Is it possible to have vinyl nearly noise free?

@millercarbon,

 "Still, one has to admit, the way the phono stage knows to make the tick happen every time the record comes around, is pretty impressive."

Cruel, but funny. I guess you just couldn't resist popping that particular balloon.

Joking aside, this can be a big issue for some audiophiles.

There's no question that certain turntable/arm/cartridge combinations can handle vinyl imperfections in a far less intrusive way than others, eg the new Technics decks are said to be good in this regard.

If this is a side effect of tracking it should be expected that better decks will perform better in this regard. Lower rumble and noise should help too by improving the music to noise ratio.

There's also the question of siting as I've found that  certain platforms such as glass seem to enhance those pesky clicks and pops instead of reducing them.

Finally, its worrying that with such high prices for 180 gram vinyl here in the UK hardly a single LP is blemish free. We were surprised to find, during one vinyl playing session, that 1970s records seemed to be quieter and less click infested than most brand new records.

Not encouraging. I know its a pain but I would urge anyone affected to demand a swap or their money back. Probably the only way consumers can get the manufacturers to tighten up quality control.

On an original Berglund Sibelius ASD3216 the continuous foreshadowing through long quiet passages rendered the disc almost unlistenable -- maybe late 70s quad pressings make this phenomena worse but in a highly resolving system you'll begin to notice it all over the place

@folkfreak , this is called 'print-thru' and its an artifact of the master tape. Its not endemic to LPs.

Sorry @atmasphere I know what Print Through is, and thats another problem but if its in the master tape it’ll be on every version -- this is groove echo caused by modulation bleeding through from the adjacent track -- you can hear it both pre and post (one on the left, the other on the right) and it disappears completely on loud passages where the grooves are widely spaced -- luckily it’s rarely this bad. The 2 second lag (one revolution at 33RPM) is also a give away

I’m on the “no” side, but I still love my vinyl.  I play mostly vinyl. Sometimes I feel like hearing music, usually classical, without any noise at all.  I go to cds at times like that.  

this is groove echo caused by modulation bleeding through from the adjacent track -- you can hear it both pre and post (one on the left, the other on the right) and it disappears completely on loud passages where the grooves are widely spaced -- luckily it’s rarely this bad. The 2 second lag (one revolution at 33RPM) is also a give away

@folkfreak I've cut a few records and not experienced this. My lathe is a bit older- so it only has fixed groove spacing. We modified it so we can run variable groove spacing but either way never get print-though issues. When you look under a microscope at the grooves you can see why- unless you over cut the record the grooves are spaced from each other. Overcuts (grooves too close) often results in distortion. If you really are getting print thru from an LP, its poorly mastered!