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An excerpt from forum member Graeme, on how to distinguish between clicks, crackles, etc
Generally speaking 'crackle' is normally associated poor plastic. To cut costs most pressing companies will re-use a percentage of scrap vinyl. As the percentage rises, the noise floor of an unmodulated groove will rise.
Cheap pressings are (obviously) more likely to have a high percentage of re-used material than normal ones. Some record manufacturers make a selling point of only using virgin plastice for each pressing - these should (all other things being equal) provide the best results.
Once a record has been cleaned properly, whatever you are left with is what you have to work with, there is no way you can cure this problem by physical means.
'Crackle' which varies with the modulation level is more likely to be the result of groove damge, caused by an incorrect stylus weight or shape, etc. This is not really crackle at all and could more accurately be described as distortion ...generally, it will be random and remain at a constant level throughout the disc. Whereas groove distortion will track the modulation and the level will vary, particularly when the modulation is highest.
More observations from forum member, KenGAce:
In my observations, another factor that can likely contribute to LP noise and susceptibility to crackle is the length of disk playing time per side. Generally, the shorter the playing time, the more spread apart the grooves can be allowing the groove walls to be thicker. This also helps reduce the bleed-through effect that you can hear when the groove that is being played picks up the sound of the following adjacent groove, usually due to too thin a groove wall between the two.
Longer timing length LPs, usually more than 25 min per side, have thinner groove walls. Not much can be done about these kinds of thin-walled pressings. A really thin groove wall gets more easily chipped and damaged than a thicker walled groove, and noise and pops can result directly from this. I once played an LP that looked so beat up I thought it would sound terrible, but because the LP side was about 12 min. (unusually short) and the groove walls very thick, the scratches were barely audible. On the contrary, I played a new LP that was 32 min on one side with pops and clicks galore, not to mention very dull bass dynamics. The longest length I encountered was 44 min on one side!
Some LP companies, especially Deutsche Grammophon, compressed musical content grooves close together up to about the first 3/4 of the playing side whenever timings permitted, but left the remaining 1/4 as a long silent trailer groove to reduce inner-groove distortion.
Has anyone noticed improvements in using a very fine tip (fine-line) stylus to reduce noise since supposedly less of the groove surface is in contact and the stylus reaches more of the bottom of the groove?
An excerpt from another forum regular, Urumuqi74, regarding cleaning and preserving the vinyl in question:
After years of experimenting, I came to the following conclusion:
1-If a record needs to be washed, then using the vacuum type of cleaning machine will most likely give you the best results. Don't forget to store the record in a new paper sleeve.
2-The solution to be used should include alcohol and distilled water. From all of the commercially solution available on the market, none can claim to restore a record to its first days.
3-If the record is still crackling after this type of wash (2 or 3 passes) then let it be, use a declicker and transfer it to CD or simply buy a new copy of the item.
4-Prior to play the record on the turntable, use a zillion carbon fiber type of brush to remove dust. NO WET CLEANING. Also, preventing the grunt to buid up on the stylus will diminish the chances to ruin a record.
5-Assuming that you are properly handling your records and CDs: Vinyl record longevity is a matter of wear while CD is a matter of time.
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