They are mostly done from master tape copies. Made by the plant in whatever country. They were not always sent a perfect master though or they couldn’t get the calibration right on their machines hence albums sometimes have different running orders or tracks omitted. A bit hit and miss therefore but most countries with an obsession for quality did as good a job as the originating country if not better, There are rarely bargains to be had nowadays though as everyone in the know knows what’s good regardless of origin. Germany and Japan spring to mind but their originals are never cheap.
Exactly, for instance, the Thriller release is meant to be 40k records but every stamper is only good for 1k discs before quality starts to drop off, so a minimum of 40 plays of a tape that may be extremely fragile, and actually probably at least double that or even more so that the engineer gets the cut right…
No way would Sony sanction that kind of usage of the master, it’s actually ridiculous when you think about it.
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Yeah, I’d be ripping it to DSD.
Oh… 
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That is mofi’s self imposed limit though. EMI and he like would get !0K from a stamper working 24/7 knocking out 100K albums a day.
Guessing Anal Prod tape the master?
They also had a quality control with a 10% rejection rate - No plant is working to this level now.
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They must do given the numbers they release. That was why I mentioned earlier about their skipping through the mastering bit on their swish video.
Yeah it is genuinely hard to comprehend how big the record industry was in the 60’s.
Yeah, that’s their marketing thing, and I assume they stuck to it, despite their lies/omissions/obfuscation about the AAA production chain. 
Another twitch inducer for the perfectionist collector. Like Rob says quality drops off so a first pressing isn’t enough it has to be an early first pressing.
White hot stampers oh yeah!
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I don’t know much about one steps but i think it could be a constraint of that process
There is a can of worms here that needs to be avoided
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spoil sport.
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The marketing is 1k records from a stamper, and each stamper is created directly from the master.
What rings alarm bells for me is that if a production run exceeds 1k, and each stamper is cut again directly from the master, then I doubt it’s possible that the cutting engineer can exactly reproduce what they created in the previous iterations.
In the traditional manufacturing process, there’s several steps before the stamper is produced, ensuring that many stampers can be made from one acetate. the following link explains it better than I can:
They should be able to re cut consistent Lacquers if the cutting chain is consistently the same. I doubt they use an entirely manual lathe in fact they don’t I’ve seen it on a video. What might be harder is always making stampers of the same quality that is the most complex part of the process.
There are tales of EMI and Columbia cutting engineers sat in cutting booths sleeping or reading the paper from the moment they had switched on the tape machine and set the lathe up.
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But those guys had a base line tape that they had created and were happy with, and they were used time and time again.
Unless I’m massively missing/misunderstanding something (entirely possible, I admit) the One Step Process™ is that each stamper is created uniquely from the Master tape. Allegedly.
I have no real grievance with MoFi I don’t own any of their records I’m just a rubber necking whore enjoying the car crash. In their defence though There are people within their company to point the finger at but it isn’t the engineers who make their records. There is a video on YT made by the in groove guy that made the original accusations where he visits MOFI and questions the guys that make the records. Fremer and others have slated it and the in groove guy for being incompetent in his questioning of them as “he’s not a journalist and didn’t know how to ask imposing questions” (not sure I would call Fremer a journo but hey ho). Anyway they do explain what they have been doing honestly and to me and I believe the In groove chap, they seem like nervous, uncomfortable spokesmen but passionate genuine engineers who really know their craft and have only tried to make the best sounding records they can. Fremer and others believe the were acting coy and bullshitting him. But like the guy says afterwards they are just employees doing the best job they can. Worth a watch in my view.
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Sorry but yes you are misunderstanding the process i think. the Stamper is taken off the acetate lacquer destroying it, This is the process for all records what differs is that stamper is then used to make the records where as normally a harder mother and father would be made to make the normal stamper to press records. hence one step between lacquer and pressed record as against 3 steps.
What they are doing is using a dxd4 file to feed the signal to the cutting lathe instead of the tape but that process is consistent once set up so lacquers should be equal quality.
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I’m in the same camp as you, I don’t own any. I’ve heard a few, some sounded amazing and a few, titles I was familiar with in particular, sometimes sounded a bit weird compared to the mass market release.
Mostly I’m enjoying the schadenfreude wrt to the hoarders of unplayed one steps and Fremer squirming/squealing because he obviously can’t hear digital after all, but also feel annoyed because of the deception. MoFi knew AAA was the golden goose in terms of marketing to the vinylista audiophile, but it turns out they only had a silver goose, and lied about it.
I’m absolutely sure the engineers were doing the best job they could, and I have no problem with a digital step in the process, I’ve always believed as long as the mastering was appropriate (and well done) to the format then I’m happy as long as it sounds good.
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