Crackle and hiss on some albums

I would highly recommend sending your records to PerfectVinylForever, a record cleaning service. His is no ordinary ultrasonic cleaning process; it’s a multi-step cleaning done with proprietary equipment that he designed himself. I know, you’re thinking “snake oil” — I thought the same thing. I had always used my VPI record cleaner and thought it couldn’t be beat. How wrong I was — PVF is amazing. Records sound completely black with improved sonics. Even some of the pops and cracks are gone.  I’ve now sent nearly 50% of my collection to him and will eventually finish the remaining albums. It’s absolutely amazing — even my old “college frisbee albums” sound good after a PVF cleaning. I’ve included his website link or you can just search for PerfectVinylForever. 

I would highly recommend sending your records to PerfectVinylForever, a record cleaning service. His is no ordinary ultrasonic cleaning process; it’s a multi-step cleaning done with proprietary equipment that he designed himself. I know, you’re thinking “snake oil” — I thought the same thing. I had always used my VPI record cleaner and thought it couldn’t be beat. How wrong I was — PVF is amazing. Records sound completely black with improved sonics. Even some of the pops and cracks are gone.  I’ve now sent nearly 50% of my collection to him and will eventually finish the remaining albums. It’s absolutely amazing — even my old “college frisbee albums” sound good after a PVF cleaning. I’ve included his website link or you can just search for PerfectVinylForever. 

At the very least, a PVF cleaning will tell you for sure if the noise was just dirt or inevitable wear from frequent use or disuse.

I offer another PVF salutation as possible help for your problem with noise. I’ve several albums that were purchased in both vinyl and RTR played on my prosumer Studer. Of course, tape is without extraneous noise and has a stronger dynamic range. Some albums— but not can be cleaned by PVF to a silence that matches RTR. This is my experience for new and used albums. Neither PVF nor I are able to predict in advance what album will become noiseless. PVF is not cheap. But despite their cost and variable success, a positive outcome with PVF is so striking that I send every album to them — even those that are new.

@lewm 

No, I cannot say that with absolute certainty as it was from a series of upgrades of different tables and cartridges etc on different tts when I was moving from mid-fi to audiophile stuff. It all seemed to contribute to different degrees. The solidly stable tt seemed to significantly reduce surface noice. The cartrige when having a tiny stylist would significantly reduce the pops and more obvious discrete noise.