hairy_hen, this is awesome news! Thanks for doing it, very happy to hear that the '85 stereo mix proved to be a slightly better option than the '77 stereo. Looking forward to it, at this stage it's basically polishing of gold. :)

hairy_hen said:

I do have to wonder exactly where the '85 mix came from. Given its high level of similarity to the original stereo, it is most probably a derivation from that mix, but the wider imaging mystifies me. I'm pretty certain that the theatrical version was narrowed in order to reduce crosstalk in the surrounds, but I guess they dispensed with that practise as Dolby improved their upmixing technology. Was there an earlier generation copy that had the dynamic reduction but hadn't been panned in? Or did they make a new downmix of the 4-track master, taking great care to match the EQ and dynamics of the theatrical stereo? Or did they simply use some kind of processing to widen the existing stereo master? I can't say, but its separation does seem to match up with the '93 mix pretty well. Hmm . . .

Could they maybe have narrowed the imaging further on the '77 Stereo when they used it on the early home video release? or could the specific qualities of the '85 track have something to do with the 4-track magnetic stereo prepared for international markets? Are there any articles out there regarding this '85 home video mix.