I purchased some aluminum screen door mesh at Menard's today and, after filing away the insulation on the edges, secured it over the open compressor area. The pop is still there but the magnitude has decreased significantly- it's in the background instead of being louder than the music with headphones.
dura and Albedo, I'll take a look at adding a low value cap across the AC line to kill the remaining noise. I'm sure there would be room in an industrial AC plug.
