OK, I said it...

I tip my hat to you for at least trying, Pbb.

I will join the chorus of those suggesting a phono stage change. One with tubes would be my suggestion. I found a used EAR 834P a while back for around $600. I've had so much fun listening with this little black box that I fully modified mine with the "Thorsten" mods listed in the Asylum.

Hey, I might ask you for some advice when I get ready to upgrade my digital front end.

Pbb-Clean,clean,clean those LP's! Gruv-glide will help as well and allow the music to sound smoother and more transparent.
Im am a true believer in a good wet -vac machine.
I spent a good amount of change on a Japanese Sgt.Pepper.This LP was as new looking as if it had just come out of the wrap.It was rated mint minus.
Imagine my surprise when I played it and it was LOUD with surface noise! Not just the quiet passages but surface noise was audible within the music and the entire LP was like that.
I thought it must be a defective copy.
I had cleaned this LP before listening and figured it was a lost cause but decided to clean it again.I wet-vac'd and gruv-glided this LP 3 times more.I spent an hour cleaning it.
With my breath held I gave it another spin.
WOW!! I was shocked! This LP now was DEAD quiet and sounded stunning! It now was the quietest and best sounding LP I owned.
As I said,clean,clean,clean and treat your LP's
Even brand spanking new LP's need to be cleaned and treated to get rid of the mold and vinyl shavings in the grooves.
Its lots of work but well worth it.

p.s. if you cant get a LP to sound quiet IMO its defective from abuse from the previous owner,even if it looks good.Their stylus may have been damaged.
New Lp's are a different story,try to get a refund if it sounds like crap (slappy?)

Guys,when are we going to give Pbb the business for all his taunting in the past about analog? :~)
Pbb- dont give up!

Pbb, I am sincerely happy you are enjoying both LP and CD. You have more choices than ever and an opportunity to have fun and learn from your efforts.

If you resolve your (valid) complaints with your turntable playback noise, you may become satisfied with analog.

I hope you believe me when I say this. My turntable is totally silent, no noise, no pops and no ticks. This on almost 100% of my records. Certainly there are some records that are noisy to the point of being un- listenable. Some have one tick on side A or B, and I allow that in order to enjoy the other 45 minutes of bliss.

I would estimate that out of my (approx.) 6000 LP’s, there are only a few with enough defect to keep me from enjoying the sound. Some of my records were bought in the mid 1960’s when I was a kid. In spite of their age, a through cleaning and they are for the most part, noise free.

Turntable and tonearm quality, brand and set up of the cartridge, and quality of the phono stage all play a role in the end results. Cleaning any debris from (even new) LP’s is necessary to obtain the silence I describe.

Maybe this is worth the effort to you and maybe not. At least you‘re making an effort, enjoying the music and experimenting, and for that, I admire you.

Pbb: I'd like to second, third and fourth the above comments. Kudo's to you for having the guts to give this a try. I know that it had to be "difficult" for you to do this given some of your past comments, but i'm glad to see that you were up to the task. Not only that, i'm proud of you in the fact that you were honest enough to make some of the statements that you did even though you have previously bashed those that "worship at the temple of analogue". It takes a big person to own up / correct themselves when all the world is watching.

Given that you had a hard time with cartridge set-up, my guess is that you may still have some work to do there based on your comments. This is not to say that you did something wrong but more that you probably can dial things in a little better as you get used to working with the gear a little more.

On top of this, cabling and phono stages can make a world of a difference. You have to remember that you are dealing with microscopic amounts of voltage here, so anything that ever could effect signal transfer in a system will be far more noticeable under these conditions. Finding a good phono stage is almost like a revelation. I am lucky in the fact that the line stages that i like also happen to have phenomenally good phono stages too.

Since my "record cleaning routine" is rather involved and pricy, i'll have to defer to some of the other folks as to what works well i.e. bang for the buck approach. I really do think that thoroughly cleaning a record makes a very noticeable difference in a beneficial way. As such, i would recommend that you investigate this for yourself and do so as soon as possible. Don't forget that your stylus will need cleaning on a regular basis, especially if you aren't "going gonzo" on the records with a VPI, Nitty Gritty, etc... type machine. Obviously, used records are bound to be much worse than brand new ones in terms of contaminants to both the grooves and the stylus.

Other than that, please do keep us posted. I love to hear about people "re-discovering" the joys of vinyl. As you may have seen me say before, you don't need to spend a lot of money to have an enjoyable analogue system. You just need to be willing to put in a little elbow grease and TLC : ) Sean
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