Living with popping and crackling

Every aspect of vinyl playback affects surface noise. Just think about each tiny link in this long chain as I'm too lazy today to write about each. The right combination of parts along with proper setup and cleaning will provide very satisfactory results and it isn't that expensive if you do your research and spend your available funds wisely. Everyone that experiences my vinyl playback for the first time always asks, "are all your records in such nice shape"? However, a few used records I have that look new are horrible sounding. This is the result of the original owner carving new information into the grooves with a very dirty sytlus. This cannot be overcome.

I've also found that some audiophiles have a very low tolerance for surface noise having become accustomed to a CD's inherent black background. If this is your mind set then vinyl is not for you.

My feeling is that it will take $2500 for a quality used table, arm, cartridge, phono stage and cleaning system to bring the level of performance to a very nice level. Another $1000 would bring you a level of playback that will compete closely with the best if you choose wisely.

find a friendly dealer who deals in turntables and has a record cleaner, then take in one of the lps you are most familiar with, clean it up and listen to it on a good rig - then you'll get a sense of what's optimally possible. it's in the dealer's interest to do this since he then has you hooked!

I have been surprised more than once by the clicking at the end of a very quiet album, forgetting that i was listening to the tt, not the cdp. Most of my older records have some noise, but its still worth it to me. A lot of album reissues on cd dont sound very good so im glad i still have vinyl. The better pressings still sound better than cds.

Ditto what Dan_ed and Lugnut said...

The following cannot be over-emphasized: proper cleaning of vinyl is essential. This goes for used records of course, but in one sense it's even more important for new ones. If you don't clean a record before its first play, you will ruin it with its first play. Read the "Record-Playing Rituals" thread stickied at the top of the Analog forum page - 97 seperate opinions on how to do it best.

Better equipment, as Lugnut mentioned, will also contribute to quieter playback. As my rig has gotten better, so have my records! I listen mostly to classical, where noisy backgrounds are often revealed by a wide dynamic range. Yet I have many hundreds of records with absolutely jet black backgrounds. Visitors expecting the old pops and ticks are usually astonished.

Vinyl quality also varies from label to label. I've never heard a noisy harmonia mundi, nor a truly quiet Mercury. That doesn't keep me from enjoying the Mercuries however. If the music, performance and recording are right (as they often were on Mercury) then my ears quickly tune out most surface noise, user-inflicted damage excepted. Of course I still wish they were as quiet as those harmonia mundi's!

I find simple cleaning, manually, cleans most LPs up well. Buying used vinyl, at $1 to $10 a piece, I clean 'em and play 'em. If there's too much surface noise for my taste, I take 'em back and trade 'em in, getting about 50% of price paid. For me this works out OK, and you'd be amazed at how many clean $1 LPs I've bought since getting back into vinyl about 1.5 years ago. I wouldn't be intimidated by anyone who suggests that you'll need to spend 2 or 3 thousand dollars for satisfactory LP playback. My rig costs far less and has been satisfying me splendidly since I got back into vinyl. Enjoy.