New LP with pops + crackle, What is expected?

I think that it's just part of the game. If you want quiet, get CDs. Too bad that we don't have something that combines the strengths of the two formats and has a large catalog as well. If you want to stick with LP, make sure that you clean them before playing to remove the mold release agents and any debris that is a side effect of the manufacturing process.

A "master recording" means that the source for the LP is the original master tape. It is common for record companies to use safety masters, which are copies made from the master, or other copies, which are ,at the minimum, one generation away from the master, as source material. Interestingly, there are many records where the masters have vanished completely, or degraded to the point where they are unusable, and only dupes exist. I recently bought a Chet Baker set, where no tapes could be located at all for one of the albums, and that album is taken from a record that has been played back. So you can actually hear the ticks and pops of the record that they used as source material. I think that I have some Django Reinhart discs like this as well.