Surface noise

Davide256, you missed one- design of the phono section can affect ticks and pops quite a lot.

Bdunn, the first thing to do is to determine the value that you need. There are several ways to do that, you could get a stereo potentiometer, wire it as a rheostat, put that across the inputs of the phono section and dial it in. Radio Shack makes a 100K stereo potentiometer that would work nice for that.

Or you could start with a resistor value and see what effect it has. This can be a little trickier as you have to change the resistor to change the loading. That's why I like to use the pot.

But since you have a Grado, I already know that most of them like something in the 8-12K range. Your input resistance of the preamp is 47K, which has to be taken into account. So I would get a pair of resistors that are about 17-20K to use as loads.

Now some preamps don't allow you to do this easily and others do. Its been my experience that you don't want to interrupt the phono cable on its way to the preamp with an additional connector, but that would be one way to do it- get an RCA to RCA adapter and install the resistor inside it. Otherwise you might have to install the resistor across the input connection of the preamp. Of the two the latter is preferred as long as the installation isn't difficult.

given the stylus age and gradual onset of symptoms a prudent person would replace their stylus at this point rather than continue down a path that could be damaging your LP's due to worn out stylus or hardening of the suspension damper. But who am I to say, I only did this for a living in the 80's

Davide256, so did I, from 1974 until now... but I was not discrediting your comments, FWIW. Simply adding to them.

Thanks again for all of the advice. The increase in VTF certainly provided the improvement I was looking for. I'm just going to back off of the 2g setting and see if I have the same luck at 1.7g. I am also replacing the stylus, as it is probably time. Will let you know the results.
Regards, Brian.

Increasing VTF seems counter intuitive, but one usually gets better tracking, smoother playback and ultimately will wear out LP's lesser if you edge towards the high end of VTF for you cartridge. Much of the clicks and pops one hears on old, used vinyl is from mistracking cartridges from previous owners of the records.

In the late 70's Shure was on a kick to lower VTF but most cartridges and especially today will be better at a slightly higher VTF.

NOT DJ SCRATCHING LEVEL OF COURSE :-) But using the range as a guide and adjusting a touch higher than say the middle point.