Ok I watched D+77 with this mix, flipping back to all the other mixes now and again to compare, and this really takes the cake. I imagine with the reconstruction of the movie in the mid 90s, as many best-generation audio sources were resynced for the new mix. The music particularly sounds much much better. Everything has much more separation and really does bring me back to the theater of 1997 yet amazing to hear with the original cut of the film like it should have been all along. Some of it’s kind of weird like in the cantina the alien voices are quite prominent, and when the Falcon comes out of hyperspace at Alderaan the debris field makes those horrible synth swishes which, correct me if I’m wrong, only started with the 1993 mix from what I can tell. I wish they weren’t there.
Overall it’s much more dynamic, with a lot of aural separation between the various sounds that wasn’t there before. The balance is much more modern sounding though so maybe not for purists but yes for when you show to your kids or family so they’re not put off by “old timey” sound. I swear it all sounded like the same edits to me, with all the same sonic character, but everything is much clearer. (Maybe a touch too much low end.) If there is the one frame sync problem at the tail end of the movie I really couldn’t tell.
Kudos Hal.