surface noise reduction

Thanks, everyone, for the tips.  I will try some of these and reply as soon as I have success.

I puttered around in relatively low - mid end tables and cartridges through about 1980. Like the second coming of the AR TT, Philips, and Gerard… with cartridges like the Shure V15 Well respected, but low to midlevel and absolutely not audiophile.

I took the plunge and got and audiophile table and cartridge. That was a VPI Aries and a Van den Hull Frog. I don’t think I have ever heard such a stark and jaw dropping change in sound in my life. The surface noice just disappeared… gone. I had no idea it was even possible. The difference was so large I felt rather stupid for not doing it sooner. Since then every audiophile turntable / cartrige I have heard has been virtually void of surface noice. Ok, really terrible vinyl has noice, but even that isn’t obnoxious.

So, here is the problem. I really want to claim it was mostly the turntable. But I never put a Shure V15 on it. Once I was into the audiophile arena I just never wanted to go back. I have listened to some modest Rega and not been impressed with their lack of surface noice.

So, here is what I think. Save up and replace both the turntable and the cartridge. Jump up a level… think about 2x for both cartridge and table. My feeling is that super heavy tables in the lower audiophile categories are quieter. At least from my experience.

I think this would be far more effective than trying to substitute a maybe less sensitive or warm cartridge.

@boxcarman You have two really important issues to address that were both brought up by @lewm early in this thread. The first is cartridge loading; cartridges like yours really need a proper load to sound right!

If unloaded, the inductance of the cartridge in parallel with the capacitance of your tonearm cable sets up a resonance that can be just barely ultrasonic or inside the upper end of the audio band, as you seem to have going on right now. This emphasizes ticks and pops.

Inexpensive (and some expensive) phono sections can make ticks and pops when the resonance I just mentioned overloads the input of the phono section. They can sound for all the world as if they are on the LP. Loading can help this as the resonance can be as much as 100x more powerful than the signal (so as much as 1/2Volt!) so the phono section needs very good high frequency overload margin, and many simple just don't have that because the designer didn't take this issue into account.

At any rate, get the loading sorted out. Here's a cartridge loading calculator; most of the time you can assume the tonearm cable to be about 100pf.

@atmasphere, you are right. I fiddle-faddled with the loading adjustments until I was satisfied.  Took awhile but worth the effort.  Yet I might invest in a better cart one of these days.

Yet I might invest in a better cart one of these days.

@boxcarman If you are listening carefully and without bias, I think you'll find that the ability of the arm to track the cartridge correctly is far more important than what cartridge you have.

Of course to do that the cartridge must be compatible with the arm; it must be a proper weight and have compliance such that the cartridge mounted in the arm will create a mechanical resonance between 7 and 12Hz.

So you can't just get any cartridge that might be more expensive; if a cheaper cartridge is more compatible with your arm it will sound better (as long as you've also paid attention to proper loading if the cartridge is MM and high output).