Living with popping and crackling

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.

I've got 3 copies of that Rubinstein and I agree, none of them is particularly quiet. I gave up after realizing that I don't even like Rubinstein's Beethoven. Not sour grapes, I love his Chopin like everyone. But he just doesn't "get" Beethoven for me. De gustibus non disputandem est, or YMMV if you prefer Internet-ish.

4yanx, Miles Davis is a great way to demonstate the virtues of vinyl. I always found his muted trumpet to sound harsh on even so-call audiophile cd's. I only heard Miles once on SACD when I demoed it at Sound by Singer in NY. I listened to Sketches of Spain which left me out in the cold compared to my vinyl which is spellbinding. As for the supposed noise issue which Eldartford seems fixated on, perhaps he is not be cleaning properly or has something wrong with his setup. I can't see that the small difference in noise level, even on quiet passages would be an issue to anyone given the other improvements in sound. I have very few Jazz LP's that present any type of objectionable noise level but perhaps its different in the classical realm or his definition of "objectionable" is far more critical than mine. On the other hand, I have several digitally remastered LP's that are dead quiet but not nearly as musically enjoyable as their straight analog counterparts to my ear.