How do you get past the pops and hiss of LPs?

Folks who say to get CDs are partially right.
It's realy easy to built a nice sounding system arround CD-player where you can use pocket one with line-out connected to the Grado Headphone system and it will sound nice and this is where you can't do the same arround records.

Analogue playback setup needs EFFORT much more than money!
Records as well as CDs should be properly STORED and PLAYED thus will need almost no cleaning(well only sweeping before placing styli). As I remember using cartriges with replacable styli I was change it real often not to create further damage to vinyls. Tracking and alignment plays the vast role in this case as well.
Applying a large effort to clean already damaged records probably used as sleepers or stored with no inner sleeves in one carton jacket or any other kind of mis-use with bad styli, improper cueing can only bring little-to-no success.

Having to shop for the loved records either online or in local stores, checking condition and than taking proper care of the new "normal" collection, without even thinking or examining replacing an old cartrige or styli, also having possible replacement of an old tonearm aged throughout years for even any cheap new will eliminate the vast vast noise from your records.

inpepinnovations@ I'm sure you understand that I am not talking about tape hiss. As Tom and Marty pointed out, tape hiss is audible on CDs to, but it is not part of the recording, it is a fault of the recording medium. As people have gained a better understanding about what was needed to preserve tapes without degradation this is less of an issue.

Hiss was not part of the music recorded in the studio. Where it is audible it is typically caused by poor cared for LPs.

Marakanetz is right, LP playback is not for the lazy. It requires a little effort to totally surpass the sound quality of CDs, but only a little! Many of our 'microwave' generation do not have the patience to obtain good music. That's their choice, but don't fool yourself into thinking that CDs will ever be of the same sound quality as LPs.

Kemp, just use clean LPs!

Allow me to draw a metaphor of sorts. As a recording engineer and vintage studio gear enthusiast, I find tape hiss to be a relatively small price to pay for the benefits of a great 4,8,16 track machine. Listen to the drums on the White Album and you'll know what I mean. That sound came from a Fairchild compressor and a 4 track tape machine. Now, is there some hiss on the recording? Maybe, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Similarly, I find occasional pops on my LP's to be a small price to pay. But this is usually not a problem for me as I try to buy only new, reissued vinyl if at all possible. Thus static is more my problem but it is much easier to cure than scratches.

Moral: The good outweighs the bad in both analog recording and playback.

At least, as someone else noted, the hiss is "below" the music and not "within" it.

How come the vinyl lovers are all able to "tune-out" (pun intended) the little noises contained on the medium to enjoy the music, but are unable to "tune-out" the lack of information (so called) on CD to enjoy the music? Whose internal filter is wrong?

Viridian, I don't know what the source of hiss is on those CD's, but I do hear it, in fact even more since there are no other noises to mask it!