Joelv,
As Raul said, every part of the reproduction chain can help reduce surface noise and remove it to some other plane (perfect description - I know exactly what you mean by that). Some of the most significant factors include:
Record cleaning - Disc Doctor fluids leave much to be desired IME. You'll get a notable reduction in hard clicks and pops with an enzyme based system like AIVS or Walker Prelude. Highly recommend you make that switch.
Stylus profile (already noted by Tvad) - in addition to running quieter, a micro-ridge stylus massively reduces inner groove distortion and makes a big improvement in the clarity of high frequencies.
Arm/cart matching - as noted by Raul.
TT quality - particularly the platter. In this area there's nothing better IME than a well damped, high mass platter.
Phono stage quality - no one has mentioned this yet but it's the BIGGEST FACTOR OF ALL. The componentry in most entry level phono stages is easily driven into ringing, overload and distortion by transients with very fast rise times and large peak amplitudes (e.g., from the stylus whacking a chunk of dirt in the groove). Top class phono stages have higher quality components and more stable power supplies, which lets them reproduce the size and shape of the dirt accurately, with less of the exaggeration that makes such noises so noticeable.
It's a long, difficult and (unfortunately) sometimes expensive path to reach the kind of "distancing" of noise that you mentioned. And it's pretty much guaranteed that without a good quality phono stage you will never achieve that.
Doug
