Better Records vs MoFi

"White Hot Stampers $600-900" - just the thing for new dot.com millionaires to play on their new $60K Linn Sondek 50th Anniversary TT's.

Clever marketing can turn a $2 Goodwill LP into a $600 White Hot Stamper! The gold rush is on!

OP, It all starts with THE original master tape as the source. Did the big music companies really use THE originals to press 100k copies? No. They made safety copies.

The BR website currently has two copies of Beatles for Sale listed at ~$170 & $300 (rounded up one cent), so I pulled my copy off the shelf and gave it a spin. 

I rate both sides as "Mint Minus" (BR term, $300+), with just one light tick in the dead-wax.  [Sonically it is compressed, but after all these years I still get lost in the fun/beauty of the music.]

Then I recalled hearing more noise during previous playings. So, what changed? (It was not cleaned between playings).  I recently installed a better cartridge.  More specifically, I moved from an elliptical stylus to a micro-line stylus. 

A friend told me to expect quieter backgrounds, and he was right.  Moreover, this was not an isolated incident.  Over the years I have kept play-grading notes, and now each LP seems quieter (as compared to my notes).

I have a large LP collection, and at $300, I would need to spend ~$1M to replace all of them.  A better stylus is not a 'cure all', but I am glad I upgraded my cartridge instead of replacing excellent LPs.

it goes both ways. Some records, original, pristine condition sound dull, surprisingly uninspiring. And some, from the bottom of Goodwil’s bin, cover falling apart, crystal clear, rich and mesmerizing level of detail