I hear the noise on a different plane than the music. In life, if someone sneezes from the 2nd balcony, it sounds from a different place than the orchestra.@stringreen I understand this bit very well- its why I prefer vinyl, as any surface artifacts are in a different plane from the music, while the colorations (brightness and hardness) of digital are part of the music itself.
However, this statement suggests to me a misunderstanding, I'd like to clear it up:
a good system won’t minimize the clicks.pops, but neither will it emphasize them.The idea here is that indeed a phono section can affect how many ticks and pops you hear, because they originate due to phono section design issues which is triggered by something on the LP surface. And I hate to say it, but many high end phono sections do have this problem- in fact they emphasize ticks and pops, and people thing they are part of 'a good system'. I think this is because as I pointed out earlier, many people grew up with unstable phono sections and simply thing that ticks and pops just come with the media, which they don't.
Put another way, if you really do have 'a good system', you will hear less ticks and pops- it will minimize them, without other coloration, such as a loss of highs.