How do you get past the pops and hiss of LPs?

Because they sound better!

Perhaps, but not because they are not missing information and the CDs are.

Salut, Bob P.

The best analog master tape recorders used DBX or other kinds of noise suppression, and produced results comparable to digital recorders...no hiss. But digital is a lot easier to work with when it comes to mixdown, so the world has gone digital. If you heard hiss on a CD it must have been a very early (or poor quality) master tape.

By the way, another common source of hiss is vacuum tubes. (Sorry about that).

As to LP's sounding better...I agree that they will sound different, and you may think, better. Mastering of the LP is different from the CD, and the RIAA equalization process, applied to the signal when the record is cut, and to your copy when you play it back is extreem and would be almost impossible to accomplish perfectly. Spectral balance will change. Also, in cutting LPs, it is common for LF signals (subwoofer fodder) to be mixed to monaural, because phono pickups don't do well with very low frequency vertical groove modulation. Of course this will affect the sound, and you may prefer it.

TWL and co: talk about selective logic. All this dubious stuff about hearing through LP playback noise or that the noise is in another plane and does not take away from the enjoyment of the recording. What you had to begin with is a candid question by someone who was taken aback by the surface noise of vinyl reproduction. All the usual responses: the discs require cleaning with an expensive machine, the cart is not good enough, the arm is not good enough, the preamp is not good enough, the table is not good enough, the VTA is wrong, the whole set-up is wrong, you need to "invest" in very expensive equipment, you need to retrain your ear to a new and better paradigm and so on. A simple question was asked, and all that is provided is the doctrinaire view on the superiority of vinyl. Has anyone asked what type of music the original poster listens to? Seems to me that listening mainly to rock or metal, the noise issue is not much of a concern. Any music where silence is an integral part and the noise is clearly audible. If audio is a subjective thing, is the original poster's concern about surface noise not a valid consideration? Maybe telling him that if sounds bad to his ears, it is bad is a better subjective audio response that trying to convince him that (a) it's not there and (b) whatever noise is there should be ignored. Making of necessity virtue is wearing thin as an argument.

And yet, Eldartford, vinyl proponents will tell you that LP reproduction maintains more of the original music than digital recordings because they don't, for the most part, understand sampling theory and think that somehow the "heart" of the music is being removed. Wrong or inexistant bass, errors in matching the RIAA curve, distortion are not seen as losing anything - only digital loses things, in their minds.

As others (although not many on this forum) have stated, I consider the quality of the silences in music to be just as important as the sound in the music.