Hello Sunnyjim, I hope you're doing much better then you were in Sept '08... Your priorities are definitely in order, BTW. Anyway, my experience is: I have about 2 or 3 thousand Lp's, since the late '60's... played them all on a very nice '70's turn table with curved "S" shaped type arm.. The '70's table was a very good sounding piece and was set up properly, but some new records would skip and repeat or skip over, so, I just put those LP's away:( Fast forward to 2004, I splurge and purchase a Basis 2000 series table with Vector model-3 tone arm -which is a straight arm and, Benz Micro ACE cartridge... Now, for some reason those old LP's don't skip. Clicks and pops are something that just come with the territory.
Vinyl pops and clicks: Can they be eliminated??
I have a Mobile Fidelity issue of "Close to the Edge" by Yes. The LP is at least 20 years old or more. Always help up well until today. There is now a skip that repeats over and over. Other pops and clicks don't interrrupt the flow of music like this one. I checked several things: cartridge, tracking, stylus, and also damped cleaned the LP, but it continued to skip repeat in that one place. It may be time to retire this piece of vinyl, but if I could inexpensively repair or correct that skip, it would be great. However,I intend to replace this album with the Japanese SHM-CD import when the reissue is available again. All advice welcome