tt surface noise reduce or tolerate?

Hear-hear, as the Brits say.....(:

Radioheadoplayer: As many posts have already pointed out some noise is inherient with record playing. I have found, a significant amount can be eliminated by careful cleaning.

A record cleaning machine(RCM) can do much to lessen noise especially in combination with Steam Cleaning : Read the Steam Cleaning Thread for details and free suggestions.

Radio, dispite all cleaning efforts some recordings are noisey due to manufacturing defects and prior owner abuse. If that's the case get another copy. I suspect that extensive cd playback has made you extra-aware of noise.That's ok because Steam Cleaning has the ability to silence many a groove noise. If all of his sounds like work-It is but look at the audio discoveries to be found. All the best.

So far all the Radiohead LPs I've gotten have been quiet.

In the CD world, those with analog master tapes are frequently reissues of older LPs. Older master tapes have degraded with time; its not that the original LPs covered up the hiss, the hiss was often simply not there. If you get a chance to play with a 1/2" format stereo tape machines you find out what I really mean.

A lot of transistor tape machines will make a sort of 'modulation noise' that is absent on the tube tape machines, and it is transistor recorders that often are used to master CD reissues. So CDs will often have tape hiss that the original LP issues will not, though no fault of either media- its more of a mastering problem.

There are many reasons reasons Lps fail most having to do with the creation of the LP recording, far fewer after that. Too many newbeyee's are unware of the manufacturing thresholds that must be crossed before a "pure" recording is possible. It takes years with a mentor and with to understand the thresholds to overcome. All the best.

Crem1, what do you mean by 'Lps fail'? I've had LPs for 35 years now but I have yet to see one fail. OTOH I've seen a few CDs failing recently. For me, 'fail' means it won't play or degrades significantly **with proper storage**. LPs IME do not fail but CDs and most all tapes do.