Crackle and hiss on some albums

A record can never be too clean.

So with your cheap turntable you did not hear lots of noise?

First, typically the noise goes down the better the turntable with a big drop when you hit high end… let’s arbitrarily say around $5K depending on the type of table. But then, you say that some are very quiet… so it doesn’t seem to be the table quality. Although many of my very noisy records became silent with a high end table and high end cartrige. I believe the cartrige has a much smaller stylist and it drops down much deeper into the groove from where damage had been done. I have a surprising number of beat up albums from the 1970’s that sound great.

Then there are albums themselves. There is a category of non cleanable albums that sound like you say. For me they have been less than 1 in a hundred when buying used records. But I have lots of experience. 99% of the time you can tell a trashed album at the store by taking it out and reflecting the lights from above across the album. A clean / non-destroyed album’s grooved area will be bright and shiny. Really high volume (in the music) area will show exaggerate grooves… so not quite as shiny… but overall bright and shiny. Trashed albums will be dull looking.

So, if you have a little noise, or constant surface noise a better turntable may take care of them. But if a constant noisy albums with pops and hiss. Even a good record cleaner ( a must if you will be collection… VPI sells an expensive if noisy vacuum cleaner) will not fix these. You need to figure out how not to buy them.

Dust doesn’t make pops. Good luck getting rid of them short of editing them out digitally or serious electronic mitigation costing more than all of your analogue equipment together.

View the pop/grooves with a microscope and you’ll see what you’re up against.

Cleaning after you’ve created them misses the boat.

GHD, I cannot quite visualize how a "better turntable" would mitigate the noise from noisy LPs, if we agree that ticks, pops, and other sorts of noise associated with vinyl playback are due to mistracking, dirt in the grooves, or a worn out LP.  No turntable can fix any of those problems.  I better tonearm and better setup of any tonearm might mitigate mistracking.  Different cartridges handle dirty and/or worn out LPs with different success rates, also depending upon setup.  Also some cartridges inherently track better than others. But it's hard to blame the turntable in any of this.

Exact carts are known to be overly detailed. The output is around 7mv. Most MM carts are around 5mv. Make sure the capacitance on your PHO-701 is set for 115 pF. If the vinyl is imperfect in anyway, Exact carts tend to emphasize those imperfections. I think you’re just experiencing a mix of static and pressings with low quality vinyl. Especially if other pressings sound fantastic on your system. Some carts just aren’t as forgiving as others.