ABC said:
OK, someone has graciously sent to me the 1986 CD release I was begging for. ... Thanks again man, if you read me !!!...
And now that I've heard some of it, may I come back to this:
skyjedi2005 said:
The CD has the same problems as the 70's source tape as remarked upon in the anthology book i think by Lukas Kendal.
... MY ! Have you only ever give a listen to it ?!!! If you want to feel the wood, the brass and the strings, it is THE Star Wars recording in its excellence. There's no so much to do it seems to improve it, however I don't say it'll be an easy task.
I'm not gonna work on it before a while, but I may post a sample just for the pleasure if I have a chance to give it a try.
Oh i have the Cd and it sounds quite good, just was remarking on how Lucasfilm nowadays wants a completely clean release free of any analog noise to have them sound modern i don't know. You could claim this was done to match the prequels except the special edition soundtracks were done before the prequels scores, and even the digitally recorded scores of those sound better and have better dynamics than the SE jedi release. What a blunder that release and empire strikes back were.
The dynamics on the 1 disc return of the jedi and empire strikes back are pretty good sounding for early cd releases, the special editions in my opinion other than giving unreleased material are an abomination, even the anthology box which was better than the SE left a lot to be desired.
Lucasfilm obviously has no intention of transfering those decaying masters they have and giving us a definitive release, who nows perhaps all the original recordings will be lost to time and all we will have is a bad digital SE copy, kind of like the original verions of the films are rotting in his vaults and no dvd or blu ray release made from the existing elements. It is laughable considering how there is a an existing fanbase for these things to not to release them and make money.
In a perfect world you could have a complete return of the jedi score free of jedi rocks, with the same sound quality or better than the single LP vinyl record release. The fact that they left the fancy man source track off the SE to make room for the awful jedi rocks is so dumb it boggles the mind. So does crushing the dynamics and running the music through such a harsh noise filter after already being a second or third generation copy of the recently located original masters which lucas won't pay to transfer.
Lucas probably thinks the dsd sony releases are perfect as he does his limited to 1080P digital transfer of the original trilogy recut with cartoon cgi, and bad colors and too much digital video noise reduction.
To me the best the best star wars music release i will ever see is the 1993 anthology, just like the 1993 definitive laserdisc collection will be the best the films of the original original trilogy ever look and sound on home video.
There will be no modern benchmarks lucas does not even consider a blu ray release and never probably will until the end of the formats life cycle like he did for dvd.
The same reason why there is no High Definition audio release of the original trilogy scores in DVD-A, sacd or other formats. He is happy with mediocrity, and less someone disagree i say watch those horrendous prequels and indy 4 back to back for a taste of bitter medicine that Lucas does not care.