Here, we are looking at the mono original pressing of The Byrds Greatest Hits.
I verified the pressing, by looking at the mono label on the front, and then looking at the labels which were Columbia one-eye. It says mono pretty clearly as well.
This had more marks on it than I thought – so I spun it…I was not disappointed. Had not heard the mono of this one before – it was pretty cool, and present. I heard the noise in between songs, but to be honest, I struggled to hear much bad stuff in anything while it was playing. I heard crackle kind of stuff, like random pops/clicks in the fade ins and outs of the songs and in the dead space between them – but when the songs played, I did not get distracted at all by the surface noise.
So again, it is not to say that there is nothing in the playback – but I seriously didn’t hear stuff that made me want to report it. The marks on the record definitely seem to look more vicious than they playback – but it may depend on systems and stuff, too. I have a pretty high end, unforgiving needle, but I am myself, pretty forgiving. I thought this record was great – with a little crackle in the dead space, but nothing that interfered with my playback.
Click any picture to zoom in on it, using the browser to return here.
If you want a video clip, I am happy to spin it again…I love this record. But it’s pretty great- there’s a little ball point pen on the back cover (a small loop) otherwise, the edges might be a little close to it, but the front and back panels are still clean and nice – some age to the back more than the front.
Check it out:
