I've always hated vinyl noise and I've been on a quest for the last 30 years to minimize it. There are quite a few of my precious albums that are in pretty rough shape. I have tried various cleaning methods with mixed results but nothing has been successful in removing those ticks and pops that show up in the same place each time I play a record. I have a Burwen TNE 7000 (Transient Noise Eliminator) that does a pretty good job of removing the light ticks and some of the surface noise. I also have a Phase Linear 1000 Series II Noise Reduction system that lowers the steady noise level. These two units work reasonably well but at best they are a 50% solution. This gear show up on eBay regularly and they are not very expensive. Another option is an SAE 5000 Impulse Noise Reducer that is better at removing the bigger ticks and pops. There are lots of these available at modest cost and this is a low risk way to see if you like the effect.
I have read enough positive press about the Kirmuss system that I think I will take the plunge and get one. The biggest problem that I see is how time consuming their process is. There's no way I'm going to clean over a thousand records with this thing. That means I'm down to a Sweet Vinyl processor. I head one of these last year at AXPONA and I was blown away. They played a couple records that were in the same shape as some of my college vinyl and it was just short of a miracle. I'm going to get one of these as my next gear purchase. As for running my wholesome analog through a digital processor, all I can say is whatever digital nasties crop up are way less annoying than clicks, pops, and surface noise.
I have read enough positive press about the Kirmuss system that I think I will take the plunge and get one. The biggest problem that I see is how time consuming their process is. There's no way I'm going to clean over a thousand records with this thing. That means I'm down to a Sweet Vinyl processor. I head one of these last year at AXPONA and I was blown away. They played a couple records that were in the same shape as some of my college vinyl and it was just short of a miracle. I'm going to get one of these as my next gear purchase. As for running my wholesome analog through a digital processor, all I can say is whatever digital nasties crop up are way less annoying than clicks, pops, and surface noise.