Those numbers are all bogus.
There is no guarantee the early serials sound better than later ones. ( however, I was told that Jim Davis who’s the owner of Mofi always keep first 200 copies to himself. ) 
Do you know what is the number of pressing DG used per stamper?
I can go for Bohm’s Mozart. Not keen on his Beethoven but love his bouncy Mozart!~
Wish they would redo this.
Love to hear her play Grande Polonaise Brillante Précédée D’Un Andante Spianato
I have a 3rd ‘No tulip’ label, at 2~3 o’clock direction there is ‘Sendung vorbehalten’.‘GT2’ copy and it sounds pretty decent actually. Curious how it fairs with the Original Source pressing.
I have always noted that low serial numbers, or any numbers are meaningless, when it comes to sound quality. I think the whole concept of them is silly. Getting #1 doesn’t mean first off the stamper. You could get #3114 and it might be early from a better stamper than #50 and so on. There is no correlation between serial numbers and order of pressing on any stamper. Pressing records into a stack and pulling them off the stack and packaging them are separate parts of a process anyway. That isn’t kept in sync.
I do not know how many pressings they do per stamper.
I have visited Quality Record Pressing (and Acoustic Sounds and Analogue Productions) on several occasions (during our road trips from St. Louis to Colorado) and have gotten the full tour. There is no correlation between pressing number and jacket serial number.
Serial numbers are a marketing gimmick and nothing more.
If you want something that is guaranteed a low number off a stamper, get a non-rejected test pressing. I have a few of those that were gifted to me by a friend working on a reissue series. I’m happy to have them, but my retail release copies (bought on release day) sound the same, as far as I can tell.
DG Classics has even been selling those for some of the TOS titles at the DG Classics Shop, for two/three times the cost or so. Buy them if you want something collectible but don’t buy them expecting better sound quality.
That Argerich from '77 is a possible candidate, if it was recorded 4-track.
FYI: you mention you have a “No tulips label” version. A “tulips” label version wouldn’t exist for it anyway. That was unique to DGG and they ceased to exist by 1970. They became just DG at that point and the “tulips” were confined to past history.
Yes. i know. This is how I make a notation on my spreadsheet so I can keep track on what I’ve got and possibly compare to other pressing I might get in the future.
I have the Clearaudio reissue of the Argerich Chopin, mastered by EBS (IIRC) and it sounds really pretty good.
I’d rather have some of those Pollini’s though.
Another wish list item is BSO/Ozawa’s Shostakovich Cello Concerto with Rostropovich.
I tried their Richter Rachmaninoff PC2 reissue and was not too enthused about it compared to other pressings I own so I avoided any of their reissues.
Like anyone else, the reissues can be hit-or-miss sometimes. One that’s bad doesn’t mean all are bad, any more than for Speakers Corner, or AP, or Mofi, etc. My main complaint about the Clearaudio reissues is that they are overpriced. Mostly they are mastered by EBS and pressed at Pallas.
Hmmm…I don’t even like to double dip on stuff (ecxept improved reissues of OGs I have) and it looks like you sextuple-dip. LOL. I don’t think I have six versions of the same album for anything. I prefer finding six different performances of he same thing that I love. The Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin is a good example. I have six versions, but I don’t have two issues/reissues of any one
I agree. But I have tried several and if all of them are bad why would I even bother ? Mostly I gave up on new Classic reissues by AP ( original Classics from the 90s sounds miles better ) But their One Step Kind of Blues is just about the best I have heard. I never liked Mofi sound albeit I have heard some good ones albeit those are extremely rare.
Speakers Corner is an odd bird. Never had a good luck with their classical reissues but thier popular and jazz titles have been excellent for me.
Well, I caught on after awhile. A good friend of mine told me most of the time original pressing sounds better so if I find them cheap just get them all and listen and take the best sounding one.
I have a dozen Carol King’s titles and he was right. the original pressing beats the pants off a lame Mofi reissue.
Accumulating all those origial out of dollar bins so it cost me less than 20 bucks for a dozen. I do not even wanna know how much Mofi is charging for one these days.
You know, I have just put on my copy of the Argerich and it just didn’t seem right, so I put on the Pollini and realized what wasn’t right. I was playing the Argerich instead of the Pollini. 
I really hope the TOS series does all three Pollini Chopin albums from the 70s. Then I won’t care that they didn’t do the Argerich. I like the Argerich, but I like the Pollini much better. 
Meh…I think you and I are of different mind and ears. A lot of the Classic record recording from the 90s had issues. A lot of the APs fixed those, especially after they starting pressing at QRP.
The problem with Speakers Corner isn’t so much Speakers Corner as much as it is that Pallas quality has diminished a lot in the last 5 years.
AP’s Kind of Blue is not a One-Step. Nothing AP does is One-Step. MoFi does One-Step. AP/QRP does not do One-Step. FWIW: Kevin Gray – one of the best mastering engineers in the industry – refuses to do One-Step mastering. They are not a panacea.
I disagree with that too. A lot of original masterings/pressings were purposely subdued so that the records could be played on the systems of the day, which mostly weren’t very capable compared to what we have now. That’s true for DG, among others, and has been documented and discussed. The engineers of the TOS series (Malliard/Meyer at EBS ) have even said so about DG on their Youtube videos discussing the TOS series.
You should find the Youtube video where Joe Harley talks about how they started the Music Matters Jazz reissues series. They started with the premise of reissuing Blue Note records like they were when released in the 50s/60s. But when Joe and Ron and Kevin put up the tapes to play they realized what they had was extraordinary, and how much was missing from the OGs. They completely changed their approach and decided to create remastered albums based more along the lines of what was really on the tapes that RVG recorded.
If you want to believe the crowd that says OGs are a panacea for best sound quality, be my guest (and it’s your money to spend on them). In some cases maybe that’s true, but to generalize that is far more myth than truth.
Oh! they are exception! Probably only reissue company I trust!
Tho some of their early Steve Hoffman remastered 45s can sound rather dull compared to the later offerings. I generally prefer their later 33s series.
I can only speak from my own experience.
My most recent encounter was the original Monk’s Brilliant Corners vs. Craft Recording Small Batch reissue. Not only it had some manufacturing flaws the sound quality was surprisingly poor. The in-room presence I look for in a recording instantly vanished. I have a feeling that original master tape was rather too far gone or even perhaps the copy of one. Even the best engineer can do so much with a limited material.
Obviously I have not tried all of the original pressings vs. reissues. I just try a few and see and if I see decently priced original in a good condition why not pick up a few?
RE: Mofi Kind of Blue.
It was beaten by both Classic reissue from the 90s and UHQR AP.
I agree about the Steve Hoffman involvement. I am not a fan of his mastering. It was better when they removed him from the project and left mastering to Kevin Gray and Joe Harley.
The Tone Poet series is every bit as good as the Music Matters Jazz series. No mystery there. It’s the same two people (Joe and Kevin) producing them, and they are pressed at RTI, just as MMJ reissues were.
Cheers
EJ
