Brand New Vinyl Static and Pops

@jjbeason14 I don't know of a link, but you can talk to them:

Oracle

I’m just using the mat that came with the Technics 1500C.

@jjbeason14 The Technics SL1200 comes with a rubber mat and its the weakest part of the turntable. I use an Oracle mat which is much better. It is formulated to be about the same hardness as vinyl so is pretty good about absorbing resonance in the LP caused by the cartridge tracking it.

You can hear this resonance. If the volume is all the way down and the LP is playing, ideally you would not be able to hear it while standing right next to the turntable. If the mat isn’t doing its job, you’ll hear the stylus tracking the groove quite easily.

Once you have that sorted, you’ll find the mids and highs smoother and more resolving while the bass has greater impact.

I’ve never had a problem with new vinyl right out of the jacket/sleeve. Its always been quiet.

I don’t have problems with older LPs either, and I don’t clean them. I do use a carbon fiber dust brush every time I play an LP. Its grounded.

I found out over 3 decades ago that phono preamps can generate ticks and pops that sound like they are on the LP surface. Some might be from static discharge being able to overload the phono input, but a lot of it also can arise from the electrical resonance that is always present if you are using a phono cartridge based on the magnetic principle.

Any kind of magnetic cartridge has inductance and when that inductance is in parallel with the capacitance of the tonearm cable, an electrical resonance is present that can be 20 to 30 dB higher than the signal itself.

With MM cartridges the inductance is so high this resonance is at the extreme upper end of the audio spectrum or just above it and might be about 20dB. Noise occurring in these frequencies is exacerbated by the resonance and can overload the phono section, creating a tick or pop, and possibly also contributing to brightness.

With LOMC cartridges the resonance is at radio frequencies and can be as high as 5MHz. The peak is generally higher (as much as 30dB) and covering a narrower range of frequencies as opposed to the broader range seen with MM cartridges; this is caused by the aspect ratio of the coil in the cartridge. If it becomes energized, it is RFI injected directly into the input of the phono section. This can result in distortion manifesting as brightness, and can overload the input resulting in ticks and pops. ’Cartridge loading’ resistors are typically used to kill (detune) the resonance although users typically think the resistor is toning down the cartridge itself, but if you actually look at what is going on with instruments you can see that isn’t the case at all!

Obviously the phono section I’m using at home is immune to RFI and can’t be overloaded by that 30dB peak, so I don’t get ticks and pops. I stopped using my record cleaning machine 25 years ago and don’t miss it- if an LP really needs cleaning I clean it by hand. But the need to do that is really rare and only if I have a used LP I just acquired that needs help. After that the dust brush and the stability of the phono section takes care of the rest.

So even if the LP is 50 years old its common to have no ticks and pops unless there’s an obvious scratch. IME, phono sections that have problems with high frequency overload as I described above are pretty common and were endemic during the 1970s and 1980s (probably because their designers thought all you needed was enough gain and the right equalization...).

This was/is such a common problem that I’m very convinced its a good part of why digital exists.