dead quiet

Ditto, Cleaning up your power is certainly a critical element in the pursuit of "dead quiet". A lot of the noise one hears is from the influence of dirty power to the signal. The noise can come from power out of the wall, power from amplification (pre and/or amp), infuences in the signal path, and of course from the source itself. I believe one must address all of these areas to get there.

Will Mr. Fiel tell us an affordable combination . This is for people like me who can't stop by. It would greatly appreciated.
Mr. Porter I would love to know what you are using could youy explain your analog front end.
I truly wonder if your hearing everything? I mean no insult please don't take it that way. I have heard some incredible systems even lloyd Walker's personal rig. Convince me!
Albert--- Lloyd is a gentleman and hasn't uttered a bad word about your dumping his table.

You're right Mechans, I have a terrible system, no wonder I think LP's are so quiet.

That's great that Lloyd hasn't uttered a bad word about my "dumping" my Walker (your words). I haven't uttered a bad word about Lloyd not buying my Walker.

Matter of fact, why didn't you buy my Walker?

is the solution to noise in the analog system only new/different equipment?

The noise I'm referring to isn't pops and ticks, it's hum, and it's noticeable when standing near the speaker. With the right cartridge/arm and doing my "work" to iron out noise, it's only noticeable with my ear in front of the speaker, but it is indeed more noticeable than the digital sources.

Can you guys advise us on what the keys are in component selection?

PS - just noticed my systems are a little down level - I'm running 2 Pink Triangle tables, 1 with a London Decca Super Gold, on a Roksan Artemis Zi arm into my TAD 150 phono stage. The other with a Benz Glider on a Clearaudio Emotion arm into a Jolida JD9a phono stage > Musical Fidelity Nuvista preamp.

A hum problem can be very difficult to identify as there are so many factors to consider.

In my experience, as it relates to analog front ends only, I find the preponderance of hum problems are usually found in the (lack of or poor) shielding/grounding somewhere in the turntable, tonearm, and cartridge combination.

Another candidate would be tubed phono stages.

Again, these are the most likely based on what I've owned and serviced. There are certainly other hum inducing causes that are far too numerous to list.