kro77, With analog there will be noise. Period. There’s things you can do to reduce it, but don’t try and put legs on a snake.
All we really can do is what we really can do: play clean records, with a clean stylus, and hope for the best. A huge amount of noise is down to the pressing, and that is a crap shoot. I’ve paid good money for some that had pieces of paper embedded as if melted into the vinyl. I’ve got one so bad its like a cliche Hollywood stunt record- you know, the one they want to establish the character so they show him lowering the arm on some Mingus and then the foley effects guy dubs over some obnoxious amount of noise so you KNOW its a record. Only this is too bad even for that.
But the key to happiness with analog is learning to enjoy the music. Because with records there might always be some unwanted noise that comes along with the music, but with digital the music is all gone and everything you hear is noise. So take your pick.
That said, my rig is very, very good. One thing you (hopefully) learn, the better the rig the less the noise matters even when its there. This is hard to explain but easy to hear. Whether we are talking about a better cartridge, arm, table, or stand, the better they are the more the music floats palpably present in the room separate from the system and everything else. This is something analog is just naturally so much better at than digital its not even funny.
This is even more true as you move up the analog food chain. The better cartridges some how magically allow you to hear much greater detail and extension, yet at the same time make surface noise much less noticeable. Its actually not magic. What happens is their lower moving mass results in better control, with the stylus bouncing around much less, which is actually where a lot of the noise comes from.
But really, the best advice I can give is don’t sweat it. If you buy a new record and its obnoxiously bad, send it back. Other than that look at it like when you buy anything new. Whatever it is, its all the same: starts out perfectly shiny, winds up dinged up and dirty.
Nobody ever said they’re taking the bus because they can’t stand the way the car picks up paint chips. Same deal.
