- It's once again time to get gutsy with Liz Hall
and her expert guests on the Gutsy Babe Podcast.
- Hey, this is Liz Hall with the gutsy babe.
Today's guest is Greg Duncan.
For the past 39 years,
Greg has run a vintage sound system restoration company out
of San Diego, California by the name of C Level Audio.
His mission is to educate the public on the benefits
and beauty of rediscovering analog music.
Thank you, Greg. Welcome to the Gutsy Babe Podcast.
How did you get involved with creating one
of a kind analog sound systems?
- Um, it's been a, a lifelong thing.
Um, I can remember since
I was a very young lad back in New Jersey, walking around
with a, uh, a transistor radio
with a single ear plug in one ear,
and, uh, just loving the music.
I used to listen to the
WABC cousin Brucey outta New York City, all, you know,
the top 40 stuff, but, mm-Hmm. ,
uh, I always had an ear for music.
Um, I used to go to bed, uh, reading stereo review
and drooling over the pages, the cool stuff
that was coming out in the seventies especially.
Mm-Hmm. . So, uh, uh,
I had a background outta high school.
I worked at a Volkswagen dealership
and I had an affinity for auto electronics.
So I did a lot of 12 volt auto work,
and I did actually, I put the first stereo radio
into a Volkswagen Beetle in I think like
1971 or 72.
And that was, it was like the,
the heavens opened up when I press that little stereo button
and heard stereo coming outta the door
speakers that I had installed.
It was, oh my God, this is amazing.
So just always loved quality, well produced,
well recorded quality sound.
- Oh, that's amazing. What's the difference between digital
and analog music?
- Analog is, I guess, more real.
Uh, you know, when you, when when analog is recorded,
it's on tape, so it's something actually physical, then
that tape is taken and, and pressed into albums, let's say.
So that's, that's a physical thing as well.
You know, you put a needle on the record
and it vibrates, you know, the needle vibrates back
and forth and, um, reproduces the sound.
So it's, it's physical, it's real.
It's something that touches digital.
You know, they take analog sound
and they use a, uh, converter, right?
They take, uh, uh, let's say they've recorded a CD
that's digital, right?
It's really just pluses and minuses, bits and, you know,
and to hear that they have to take, to use a digital,
you kind of, it changes the sound.
I remember digital cd,
vocal end
analog.
- Okay. Uh, do you see analog music coming back?
Is it becoming more popular again?
Is it more records or is it more tapes?
Or is it a combination of both?
- Uh, not really tapes,
because for the past, gosh, it's never really gone away.
It's just the more people get, the
more the people hear analog sound.
Uh, either, either they're revisiting it.
It could be an older person who hears analog again.
They go, oh my God, I have to, you know,
get my record collection out and start playing analog
or younger people have had that been lucky enough to have
that experience of where they went to a friend's house
and listened to their dad's old stereo system, hear that,
and they go, oh my God, this sounds so much better.
There's been a resurgence,
a steady resurgence over the last, at least 10 years.
Um, I found that through Covid,
people were staying home, right?
Mm-Hmm. stay in their homes.
So I said, let's, well, let's, let's make it better
by having good analog sound systems.
So I was very busy during that time, uh, early to mid covid,
and then it died off a little bit.
- Interesting. Well, I was one of them in my household,
we do have a record player,
and we did start listening to more records,
- Records, right?
Yeah. There is a difference, right?
- Oh, very much so, - Yes. Especially on an analog system.
- Yeah. - So what I do is I take, I, I find
old equipment that needs to be restored.
So wood, or a pioneer
or a morantz receiver, you know, the silver face receivers
with the, with the, with the nice wood cases store
that I'll take turntables
and do the same thing, speakers, the old wood, you know,
wood speakers restore whatever, whatever they need,
restore the wood or the components inside,
um, and resell.
Or people come to me, they find me,
and they come to me with their equipment
and I'll do a restoration for them or what we call
a - .
That's cool.
- What Adam was referring to earlier about, um,
the sound, the great sound where you can turn up music,
a good analog system where you can turn up music loud
and still be able to talk is, it's a lack
of distortion, is what that is.
A lot of the modern, newer systems, especially digital,
have have high distortion.
So go into a club or somebody's home
and they're playing loud, and it's kind of annoying.
You can't really hear each other.
So what I'm always after is taking equipment
and bringing it back to that wonderful sound of you, smooth,
rich, warm sound with a lack of distortion,
because distortion gets in the way,
can't necessarily hear it, but it does have effect on us.
So that's the sound that I'm always looking for,
that wonderful old school, warm, smooth, vintage sound.
- So regarding digital is, that's more of a cd, right? Yeah.
And so I grew up in the nineties.
I grew up early, early days.
I did have cassettes,
and then of course, I adopted to the CDs.
Yes. And I do notice, I did notice,
and you are aware of the difference between a cassette
and a, you know, cd.
- Absolutely. - Um,
can you explain why mu the music industry moved to digital?
- I guess efficiency, you easy use,
you can put a lot more music on a given space.
Mm-Hmm. , like I said, right?
30 or 60 or minutes, A record is maybe 15,
20 minutes per side.
CD can easily hold an hour's worth of music.
Um, it can compress the sound
because ites doesn't, the itself, it just pluses,
compresses, compresses the sound.
So, and I guess from a recording standpoint, you know,
for a band, it's like you just turn on the machine and,
and it records, you know, you don't even see it happening.
Whereas tape machine, which by the way,
the bands are getting back to
that now they're recording tape again,
they're pressing vinyl.
It's lot more work. It's a lot more equipment.
It takes up more space equip,
but in the end, you know, it's, it's all about the sound
quality of analog.
I think other people might agree with me
that analog is unbeatable as far as the quality of the,
and the realness of it.
And the, it's really hard to get warmth
and smoothness and accuracy
and, uh, imaging outta a digital format.
- Oh, that's interesting. I mean,
you just answered my next question about the benefits
of switching back to analog,
and it sounds like a lot of musicians in bands are starting
to do that, huh?
- Absolutely. Yep. I've heard, I've heard many times
that people are, uh, bands are recording on analog now,
because once they, you know, they,
especially old school bands that went from analog.
And then in the, in the, in the mid eighties, actually,
when digital began, I used to work at a, when I first moved
to San Diego in 83, I worked at a car stereo shop.
So in 84, 85, we were putting CD players in Mm-Hmm.
The, and you like it had that bling. Wow. Sounds so good.
You know, loud and crisp and impact. Mm-Hmm.
First we didn't really notice what was, so that took over.
We figured, okay, digital is it, man, it's like CDs,
it's gonna see, go to CDs.
Let's, we'll just get of our analog stuff.
Which many people did, you know, older guys in bands went to
CDs Digital, and then they went back to analog.
Comparatively, it's like this, it sounds so much better.
- Yeah. - And they can use, I don't,
I don't do any recording,
but I'm imagining, like, I have a friend
who has a recording studio,
and he, he, he collects all these old analog record like
devices that bands use.
You know, you see guitar players pressing the buttons,
you know, on the floor, and it changes the sound.
Well, he just loves the sound.
I guess you can, you can be more creative perhaps with, uh,
an analog format, and the end result is the sound is
just, it's just better .
- Yeah. That's the bottom line. It just sounds
better. - .
Yeah. It just, you know, music recorded, well produced,
well recorded, just moves you, it touches you at a, at a,
at a, at, at your soul level, you know? Yeah.
- Yeah. No, that makes sense.
What's a really good sound system consist of
and how much would that cost?
Like even someone for like me, I'd like
to upgrade my sound system. Mm-Hmm. ,
- It's pretty basic. It's one of the beauties,
the many beauties of analog is that it's very simple,
very basic, right?
You have left channel and right channel
tone controls, right balance.
Mm-Hmm. base treble, maybe if you have an equalizer,
you have more tone controls,
but it's really, it's really very simple, basic, basic.
It's easy to hook up. You have two speakers.
Your basic system is, is just a, a receiver, right?
Which is a box that has everything in it, has an AFM tuner.
So you listen the radio, it has an input
for a phonograph, you know, turntable.
Mm-Hmm. has inputs for other audio components,
like a reel tore player or ca set machine,
or even your phone or a Bluetooth receiver.
So you can use your phone to transmit the audio
to the Bluetooth receiver,
and that goes into the back of the receiver as well.
Mm-Hmm, . Mm-Hmm. and the other components
are speakers, right?
So basic system is a receiver and two speakers,
and then you can expand upon that
by adding maybe a second pair of speakers
or Equalizer to have more tonal controls.
And then your inputs are a turntable or a cassette player
or anything want, but it, it's pretty, pretty basic.
The new, um, like the audio video receivers,
that's a whole different animal.
Way more complicated to hook up.
You know, you have to have a monitor to,
to do all your settings and your setup.
I never enjoyed it. It was way too complicated.
I never felt like I got the,
the right sound outta an audio video system.
I don't generally watch, I don't have like a video
system to watch movies on.
I watch movies on my laptop. I'm all about the music.
I'm mostly listen to music all day,
depend upon features.
It's really more about, uh, power, right?
It's like you want car with a cylinder, six cylinder,
eight cylinder, or a, you know? Right,
- Right.
- That's what costly generally is.
Receiver that has more power.
So for, like I said, two 50 for a receiver,
a pair of speakers you can get for about the,
you can get an amazing sounding system
that you'll enjoy every day.
- Awesome. - And, and,
and the other thing, nice thing about this stereo is
that it's, it's expandable.
Mm-Hmm. You can get of your speakers,
you can get another pair of speakers,
you can add a second set, second pair of speakers, them,
you can add a, you a for more base,
you can replace the receiver.
And if you, if you wanted to, uh, you wanna play louder,
you can get a more powerful receiver.
Mm-Hmm. , the basic system is just three
or four components. That's about it.
- Uh, what kind of record player would you recommend
for someone just like myself?
So I have a basic one, but I think I need an upgrade. .
- Um, I'm all about the vintage stuff.
So anything from the seventies and
and early eighties, any of those name brands,
if you look on the back of them
and they say, made in Japan, chances are very good
that it's quality of equipment.
All the Japanese in US stuff from the, back in the day,
the seventies primarily, it's all great stuff.
The competition was so fierce that you couldn't,
you couldn't bring out any junk because nobody would buy it.
It had to be better in some way.
- Wow. Okay. - Power cleaner sound better.
Look, you know, so stuff is just, it just looks amazing.
You know, the lighting and the silver face and the .
All of the knobs and switches are,
they're not like stamped out.
They're like milled on a mill outta, outta metal or chrome
or, you know, it's like you can feel the quality.
- Yeah, the quality for sure.
- Uh, so turntable, I mean, te is a,
is is like one of the top names from, from back in the day.
Pioneer can Sony car,
um, san like that.
Then you have the higher name brands, like, you know,
thos is, is a well respected name, pay a bit more money,
but if you wanna just a really just a good basic turn
that's gonna amazing.
And it's forever, you can spend
and course cartridge on.
It is link of a chain, right?
You want all the chain to be
of equal strength if you have a weak whole chain.
Right? Right.
So you wanna enough power, a good turntable
with a good cartridge, uh,
and of course a good pair of speakers.
- So you say that you don't watch much tv,
but you listen to a lot of music, which makes sense.
So you must be always in a good mood, right? Music is,
- Changes - Your mood.
Right? It could really uplift your mood.
So what kind of music do you typically listen to?
- Music is very, very powerful. Mm-Hmm. .
Um, it's something
that I don't think I could live without. ,
it's not, and I don't have music on all the time.
I really enjoy my quiet, you know, peace and quiet
and just, you know, just staying in that
or being in that meditative state.
Yeah. Enjoy my quiet.
But when I wanna listen to music, I want,
I want it to sound good.
Yeah. I wanna have access to all kinds of music.
So, um, I listen to, gosh, I,
I love reggae, rock
and roll, classical, um,
anything that's well produced, well recorded
and has a, has a nice message.
I like to be able hear the lyrics, you know,
a singer songwriter, like still,
I like him because he's a storyteller
and you can hear what he's saying.
Mm-Hmm. you this, some of the new stuff.
I was like, what the hell?
I can't, it's like noise to me, you know?
I like things that are well produced, so it can be anything.
Um, I'm not really fond of like country music too much or,
or, or rap, you know,
especially if it's got a negative connotation to it.
Negative vibe to it. Mm-Hmm.
You know, I, I,
I was brought up in the sixties and seventies.
I have that hippie blood in me, so that's why I love reggae
message, connection,
love, that kind of thing.
You know, things that are real, things that people connect
with one another, you know?
So as it, it's recorded well, I'll listen, listen to,
but I switch it up quite a
sounding things for a while then.
Okay. You know, everything we get tired of, of anything
after a while, so I'll switch it up to something else.
- I typically play reggae every Sunday.
- Kidding. Reggae Sunday, huh? - Yeah. Reggae Sunday and
- Some of the new reggae stuff.
It sounds amazing. The recording quality is amazing.
The message. Don't you love the message? Yeah,
- Always about - Like being a good person,
paying attention, connection, love, you know,
offering yourself, you know, your qualities,
things that you're good at.
Reggae people tend to like to ibe in the, uh, you know, in,
in the, in the smoke smoking aspect, you know,
which raises your vibration
and, you know, changes your state of mind.
And they, they sing from there and it's, I just love it.
Sounds great. I feel, you know, you can really feel
what they're, what they're singing about, right? Yeah.
- It's all about good energy. Good energy.
- Absolutely. It's all about energy.
We're energy manipulators, aren't we? Mm-Hmm.
, I mean, everything we do, our thoughts, our words,
our actions, we manipulate energy
and it's so nice when people are doing that in ways
that are beneficial for, for others as well
as themselves. Right?
- Yeah. And could hear it in a nice analog sound system.
, yes.
- Reggae. You know, obviously I have a couple
of nice systems in my, in my home here.
And boy, when put on some reggae and just turn it up
and it sounds so crisp and clear and punchy
and just you, you feel it.
It's like a, it's like a drug. It really is.
You know, without, without the bad side
effects. - .
Yes. Say it changes your mood. It lifts your spirits.
- Absolutely. Mm-Hmm. . If you're not,
people say, oh, I don't feel good.
This is happening. It's like, just be quiet.
Put on some music you like.
It could be something like, you know,
just ethereal woo woo kind of stuff, or could be classical
or whatever moves you, whatever you listen to,
and you just, you, you feel good.
Yeah. Something positive and uplifting.
It's, it's really, it's always there. It's always available.
Don't forget about it. You always have access to music.
- That's great advice. Oh, Greg, it's been such a pleasure.
How can people get in touch with you
or book a consultation with you?
- Um, I guess through my email. Okay.
It's C level. My original name of my company was C Level
back in 85 when started my, my first business.
So it's c-level SD like San Diego. Mm-Hmm. SD gmail.
- Amazing. - I'd be happy to talk to people
and tell them what I've got
and you know, a lot of people out there have equipment
that they found, you know, wow, look at this.
Grandma, grandpa left this in the garage.
We forgot about it. And, you know, I can restore that stuff
so they can gimme a call and I can have a little chat
and see what we can do together.
- That's awesome. Thank you so very much.
It's been a pleasure having you on the Gutsy, babe.
Well, that's it for this episode of The Gutsy Babe.
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