Proper Ground for Tonearm and Turntable

Right. Static. Sometimes just pulling a record out of the sleeve generates enough static the sleeve wants to stick and the record is attracting dust like a magnet. Get a ZeroStat. Meantime go to the store and buy Static Guard or whatever anti-static spray they have. Ordinary laundry spray works fine. I’ve never gotten the pop but use this all the time anyway because even when its not bad enough to pop it turns out there’s still enough to raise the noise level and add a little grain and glare. Spray over speaker cables and interconnects, hear the difference. If yours is bad enough you could try spraying the platter and table before putting a record on. Don’t spray directly over records, spray so it wafts just above and to the side. There’s a bunch of other more long term options (like ZeroStat) but this should get you by for now.

The tonearm is the only thing that should be grounded to the phono stage. If you must ground the plinth, it should be to your building ground (usually the cold water pipe coming in from the municipal water supply, only if it’s metallic) through a dedicated ground lead. If you use a well, the building ground electrode should be a long copper rod driven into the soil close to the foundation - check your local electrical code requirements for more info. 

Just wanted to thank everyone who helped my figure out that this was indeed a static buildup at the plinth side of my AS Triple X. I had tried grounding it to the phonostage but it needed to be grounded to my Krell Digital Vanguard negative speaker output. Went back and forth with Krell and they advised on the proper grounding. Super company and very responsive!
Thanks Everyone!!

Cartridges are naturally balanced devices. The tonearm is grounded to chassis ground of the turntable which is connected to chassis ground of the phono preamp. The minus terminals of the cartridge should be isolated from chassis ground or in other words chassis ground should not be connected to the negative side of the RCA cables. Having said this audiosaurusrex's symptoms are a bit unusual if the pop is not just the needle hitting the groove. As millercarbon suggests static electricity could do this and it might be worse if the turntable were not grounded. Zerostats are a serious joke as the second you put the stylus back in the groove static electricity is generated rapidly. The best way to discharge a record is by using a grounded sweep arm with conductive bristles and making sure it and your turntable are grounded correctly,