Vinyl Care & Dust Removal, How to make vinyl sound good?? Options

[ViPER1313]

After reading the thread found here [ http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....t=7953&hl=vinyl ] I was blown away by the recording quality of the sandra.mpc sample. How do you get vinyl to sound so dust free and rich? All the vinyl that I have recorded has at least some dust crackling in the background, and some recordings sound extremely harsh (especially in the vocals - almost like clipping except there is no clipping going on.....) Do you use digital correction? Filtering? I use the following equipment -

Marantz TT1060 Turntable w/ unknown cartridge/needle (the cartridge/needle are replacements, less than 6 months old - I have no idea what brand / model they are, but they seem to be of decent quality.)

Marantz PM325 Receiver

SB-Live soundcard fed from phono -> receiver -> line-in (This is not the weak link I am concerned over - I know it has crappy quality recording, but I am worried about the record playback quality itself . I have also tried phono -> line-in directly and was not impressed with the quality at all.)

The cartridge seems to have good frequency response and be of decent quality, but I can not get rid of dust no matter what I try - I have a diskwasher and have tried a 1:5 alcohol/water solution, but the dust persists. Any tips?

[Pio2001]

Do you do digital correction? Filtering?

No, no filtering or correction of any kind.
Before any playback, I wipe out all dust from the record with an antistatic brush made of carbon fiber. It's the best way to take care of records. On some records I have tried the Stanton brush with cleaning liquid, but I found it to increase background noise ! It must be suited for very dirty records...
I keep them stored vertically, in their sleeve+innersleeve, with an outside plastic sleeve to avoid dust. I've always wondered if thick innersleeves added background noise by lightly scratching the vinyl surface. I like the kind of innersleeves with an inside in polypropylene, the vinyl slips into them without a noise.

The noise on vinyls depends on the record. Some well made vinyls from the 80's, if brand new, can have no background noise at all, as Joseph described. Then it depends on the cartridge : some add background noise after several listenings (Stanton Trackmaster), some not (Grado ZC). 45 rpm are better than 33 rpm : less background noise, less wear-prone, better sound.
Other vinyls have clicks and background noise even when they are brand new.

Here are some examples :

A perfect brand new 33 rpm about 20 % of what you could buy (sorry, it's a bit clipped).
Here's what you can expect from a brand new LP most of the times (this is a quiet part of the music). By the way, this one simulates well the noise produced by that Stanton brush and cleaning liquid.
Here's what happens when you're out of luck Happened on maybe 10-20% of what you could buy.
A good 33 rpm that have been played about at least 30 to 50 times. (and it was bought second hand). Note the dynamics of this 1979 record.
Here's what you can usually expect from a second hand purchase but it varies very much, of course.
Two LPs with pressing defects 1 to 5 % of what was sold.

The linked samples are MPC standard, usually trascoded from other MPC standard. All < 1MB. Some are surrounded by digital silence. Some are 48 kHz. Beware of old Nullsoft gapless plugins making noises on 48 kHz wavs.