Having watched 45 rpm Audiophile's recent and interview with Chad Kassem (owner of Analogue Productions) and Kevin Grey (renowned mastering engineer), I am still not clear about what is involved in an AAA remastering session. It's obviously not simply a case of threading up the master tape, pressing play and dropping the cutting needle on the lacquer. Presumably the tape must be played through so that they can note the average and peak output levels of each track, and analyse the frequency content of each track, so that the lacquer is cut optimally? And, if 'season to taste' EQ adjustments are required to make the latest remaster sonically superior to previous releases, the tape will need to be played through again, perhaps several times, as EQ adjustments are made and agreed upon. Then, when the lacquer is being cut, if there's a mishap that's identified either during the cutting process or later on in the production process when the test pressing is rejected, then a new lacquer may need to be cut and the tape must be played again.
You could conceivably have a situation where the original master tape is played many times before even a single vinyl unit is printed. Is this acceptable from a tape preservation POV? Wouldn't a safer and easier method be to digitise the master tape upon first playback, figure out all of your level optimisation and EQ tweaking based on this digital file, cut lacquers, rinse and repeat until the lacquer gets the seal of approval from a sonic POV, then when you come to do the final lacquer THEN you cut it from the master tape? That way you have the best of both worlds, infinite access to the digitised file as a "work in progress" on which to perfect your EQ tweaks etc, and a final product cut directly from the master tapes that will have been saved from potential degradation by having multiple play-throughs. I'd love to know how far this is from reality?!