Living with popping and crackling

Jyprez, kinda reminds of a couple months ago when my smart-ass brother-in-law came from the Midwest and, when I suggested that the four of us mix drinks and after dinner and repose to the music room to spin some old vinyl, he mockingly said upon seeing the turntable, "Ha! You still have one of these dinosaurs, How can you stand all that noise?!" After about an hour of playing FIFTIES VINTAGE Miles Davis LP's, he was left muttering and I'd wager big money that he muttered all the way home! My turn t0 HA! :-)

For me it's more important to KNOW I can wet-clean with Disc Doctor, than the actual cleaning.

Well, except for really grungy stuff.

You also gotta have a few really shiny-clean records in your back pocket for when digitally-minded folk come over, just for the jaw-dropping effect.

Jyprez...Recordings made prior to the digital age usually had a good deal of "processing", most notably Dolby or DBX. Also of interest is the almost universal use of multitrack recording with subsequent mixdown to stereo, which scrambles phasing, and the "blending" of low frequency material (mix to mono) so as to enable tracking by less-than-highend pickups.

Vinyl does have some virtues, but signal to noise ratio is not one of them. My Dixieland jazz LP's (loud and brassy) sound great. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (quiet) does not.

Eldartford,
Have you heard Ashkenazy's LvB sonatas on London? If you can find an undamaged copy of the 'Moonlight' you might be surprised.

P.S. They weren't multitracked either.

Dougdeacon...No. For artistry I like my Rubinstein LP, which I play in preference to digital discs, but I am always upset by the surface noise. Even when new this LP was somewhat noisy because they cut it at a rather low level, probably to preserve dynamic range. I would prefer a little more compression (they always do some) and less surface noise.