Atmasphere,
There is another thread on Audiogon that talks about record cleaning rituals that includes a lot of different ideas about how to get a record clean.
The most deadly kind of click or pop is due to a scratch on the record, meaning the physical surface of the record has been gouged or damaged, most often by some wayward or accidental bumping or moving of the stylus ( the tip of which is much harder than the material that the record is made of and hence scratches it upon contact). Of course there are many other ways to scratch a record as well. A scratch of this nature will often be evident upon close inspection as a sharply formed linear feature on the surface at some angle to the direction of the grooves. Stay away from used records that evidence scratches of this nature because there is not much you can do to fix it once damaged.
Defects in the cutting of a record (defective grooves) often manifest themselves in the form of other types of undesirable noise or distortion. These are generally harder to detect upon inspection, but with some practice and trial and error, it is possible to spot many vinyl albums with groove damage in advance.
Foreign material on the surface of the record also produces noise of course, and can also accumulate in denser clumps that manifest themselves sonically as a pop or click, though not a visible scratch. A good cleaning can usually put an end to this kind of problem.
Hope this helps.
There is another thread on Audiogon that talks about record cleaning rituals that includes a lot of different ideas about how to get a record clean.
The most deadly kind of click or pop is due to a scratch on the record, meaning the physical surface of the record has been gouged or damaged, most often by some wayward or accidental bumping or moving of the stylus ( the tip of which is much harder than the material that the record is made of and hence scratches it upon contact). Of course there are many other ways to scratch a record as well. A scratch of this nature will often be evident upon close inspection as a sharply formed linear feature on the surface at some angle to the direction of the grooves. Stay away from used records that evidence scratches of this nature because there is not much you can do to fix it once damaged.
Defects in the cutting of a record (defective grooves) often manifest themselves in the form of other types of undesirable noise or distortion. These are generally harder to detect upon inspection, but with some practice and trial and error, it is possible to spot many vinyl albums with groove damage in advance.
Foreign material on the surface of the record also produces noise of course, and can also accumulate in denser clumps that manifest themselves sonically as a pop or click, though not a visible scratch. A good cleaning can usually put an end to this kind of problem.
Hope this helps.