Vinyl cleanliness

Most of my albums are very quiet as well, with very few to no pops and ticks. (There will be some low level noise between tracks, but that is to be expected.)

One thing you can do to alleviate that problem is to wet clean your records and vacuum them dry before you play them, and that includes the brand new ones. Then use a carbon fiber brush before every play to get rid of any stray dust. This will keep your records from quickly accumulating pops and ticks. (However, nothing will keep them pristine forever, so the occasional pop and tick is to be expected and lived with, as that is just the nature of the beast.)

My two cents worth.

My experience is typical of the other posters . I use a carbon fiber brush and a spin clean. Most new stuff only needs the brush and they are very quiet. Even my wife who thinks vinyl is ridiclous can't believe how quiet the new stuff is. It was not that way years ago when all we had was vinyl in most cases.

I do have one older album (Dream of the Blue Turtles-Sting-Original Pressing) that is absolutely dead quite rivals my cd's for the absence of background noise.

I would agree with Elizabeth. Also, I listen primarily to classical music, and I find that classical music lovers tend to take better care of their records, so even buying used I have had quite good luck with noise issues. Very few of the records I buy used do I have to get rid of due to too much noise. And I think I have only bought one new record that ever had any issues. Perhaps you should find a new source?

I own close to 3000 albums. Most were brought used though i do have a few that I purchased myself up to 30 years ago. Out of that bunch, i have probably 500 that are as quiet as a CD. over 2000 may have an occasional click or pop. I have probably cycled through another 1500 that were noisy after cleaning that i kept only until i found a quiet copy. I am currently listening to a moody blues album that so far on one side had one click.

Now I clean with a RCM every record until it does not need cleaning (sometimes this takes up to 3 passes) then put in a clean sleeve. And I damp brush every time i play the record.

Lately I've taken to the 'finger' test, as a last resort.
Having regularly used L'Art du Son and MoFi cleaning fluids on my Okki Nokki, and they do a fantastic job, but sometimes I still get the odd stubborn 'click'.

Now I gently run my fingertips across the whole surface, and sure enough I can feel tiny specks, and under a magnifying glass I can remove them with a fingernail or toothpick.