Nasty Static on Vinyl

So back to report... I believe the answer is impedance and gain setting on phonostage.
I have a Hana SL and thought the impedance load was 400 ohms but my SPL Phonos phonostage has a preset dial with 100, 220, 470, 2k2, 4k7 and 10k. Also has a normal and low dB setting. ( maybe someone who understands this can direct me to the proper settings). It seems that 100 and low -10 dB has resolved the issue. Feel stupid but worked through it. It seems to be playing fine now. Just couldn’t understand why some albums played fine and others were impossible to listen to.

If memory serves me right the Hana SL is what I would term a momc at 0.7mv.
On the high gain it was likely distorting somewhat and backing it down to the lower setting cured that.
Not that your initial description sounded like distortion but your cure indicates it possibly was.

My guess would be 45db on low and 60 or even 65 dB gain on high 
100ohm might be leaving some upper details on the table though.
Try just changing the impedance one click at a time and evaluating it.
you may find 220 or 470 sounds better.
Good luck.

audiosaurusrex, get a set of these,  https://www.needledoctor.com/Artech-Premium-Phono-Cartridge-Clips
and have them soldered on correctly with silver solder then heat shrink the colors on. Better than crimping and more durable. Always install and remove the clips with a fine needle nose pliers. Never tug on the wires. 
Fingers are way to fat for this work:)

Mike

I'm sorry. Are you saying the Artech Premium phono cartridge clips eliminate static charge build-up, or are you thinking that the cause of the noises is something else?  Thx.
Just reading the thread, it sounds to me like the problem is indeed due to static charge.  The OP has not yet revealed much about his listening room, other than the humidity.  If he has a wool carpet or wears leather soles, those two are culprits in bringing charge to the LP, even if it was discharged to begin with.  The new Audioquest brush that grounds its fibers via the body of the user is pretty effective at least at reducing the charge on the LP surface to the point where there are no obvious physical phenomena to deal with.  The voltage potential of static charge, which easily reaches a threshold of around 3000V and can reach levels as high as 30,000V on the surface of an LP, can certainly jump across open switches, so the OP's reports to that effect do not dissuade me from the static charge hypothesis, unless I am completely misunderstanding the scenario. 

Running the cartridge into 100 ohms load is very suboptimal for the Hana, in that one could expect a high frequency roll-off within the audio band due to an impedance mismatch, but this would never be so severe in slope as to eliminate the kinds of noises that I think the OP is describing (which in any case are not particularly high in frequency).  And the impedance match would neither help nor hurt the tendency to accumulate static charge. Finally, the last thing I would blame in this scenario is the tonearm, as in, I cannot imagine that the tonearm has anything to do with it.
These are just my opinions based on what I read on this thread.  None of us except the OP has all the facts, however.
Just a thought for Audiosaurex:  You say you have been replacing all your record sleeves lately.  Did you do this all at once, at a single sitting or two?  If so, the very act of changing the LP sleeve, which is a major culprit in conferring a static charge to the vinyl, could have charged up several of your LPs.  Once the vinyl is charged, the condition has a tendency to persist for a surprisingly long time.  If you read the Shure Corporation white paper on static, you can see that their actual data on that subject. (I can't remember the numbers, off hand, but I am thinking months maybe.)

@lewm It was that the gain of my phonostage was set to normal +67db apparently way too high. Not that anything was distorted but even in mute the pops and cracks of attenuated music came through the amp sounding like static. Very bizarre and frustrating. I had just mounted the Hana so it was so weird. It only did it on some albums, ones that apparently had a higher gain like the Mofi version of Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. I did bring up the impedance to 470ohm and gain down to -10db and everything is just stunning! Still experiencing some static when I take an album from the sleeve but it’s discharged once it touches the platter. Added a pathe wings mat and it’s great! Thanks for everyone’s help!!!