Living with popping and crackling

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.

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.