Problem with phono stage

@emilm 

if you can't get in contact with lehmann in germany, the ortofon folks in upstate new york are the lehmann importer here in the usa, they have a very knowledgeable tech who can also assist you... he was very helpful to me in the past

presuming you are in the usa

How in the world are pops and tics not normal in vinyl playback? It's part of the medium as it is a contact sport so to speak. You will never eliminate them entirely so why fret about it. If your hearing this sort of thing on a pristine brand new record, then yes, a possible issue. However, play any used records and you will hear some pops. Tics, clicks, and some surface noise. I don't get it really, it comes with the territory. I personally am not bothered by this, as long as the music sounds good. Lastly, try cleaning the records that are a bit noisy on a real record cleaner, one with a vacuum or better yet an ultrasonic cleaning. What you are also hearing is possibly static electricity. Try a carbon fiber audioquest brush and/or a zerostat gun. 

@audioguy

read what the op is saying -- his lp surface noise is much much more prominent with his switching out only the phono stage

which is why we are helping him think through why this may be the case

If I may piggyback on the OP thread, coincidentally I was about to open a discussion on the capacitance VS shielding subject.
Ralph is totally correct on the capacitance subject which is something I discovered on my rig with shielded cables, hum and other artifacts are present. On the other hand Chakster has a valid argument, with unshielded cables my TT makes pops on the right channel with no vinyl playing and a radio station gets induced on the left channel, funnily enough only with a Stanton DJ MM cart coupled, with the DL-301 mk2 MC don't get the radio station or the pops go figure, this is with no vinyl playing.
So where do we compromise? Apparently some shielded cables can achieve low capacitance too but these are rare.
Any of you with experience in this subject.
Trying to make sense of Bob Dylan at the moment, never been a big fan, good night guys.

Just for data purposes around the issue of capacitance in this particular issue -

I asked AudioQuest support some time ago about capacitance in their cables, and was told they have 40pf per meter of capacitance. Not sure I believe it is that low, but if true it is quite good. I use AudioQuest Big Sur for my phono cables and enjoy them very much.

I believe the Arcam A28 has 100pf of capacitance in its phono stage (its not published that I could find, but looking at the schematic that is what I see) - so with an AudioQuest cable of 1 meter, that would present 140pf capacitance to the Nagaoka.

The Black Cube Statement claims the same 100pf of capacitance so with the Black Cube in MM mode the Nagaoka would see the same amount of capacitance.

Given this and the fact that with the built in stage sounds very good and is very quiet with the same cables, I am not sure the issue in this case is cables; and given the Cube's reputation, I suspect something is not right with this specific cube;