How is the stylus making initial contact with the record? If you "drop" the arm/ stylus on the record it can be quite loud as cartridges are meant to read micro grooves in the record. By design, extremely small vibrations will make noise, meaning larger vibrations on the stylus can be very loud.

On some of my turntables I use the cue to drop the stylus and it will be relatively soft because it is a well adjusted hydraulic cue. On other turntables, I drop the tonearm/ stylus by hand because either the cue drops the tonearm too hard or it doesn't have a cue. It can take some practice to learn to drop the tonearm gently.

If all sounds normal during play, I would bet it is a matter of adjusting your tonearm drop rather than a problem with the cartridge. You may be able to adjust your cue, move the cue lever more slowly, or be more gentle in manual cueing.

The other consideration is that many turntable enthusiasts turn the volume down while cueing records because cartridges are so sensitive. In fact, my Accuphase has an attenuation button meant to be used for this purpose.

I recommend taking a little more time to acclimate to turntables, cartridges, and records before returning the cartridge. In my experience, loud noises occur if these are not handled gently while playing. Best of luck!

Thanks for the tips.  It’s a very smooth moving cue lever and lowers hydraulically down slowly.  I’ll just lower the volume when doing that, seems like a simple solution.

What about aftermarket tonearm lifters?  Are those a good idea?  My only gripe about the Pro-Ject Debut Pro is that I must rush over there when the side ends.  An activity unknown to a disc spinner like myself.

I have some records that pop and other don't. One big annoyance for me are the records with a lip on the edge, set the stylus down too early and it slides downhill with an evil shriek. I imagine static level, lead in groove width, etc all affect this pop on set down, after while it just becomes a normal noise.

As for the end of the record pick up I use a AT6006R Safety Riser on my Mofi table. I always had auto or semi auto tables and the AT thingy works great. I chose this one because it gently raises the arm when triggered.
https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT6006R-Safety-Raiser/dp/B07HKX6WL7?source...

Install wasn’t too bad. Does take some dexterity to adjust the height and wand. Once it’s installed then you need to teach yourself to reset it every time or it will cause a skip when the tonearm bumps into it on the next play. The base sticks on with double sided tape, so it can be removed.

Thanks for the feedback.  The AT safety riser seems to function well and look great.  I’m auditioning the Pro-Ject Debut Pro, my first record player, and find having to rush to manually lift the stylus before it hits the label to be quite stressful!

The Technics SL-1500c arrives in a few days for a comparison, and it has auto lift.  Hopefully my unit’s auto lift will work ok, seems to be a potential issue.  

I like the sound of the Debut Pro with the Sumiko Rainier cartridge.  The tone arm looks first rate, and the platter seems to be of decent quality.  But the plinth and dust cover all look rather cheap which leaves a negative impression.  When I glance over at the rack, the Pro-Ject feels like it’s worth a couple hundred bucks instead of the $999 msrp.

Yes, same thing with Pro-Ject, feels like a cheap cutting board.  The cheapest possible cutting board!

Here is a more expensive alternative, the Integrity HiFi Tru Lift:

https://upscaleaudio.com/products/tru-lift-automatic-tonearm-lifter?variant=2970...

Cool, looks great.  The AT6006R may very well be in my future.

The Technics SL-1500c has arrived.  Compared to the Pro-Ject Debut Pro, the Technics solves the substantial look issue.  It's a battleship in comparison.  A very solid looking piece of kit.  The body seems to be plastic, but it looks like metal.  Lots of heft.  Unfortunately the auto-lift doesn't work.

The problem is the included Ortofon 2M Red.  Ugh, sounds like low grade CD's.  The Pro-Ject's Sumiko Rainier sounds much, much better.  The Red is so woeful that I've lost any interest in trying the Blue stylus upgrade.

I realize the Technics has a detachable head shell, but being new to this I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle installing cartridges onto head shells.  When I asked Roy Hall of Music Hall about doing that he colorfully told me "F-ing no way, don't do it.  Don't F-ing try to change the cartridge."

I'm inclined to keep the Debut Pro.  Bought the iFi Zen Phono which has proved to work well with the ZRock2 and sounds excellent.

Oh cartridges. Sigh. Like many here, I have owned my share with a huge variety of results. Now, accepting this as fact we must assume that all other aspects of the installation and compatibility issues were taken care of first. Otherwise it becomes an unfair description of a product that has been even slightly misaligned or connected to equipment that is not a good match
With even all that out of the way, I certainly have had surprising results from low price to much higher priced carts ($185-$600). Where I am going with this is that a few times, I just spent too much money to get what I could have had at half the price. Case in point is the AT95SE? (I never get those last two letters quite right) cartridge that cost a whopping $185. Has a line contact stylus, and I don't think that I will ever buy another because of difficulty of set up of SRA. But the only upgrade that I would consider at this point would be a Denon103. Hopefully it matches well with my unipivot arm. Not ME, the tonearm!

In the past 21/2 years, I have owned 4 phono preamps. Mostly a waste of TIME and money. Lost ground there. It is hard for me to believe that there is so much difference between A B C and D! Not soley about price either. I have also owned 3 different cartridges. 2 MM, one MI. My point would be that going back and doing it over, I would NOT have bought a kit unless it was childproof. Two of the 4 phono pre's were kits. Both good, but both a PITA in their own way. Only now after all of this time does everything sound fantastic. I am just saying not waste time and money climbing this food chain, but don't spend thousands either. Wow, I guess this is all still fresh. Now, time to get ahold some more great albums like what you mentioned and move forward.