$1,500 phono upgrade worth it?

I see no reference to digital except in your twisted brain.

A tape deck is dead silent when it’s not running.

OP Try a couple of phono stages on approval before you decide on anything. I would try a Parks Puffin, free returns with Prime.

@dill , I have played with the input and gain on the stage. I have it to where I get the least amount of noise, but it's still very noticeable.

@millercarbon You are correct, I am fairly new to this. I understand that there is going to be some noise associated with vinyl, and I'm totally fine with it. My main source of listening is vinyl, with streaming on a rare occasion. What I can't figure out is the noticeable hum when I turn on the stage with nothing playing. I've heard systems with very little hum, albeit much more expensive than mine, and that's what I'm trying to figure out. Is it worth upgrading the stage, at the price point I can afford, to get closer to what I've heard?

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OP; Hum and hiss are two different things. Solve the hum issue first with grounding or better grounding. Hiss is another issue, if you have hiss when you are not playing records, your gain is too high. Do these things and report back.

Depends on the level of hum. If when playing music at whatever level and sitting wherever you usually sit the hum is audible only when the music isn't playing, ie gets drowned out by groove noise, then no worries. Mine has been like that a lot of the time, and I can tell you when the music starts you just won't care! 

But if the hum is there and you can hear it even over the groove noise between tracks then it is probably worth a little effort. 

First make sure the turntable, phono stage, preamp and amp- the whole system really- is all plugged into the same outlet. Not the same exact outlet obviously but all from the same wall outlet, conditioner, power strip or whatever. Anything at all plugged into another AC source connected to your system provides another path to ground and this is where ground loop hum comes from.

One of the main sources anyway. Could also be your turntable or phono stage are stacked right on top of something and picking up hum from that. The phono stage has the most gain of any component by far. 40 to 60 dB or more. Orders of magnitude more gain than anything else. Extremely susceptible to noise. All kinds of little things that would be nothing to a DAC with 3V output can be a nightmare for a cartridge with .3mV output. You see the orders of magnitude there?

Some guys it really bugs them and they will put in whatever it takes to get these things dead quiet. To improve a level of noise already lower than your typical record groove. So it will sound better when not making music. For the same time and effort they could have been doing things to make the thing sound better when playing music.

So make your judgments, and pick your battles.