What do you think causes the crackle and clicks we hear?

The Talisman eliminates magnetic fields, not static electric charges, as fate would have it. Chalk that one up to that’s the way it goes sometimes.

@johnss 
Last night I gave my noisy crackle 180 gram a really good cleaning, and whaddya know the crackling went away! I also noticed most of the static was removed from the record which was what I thought causes the crackling. I'll test out more records in the coming days.

MC, I have two 911s and neither one squeals. One is ceramic and it is supposed o have a reputation for that. The other one will grind just starting out if the brakes got wet but no squeal. It has Girodisc rotors on it and Centric pads.

Johnss, My records are never touched by any cleaning device or fluid. Just a conductive sweep arm and the stylus. Excuse me. Some of my very old albums were treated with Last. I stopped when I figured out that it was not doing a darn thing. Maybe to rare fingerprint when I slip.
 I just got a new WiFi USB microscope. I will see if I can get pictures and figure a way to post them. 
Used records and records that have gotten dirty are a different problem. I can understand why those who buy used records get a record cleaning devise. I do not. The secret to clean records is, don't let them get dirty in the first place. 

@ mijostyn, no worries. I used to think exactly the same; keep records from getting dirty in first place; be super anal about not letting anyone else handle them, etc. That was key to clean records.

But now realize that is not the case. The particles in the bottom of the groove are from the cooling cycle of the pressing process or operation during LP manufacturing, so are completely independent and totally unrelated to how clean or how well you handle or dont handle your records, brand new or old. 
I will say the 180 gram and 200 gram LPs I have looked at do have a lower level of particles in the groove than the 1970s and 80s LPs, so there is more care taken with these than the earlier commonly released titles pressed by whom ever. But these particles are still there. 

I have a large (but not huge)  collection, with many LPs from the 1650s-70s, plus many re-issues from Speakers Corner and Acoustic Sounds. For years I always thought the VPI or NG were made for removing finger prints, dust, lint, etc.

Once I realized that was not the case, then the door got blown off on my original theories on LP cleaning that have been drummed into my head by so many over the years. So then had to experiment to see what worked to remove  the white particles. Many trials of cleaning, then looking under the scope to see if I mad a difference or not.

If anyone knows how to  post photos to this blog would be happy to do it, but in the past have tried that with no success.

if you use a stylus cleaning solution, take a look in the solution. It should be loaded with white particles all floating around in bottle.

And once you get the grooves free of 90% of the particles, you will be amazed at how much lower the noise floor becomes, and how much more ambience is pulled from those grooves.