Hard To Find 45s on CD series

Hey gang. I own the spectacular Volumes 15-17 of this
series which Ron confirmed in his detailed analysis have
no Noise Reduction. I am considering picking up earlier
volumes, but I want to avoid NR like the plague. Do ALL
of the volumes before 15 have NR or are there some worth
picking up?

You might want to check with Mark Mathews for an answer to which volumes used NR and which did not (as Mark has worked on many of the more recent volumes of the series). I will add that there are two yet to be released volumes coming soon. That is all I can say at this time.

Well here's the thing. My old friend Tom Daly mastered
many of the earlier volumes, and back then he was in love
with noise reduction. He was unable to hear the terrible
side effects. Many of the folks who bought the CDs also
could not hear any ill effects and raved over the clean
sound and lack of noise. So Tom continued to use it
heavily for a while. Sometime in 2000 I met Tom and tried
to explain to him what I was hearing in artifacts. This
is very hard to explain to anyone who can't hear the
effect. Nonetheless, he believed me and wanted to keep
artifacts low, and asked for my help.

So in 2002 Tom recruited me as an assistant to help with
EQ and keeping the artifacts down to a minimum (I tried
and failed to get him to stop using it altogether).
So on the volumes that bear both our names you will hear
much less of it, but beware because there were still some
songs that have light artifact, audible on the fade out.

To help, Here's a general breakdown of where you'll
hear NR the most and least:

Vols 1-2: NO noise reduction, these two were mastered by
Fred Meyer at Polygram.

Vols 3 - 7, 9 and 10 mastered by Tom Daly, many tracks
have noise reduction to some degree.

Vols 8, 11, and 12 mastered by Tom Daly and Mark Mathews
and have less noise reduction but very audible on a few
tracks, minor on others.

Vols 13 & 14 mastered by Tom Daly, Mark Mathews & Walt
Weiskopf.. these 2 have the LEAST NR, but sadly still a
few tracks suffer from it. I think Ron G did a
review/breakdown for these here in this forum, so check
out those posts for details.

My friend Tom retired in 2013 so Vols 15, 16 and 17 were
mastered by myself and Walt Weiskopf and have ZERO noise
reduction.
This is also true of any Hit Parade or Complete 60s CD
released after 2012.

Hope this helps!
Mark M   

[EDIT]: and of course NO NR on Vols 18 and 19 which will
be announced in about 6 weeks. They contain big 70s hits.
Some tracks will be very common for collectors here, but
the discs have a nice line-up for the average Amazon
buyer (we have to do that to survive). However, there are
a few CD debuts, hard to find single versions, and a
single mix debut that you don't even yet know had a
single mix!

Edited by MMathews

Damn! I want order them blind NOW!

Thanks for the NR summary, Mark! That's kind of what a
lot of people had questions about.

You solved the mystery Doug. You can't fool that guy.