Re-Tales

Steve Jain, cofounder and managing director of Fidelity Imports, has been busy since launching the company six years ago in the Philadelphia area. In recent months, Fidelity has added two brands to their roster; they now represent 16 high-performance audio companies. Maintaining his early passions helped fuel his drive to start a business and continue its expansion and innovation—aspects Jain believes differentiate Fidelity Imports from the competition. "I constantly want to keep trying to innovate and keep us ahead," Jain told me in a recent conversation over Zoom.

At the time of our conversation, Jain and company were preparing for AXPONA, where Fidelity was hosting 10 demo rooms, nine plus a ballroom—see, for example, here and here.

Like quite a few others in the hi-fi business, Jain's passions started with cars and car audio. "I was a car stereo installer, and I was tremendously passionate about it. I was working on my car all the time, playing back music."

As he worked his way into and upwards in other companies, including some hi-fi brands, he came to feel that passion often took a backseat to bottom line. "I spent most of my life working at audio companies," Jain said. "The further I went up the ladder—the more I got to companies that were owned by banks and private equity and venture capital—the less the people around me were talking about music, the less they were talking about the experience, the more and more they were talking about the number of units."

Eventually this situation—along with some burnout and the loss of family time—led him to go out on his own. He and his business partner started with a blank slate, asking themselves questions. "It was really silly, but we opened up a Google Doc and asked ourselves, 'What if you could design the ideal company? What is it? What is our business going to be?' We were thinking very small back then."

They spent the first 10 months working on infrastructure before bringing brands onboard. The breakthrough came at High End Munich about five years ago. They returned with three committed clients and talks with another seven.

"Ultimately, we didn't work with all of them. But the realization of the dream was far greater than what the dream or the goal was. I think about that a lot to keep us grounded as we expand and as we grow, because the original beginnings of this were very humble."

Their first four client companies were British. Then came Wisconsin-based Perlisten and brands from France, Italy, and Japan. By now, he and his partner feel less pressure to add to their roster when attending shows; the gaps have been filled. "When we go there, we get to go with a whimsical spirit of like, what tugs at us?" Jain said.

Fidelity tends to work with a certain kind of company. "Sometimes they're family owned or smaller operations," Jain said. "What they generally don't have is a whole lot of capabilities in digital marketing, creating digital assets. They want to focus on what they're good at, which is the engineering, creating the product."

Recently, Fidelity added to its roster of brands a 40-year-old German brand, Knosti. Jain first came across the brand at High End Munich. "It represents us finding something that we would want to buy ourselves—something that we would want to have in our home," he said. Another recent roster addition Jain said they're "still buzzing about" is Wilson Benesch, an English high-end audio maker that uses cutting-edge research in developing their products. "They were looking for a fresh approach," Jain said.

In late 2024, Fidelity Imports moved into a 15,000ft² warehouse in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia. They're expanding with a 2000ft² buildout. "It's for us to be able to have an environment in which we can create the kind of things that most manufacturers know they should have, talk about having, but probably won't ever really invest in," Jain said. The township has approved the building permits; Jain anticipates the new buildout's construction to get underway soon. The buildout will add a training room, a conference room, a meeting room, and a studio for video and photography. He hopes to complete the first part—the YouTube studio—within three or four months. He sees an increased need for social media content and suspects that demand to continue to grow. The expanded building will also have a "tech space" where employees can check over products, inspect for minor issues, pack things up, and send products out to reviewers.

The buildout will also include space where a manufacturer can launch a product and host dealer trainings, press events, and so on. "A lot of times, the only chance that the brands have to interact is at a trade show, and that's speed dating," he said.

Jain believes the buildout will help to distinguish Fidelity from other distribution companies. "I hate the word 'distribution,' which is why we're Fidelity Imports," Jain said. "Our goal is to be able to be a lot more than a distributor for the brands we represent. The building represents a massive opportunity for us to do that."

Inevitably given the timing, our talk turned to tariffs. "By the time you print this, it might be a different world," Jain said. "But what I've put out there to our dealers is, I'm squarely focused on AXPONA right now." (AXPONA occurred just days after the interview, in mid-April.) "When we come back from AXPONA and absorb it all and have a chance to reflect on it, we can talk about pricing and tariffs and all that." (A few days after the interview, the Trump administration announced a temporary reprieve from import tariffs, except for Chinese goods—see this issue's As We See It essay.)

"Ultimately, the proof will be in whether or not we have the staying power and what the portfolio looks like over time. But so far, I think it's proved that we're on the right track. I'm thankful that we can do this. ... There might be a better job out there, but I haven't found it."