My experience jibes with what @atmasphere and others have been saying here. Once I moved up to a high quality phono stage (by Nick Doshi) my records have been generally silent. No need to buy expensive new releases to get that quiet - in fact, I prefer older, used records. The quality in new releases is too variable to justify the expense IMO. I do use a record cleaner, but mostly to get the best sound out of each LP and to protect my cartridges (learned that lesson the hard way). If a record is bad enough to sound crackly then I often find that a record cleaning machine doesn't help too much.
so the simple answer to the OP is Yes, but you have to spend your cash wisely.
so the simple answer to the OP is Yes, but you have to spend your cash wisely.