battling the pops and clicks

Elartford,

You may have lived through that period but didn't achieve success and admittedly never cleaned a record. Anyone blessed with a sense of reason will make a conclusion that instead of properly caring for you records and making informed choices about cartridge/tonearm/table and phono stage bits that work together in harmony without enhancing the noise you complain about you chose instead to go the electonic route. You may have spent a lot of money but you spent it in the wrong directions and you have nothing to contribute except negatives. I guess the best you have to offer Ryan is to just accept it. Your ignorance about the current status of analog is staggering and obviously you missed your chance to have it right long ago. I enjoy my digital as well as my analog and take no issue with your media of choice BUT you are doing a dis-service with your postings and I for one wish you would stop it. You have nothing to offer that resembles help. Your posts probably leave too many with a gut feeling they wasted their money and that's not the case at all. You should be ashamed. Again, I've confronted you. I only hope someone else takes over where I leave off when the time comes.

I have sat and listened through so many LP sides in my time with nary a pop or a click, and this goes way back to when my hearing was better than my equipment :~) So I just cannot accept the "we just have to live with it" suggestion; I'll admit there are records, even new pressings, that make noises that nothing will remove. The flip side (n.p.i.) is that I have managed to clean and condition some rather dirty and un-promising looking vinyl back to a state of silence! And I think we've all seen LPs with surface or other scratches, that can't be heard (whew!) when they're played.

Except in the case of wear due to (usually a combination of) bad stylus and/or excessive VTF, or simply played-to-death, I've concluded that the majority of the time, the pops and clicks are due to static. And if you want to prove this to yourself, listen for a bad one and then make a quick mental note of where (in the music) it occurs, then repeat. If it happens again exactly as before, it's a groove artifact. If not, it's static.

Having come to this conclusion (some will say "assumption") I'm again looking at the matter of why certain cartridges allow/transmit/pick up/produce(?) static discharge and introduce it to the music signal, while others don't.

Looking at the ZYX (three top models), Lyra Helikon and Titan, and the Transfiguration Temper, Temper V and W, they all have well-known reputations for quiet groove tracing. So let's examine their similarities/differences. They have, for all practical purposes, similar stylus shape (i.e. microridge with small profile.) The ZYXs have an acrylic body, while the other two have conductive (titanium or aluminum) bodies. The ZYX has a conventional motor design, while the other two have unconventional motor designs. The ZYX has an unconventional coil topology while the other two have conventional coil winding layouts.

I can't find a single common physical characteristic amongst all three that I could point out (maybe) and say, "That's why they're so quiet."

Well. . . . . there is one thing. The diamonds. I've looked at the Lyra (in a photo under a scope) and my own Tranny under high power. They're gorgeous! And I'll bet the same is true of the ZYX (Doug?) These stylii are not the dull rough chip that van den Hul uses, and glues onto the end of the cantilever with (a rather large blob of) epoxy. These are truly gemstones. Fully polished, large, and in the case of the Tranny, inserted right through the cantilever like a dagger (I don't know how the other two attach the stylus.) And I'm beginning to think (no proof yet) that certain cartridges may actually produce static buildup as they play, while others don't?

Anyway, no more of this "you'll just have to get used to it." It's not true.

Vinyl is not perfect, but it sure beats the @#%^$& out of 'perfect sound forever.' Ticks, pops, and surface noise are not inherent in LPs. Humidity, dust, dry air, and dozens of other issues can affect the sound of an LP, but none of them are impossible to cure.

I have heard very few vinyl rigs that run in "total silence" as you described, but darn close is not an unreasonable expectation. Albert Porter's system is darn quite, and I tried to get him to turn it up : ) Vinyl is work, but it is worth the effort.

There are nay-sayers who complain about virtually every aspect of this hobby, but don't let them get you down. Vinyl can sound anywhere from very good to great. The reward is there, just like in any good relationship.

As I posted earlier my vinyl collection dates back to the 1950's. That being said, I've been very careful with my records since the very beginning. There are a couple principles that have guided me. First, not a single album has ever been played on any equipment other than my own. Selfish? OK I plead guilty to that. Second, I've made a dedicated effort to keep the records clean. With the advent of record cleaning equipment, it is much easier today than let's say, 30 years ago.
To address the points made by Lugnut and Elartford, there is surface noise in all vinyl. That comes with the territory. However all vinyl is not created equal. I have some spectacularly quiet vinyl from the 1960's and some noisy vinyl from the 1990's. In closing I don't find normal surface noise in any way, shape, or form detrimental to the listening experience. Actually I get a kick out of hearing "Another Side of Bob Dylan" (this is an entirely acoustic album BTW) sound so sweet with minimal surface noise after 40 years. All of course IMO.

Well Lugnut, I also lived through the LP period and took good care (and still do) of my records. Ticks and pops were a fact of life then and to mitigate I also used compensating devices, the Phase Linear Auto correlator being the primary one, which BTW, also adds another 10db of dynamic range to the dynamic range challenged LPs of that time and also, dare I say, to LPs of today.
I don't think that the "current status of analog" is any different than yesteryear, except for some improvements in cartridges and, vinyls of today are not any better made than those of 30 years ago (probably worse, in fact) and they still suffer from the same limitations of surface noise and dynamic range. I would also wager that most of the vinyl being produced these days are from a digital source and probably, at least, are quieter due to no tape noise - but the tics and pops are still there and the dynamic compression.
Bob P.