Crackle and hiss on some albums

Dust doesn’t make pops. Good luck getting rid of them short of editing them out digitally or serious electronic mitigation costing more than all of your analogue equipment together.

View the pop/grooves with a microscope and you’ll see what you’re up against.

Cleaning after you’ve created them misses the boat.

GHD, I cannot quite visualize how a "better turntable" would mitigate the noise from noisy LPs, if we agree that ticks, pops, and other sorts of noise associated with vinyl playback are due to mistracking, dirt in the grooves, or a worn out LP.  No turntable can fix any of those problems.  I better tonearm and better setup of any tonearm might mitigate mistracking.  Different cartridges handle dirty and/or worn out LPs with different success rates, also depending upon setup.  Also some cartridges inherently track better than others. But it's hard to blame the turntable in any of this.

Exact carts are known to be overly detailed. The output is around 7mv. Most MM carts are around 5mv. Make sure the capacitance on your PHO-701 is set for 115 pF. If the vinyl is imperfect in anyway, Exact carts tend to emphasize those imperfections. I think you’re just experiencing a mix of static and pressings with low quality vinyl. Especially if other pressings sound fantastic on your system. Some carts just aren’t as forgiving as others.

@fuzztone   I believe the research shows that the stylus does not in fact raise the temp of the vinyl more than a very small amount.  There is no melting of the LOP and no "welding" going on.  Cheers.

• That plastic melts into a fluid under the tip pressure as propagated by some can be completely rejected.
• Temp rise of the Vinyl groove because of static stylus force and dynamic friction while playing, will not exceed at most a few degrees, where the friction component is dominant.

@bigtwin 

I stand corrected. Maybe washing first is only magic but it works for me.