The GOUT Empire in particular exhibits noticeable dynamic compression compared to the laserdisc. If it came from a vhs master that might account for the discrepancy, but it's hard to say. All three have an average playback volume that is four decibels lower than the LD's because of the AC3 dialnorm setting. Adjusting your receiver's gain upwards to compensate when listening to the GOUT will eliminate much of the perceived lack, on SW and RotJ at least, but of course the lower bitrate works against them as well.