Jay, you can simply visit some of your friends with better system to play your LPs. Because vinyl is vinyl, if you hear only pops and background noise and no "magic" then the system is very low quality. Normally in a very good system vinyl is pure magic and nobody cares about little pops and cracks, because you're almost there in the studio. It is only possible with great cartridges, tonearms, turntables, phonostages, amps, cables, speakers. Even tape has some hiss, this is nature of the analog media.
If you're expecting sterile digital sound from vinyl or from tape you'd better stick to digital format.
If you're expecting sterile digital sound from vinyl or from tape you'd better stick to digital format.