hairy_hen said:

The SE mix, better than the 70mm? Don't make me laugh. The '97 mix is very dynamically shrunken compared to the 70mm version, and often sounds tinny and weak in general. It's not nearly as bad as the 2004 version, of course, because it's still recognisable, but it's really not that good a lot of the time.

Steve Hoffman, who got to see a good condition 70mm print a few years ago, agrees with me. http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-141011.html

Who to believe----Rick McCallum or Steve Hoffman:

Rick McCallum: This is one of the tools we use.e You remember what explosions were like 20 years ago? You couldn't have low frequency bass, like you can now and in a good theater you can feel that explosion and millions of people on Alderaan crying out for help. It goes straight to your body. It's all low frequency. But you need a theater owner who cares about his audience, who's willing to invest money and time to knock you right off your seat.

http://www.maikeldas.com/SWrick1eng.html

And Ben Burtt is not far behind:

"We created the surrounds all over again, so that we could take advantage of the split surrounds that we now have. We were able to extend the high- and low-frequency material, as it can be played back in theatres now, so we could add more subwoofer to the rumbling spaceships or explosions, and attain a higher fidelity in the music and so on."

"In looking at Star Wars, we were amazed at how articulate the final space battle was, years later. We didn't do a lot to change that, except adding subwoofer material to the explosions. Where we had spaceships flying past the camera, we added the sound of them continuing into the surround speakers; we brought the sound off the screen and into the room more than the original movie. There was an attempt to spatially envelop the audience, but there is a limit to what you can hear and what will work."

http://lavender.fortunecity.com/hawkslane/575/starwars-advanced.htm