Better Records vs MoFi

But, can a great sounding regular pressing sound better than a half speed master?

Yes. Much better. Not even close. Takes about 5 minutes to demo, after which you will never be the same again. 

Doesn’t a HSM have more music data on it?

No. Probably you are thinking of bandwidth. Higher speed, greater bandwidth. 30ips better than 15 ips. 45 better than 33. All things being equal. Which they never are. Hence, see first Q&A.

I bought a copy of The Band's Music from Big Pink from Better Records and it blew away my MFSL version. I have purchased several other titles from them that had no half-speed master version that were likewise much better than I could find otherwise.

It was particularly difficult for me to find Fleetwood Mac's Future Games in either LP or CD format that didn't sound muddy and veiled. I found one on Better Records which was much better than my three LPs and two CD's of the title.

I couldn't afford their prices for everything, but they definitely do what they say they do.

Their latest mailer had half a dozen White Hot Stampers $600-900. They were all SOLD. Within like a hour. So yeah we can't afford many, but someone sure can! 

Study the discogs info on the album you want.

It's all in the deadwax.

It's simply effort, luck and timing to find a good condition 1st/early press.

Some genres/artists are unobtanium now due to demand and age.

Nothing special about Better Records except the effort is done for you and you're gonna pay the price for it.

My local store has had Better Records scouts going thru the bins for years.

The Better Records process (shoot outs) is about a strong as one could use to find outstanding sounding copies of LP’s. One just has to read their blog consistently. They have the most valuable information advantage and historical knowledge of anybody in the world on LP’s that fit their model. 
 

I would argue that their best values are albums like Led Zep 2, Sticky Fingers, Ziggy Stardust, etc…. Generally even with the pressing (stampers) identified to likely win a shoot out you still need a number of clean copies to find the Hot Stamper, Nearly White Hot, and White Hot. 
 

There are plenty of great LP’s that don’t fit their model, Big Star’s LP’s as an example.