, I’ll have to look), I’ve contributed scant little to the Ultra Fidelis messaging, but this feels like a good time for a sophomore effort.

So, since I’ve only had the opportunity to meet a small number of our current community of fellow lovers of music and cinema, an introduction seems appropriate. My background was in the corporate world and I got to know Jon after asking one of my managers who was attending a company party at my home what he thought of my expensive sound system. Knowing that he was “an audiophile” I was expecting heaps of praise over the sonic majesty of my big stack of electronics and giant pair of speakers, but all I got was “do you really want to know?” followed by a blistering assessment. That candor earned him a new job: introducing me to a world I knew nothing about, with products from small devoted manufacturers of whom I’d never heard, and retail shops where making a pile of money was not the primary reason for being. Thus began my journey into high-end audio some three decades ago and, by far, the single most important outcome of that quest has been the development of my enduring friendship and business partnership with Jon. We bonded almost immediately after I acquired my first system and throughout my experience as a customer, going back to the part of his career which predates even the founding of Ultra Fidelis. When my wife and I decided that we had higher priorities in life than wealth creation, sixty-hour work weeks, incessant travel, and a heavy dose of unhealthy stress, we punched-out. Shortly thereafter Jon and I became business partners with a shared goal to make Ultra Fidelis all it could be…that was 17 years ago and we are still at it.

The primary reason I felt compelled to write today, is because we are all living in an unprecedented time and experiencing things we’ve never been through before. The circulating tongue-in-cheek meme, analogizing the sacrifices we have all been asked to make to “sitting on the couch watching Netflix” is not without some truth – and is a good perspective to adapt as a coping tool – but it’s not really accurate. It’s probably safe to say that none of us lived through World War II or the Great Depression, but that’s not to minimize this experience or its impact. Our hearts go out to all those whose lives have been turned upside-down by this pandemic: the sick, their families, the heroic first responders, our amazing frontline healthcare workers, those in the at-risk and underserved segments of our population, and most of all to those who’ve experienced loss. Loss hits us all in a variety of ways: social, familial, financial, and just everyday lifestyle. Hearing the statistics on the news every day doesn’t really tell the human story of what’s happening behind all that loss, but we want you to know that we are all in this together and we are feeling it with you. You are our community and, while we are enduring and feeling the same things you are, we are also sharing your hopes for a new post-pandemic reality. To borrow from Churchill, it’s starting to feel like the end of the beginning and that’s progress.

My secondary motive today is to assure you all that Ultra Fidelis will still be here whenever we all get back to whatever becomes our collective “new normal”. Our business strategy has never been to get big or get rich; it’s been to do something we love, share that love with our friends and customers, and scale our business to allow us the luxury of doing that while still earning a living and keeping the bills paid. We managed our way through the dot.com crash and we came out of the financial crisis even stronger than we went into it. Our company has no debt, a strong balance sheet, immediate access to additional working capital should we need it, a great group of manufacturer partners, a loyal customer base, and a terrific team. We have no plans to make any changes to anything right now; we are just weathering the storm like you are. Once it’s safe to do so, we will reopen with the same team in place that walked out the door to a life of “Netflix on the couch” and masked social distancing three weeks ago. We hope that day comes sooner than later, but given how much we’ve collectively already given up, it would be a tragic mistake to open for business too soon and have all our sacrifices be for naught. So, for now, we carry on as best we can.

During this hiatus from our normal way of doing things we want you all to know that we are not just sitting at home gaining weight. We are still doing business every day with the store phone routed directly to Jon’s cell and we are available to you. We are also offering to meet by appointment, keeping in mind all the necessary protective disinfection guidelines and social distancing, for showroom or in-home equipment demos and consultation. We have a method for “contact-less” pickup and drop off. We are still shipping and receiving every day, and we can ship to you.  Most of our manufacturers are still up and running, at least to some extent, and most have adopted a “drop ship direct to you” strategy.  We are also using this time to more aggressively market some of our “gently-used” and store demo gear, so please keep an eye on our website for some particularly attractive pricing of selected items. And most of all, please stay in touch and know that we’re going to still be here for you.

In closing, please know how much we appreciate our community of like-minded devotees of the arts, be you new to our world or old hands; it’s a special place and made all the more so by the opportunity to occupy it with those who share our passion. We wish you all the best of times during these worst of times and we eagerly await the opportunity to reconnect with all of you once we’ve put this in the rear view mirror.

With warmth and gratitude,

Scott & Jon