I think when you're listening to LPs surface noise comes with the territory and it's something you live with. Unless it's gravel road extreme our mind largely tunes it out. An odd thing I found when I upgraded my cartridge is that it didn't seem to pick up dust the way my old budget model did. That one I had to clean off once per side of a record.
Are your record surfaces as silent as CDs?
When I got my new analog setup (please refer to my profile if interested ) I was very surprised that surface noise virtually disappeared from most of my records. It’s like I was listening to CDs. I’m wondering if others have had that same experience.with their setup.