battling the pops and clicks

I have once wondered that if we were to introduce "snaps, crackles and pops" to a CD would we prefer the "bettersounding" CD to a pristine CD? Oh, and also add the interchannel phase error prevelant on vinyl that is so attractive to vinylphiles, making it sound "so much more real".
I love my vinyl music, but I do not think that, except for some extremely well done recordings, vinyl is superior to digital - certainly not from a noise point of view.

Bob P.

Ejlif, a few ideas...

Try RRL solutions instead of DD. With RRL a distilled water rinse is unnecessary and in fact counterproductive. RRL is actually purer than most distilled water, and it never foams or leaves any residue. On my Loricraft RRL gets about 70% of the records clean enough so that no further wet cleaning is necessary.

For the stubborn 30%, I try Buggtussel's Vinyl-zyme or Paul Frumkin's AIVS. Enzymes will remove stuff that surfactant-based cleaners can't.

Still, vinyl is rarely perfect. Of our 3,000+ LPs only a minority is "totally" quiet. But as Raul said, once the number of extraneous noises is reduced to just a few per side you learn to listen through them. And yes, it is possible to get the noise down to that level.

I agree with all that Lugnut said regarding better equipment. Loricrafts and Keith Monks clean better than VPIs. Better tables are quieter. Better arms and arm wire are quieter. Better phono stages are much quieter. Better cartridges are quieter and I second his vote for ZYX, which are the quietest I've heard and also the most neutral and natural.

Visitors who hear our system with a CD/SACD/DVDA (rare unless they ask) are more or less impressed, depending on what other systems they've heard. When we switch to vinyl they are invariably overwhelmed. No one has ever asked us to lift the tonearm and go back to digital. When I ask if they'd like to hear another format comparison the answer is predictable, "Shut up and play another record!" The only visitors who aren't genuinely shocked have top quality vinyl setups of their own.

If done well, vinyl can provide an enthralling musical experience that no digital source can match at any price. A good vinyl rig will stomp an Ayre. It will stomp a dcs. It will stomp a Meitner. It will even stomp my Denon. ;-) Will it cost more money than you've spent to get there? Yes. Does it take significant effort and constant TLC? Absolutely. Is it worth all that? Only you can decide.

If you live near someone with a topnotch rig it would be worth a visit. Hearing what's possible, and what it costs in dollars and time, might help you decide whether to pursue this nuttiness or go back to the remote control.

Regards,
Doug

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I am with Doug and Bob, if you invest some money and time, you can find yourself in an amazing place.

My previous tt was a Rega 9/1000 and a Dynavector XX-2. It was pretty damn quiet. Very few pops and ticks.

My new main rig is a used Amazon 1, used Schroeder 1 and an zyx uni.

I do not do a great job of cleaning my records and tire of the ordeal of using my Moth machine (I do plan to get a Loricraft soon, even thogh I wear ear protection.

Nevertheless, the pops and ticks are rare and the music truly magical. The scary thing, however, is the black, black silence between tracks and quiet passages. At night, when the ambiant noise is down, the quiet between tracks is actually breathtaking. You can sometimes hear the stylus gently scaping (I assume thats what it is) the side of the groove between tracks, then the next song starts and you realize that you were hearing a sound so quiet and so far back in the background that the first note, no matter how soft, completly wipes out that gentle sound. Then you are off again on a trip.

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I know it's true, but I've never heard anyone explain WHY some cartridges seem to transmit (or reproduce?) "pops and clicks" while other don't. Or could it be static discharge from the record surface that some cartridges add to the signal while other don't?

I know my Transfiguration W is way less poppy-clicky than my vdH Frog, yet more revealing, signalwise. And we've all read similar attributions about their cartridges from the ZYX evangelists.

So what's the deal? Anybody really know?

can spraying anti static spray around the table before a record is placced on it help? (the cheap Endust electronics spray comes to mind?