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Phono stages
Markets the Phonomena and Nova phono stages while importing analog brands from Oakland, California since 1991.
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about musical surroundings
Musical Surroundings was founded in 1991 by Garth Leerer and operates out of Oakland, California. The company wears two hats. It is the US importer and distributor for a roster of analog brands including Hana cartridges, Clearaudio, and AMG, and it markets its own line of phono preamplifiers under the Phonomena and Nova names. Those own-brand phono stages, designed by Michael Yee and built in California, are the reason the company reads as a brand in its own right rather than purely a distributor. The phono line centers on the Phonomena, now in its Phonomena III revision, a moving-magnet and moving-coil stage with extensive resistive and capacitive loading options and an outboard linear power supply, plus the battery-powered Nova Phonomena. These sit in the sub-$2,000 to mid-tier bracket where dealers fit a flexible MM/MC stage to a customer's cartridge. In the US market the Phonomena competes with phono stages from Sutherland, Lehmann, and Pro-Ject, positioned where load flexibility and battery-supply options matter to analog buyers. Because Musical Surroundings is itself the US distributor, dealer support and parts run direct from Oakland. The press record is deep: Stereophile has listed the Phonomena as a Class B Recommended Component and Herb Reichert covered the brand in Gramophone Dreams #24, with The Absolute Sound naming it an Editors' Choice and Tracking Angle adding coverage, making it instantly recognizable to any US analog dealer. The phono electronics are manufactured in California.