I'm sure this has been covered in detail before, but I'm getting nowhere with the "search" function, so I though I'd just ask -
how does the sound quality on the RCA (and Sony) reissues of "The Empire Strikes Back" compare to the Fox/Arista Anthology box set? Better? The same? I gather the tracks are film versions, not the "concert" rerecordings - what's the verdict on these?
how does the sound quality on the RCA (and Sony) reissues of "The Empire Strikes Back" compare to the Fox/Arista Anthology box set? Better? The same? I gather the tracks are film versions, not the "concert" rerecordings - what's the verdict on these?
1.) The two disc Sony reissues of both ESB and ROTJ are "muddy" compared to the Arista 4 disc set. Only the Sony Star Wars has a clearer sound quality.
2.) The Sony sets also rename the tracks from their "album names" to their "sheet names" ("The Duel" from the Arista set becomes "The Clash Of Lightsabers" on Sony, etc). Sony also combines a bunch of cues into suites - the Arista tracks "The Battle In The Snow", "Luke's First Crash" and "The Rebels Escape Again" (along with a little extra?) are now in one 17 minute suite called "The Battle Of Hoth (Ion Cannon/Imperial Walkers/Beneath The At-At/Escape In The Millennium Falcon)".
Personally, the Sony sets are vastly inferior. Though Star Wars is certainly cleaned up and sounds brighter, the whole "lets edit cues together into long suites" drives me nuts. I shouldn't have to fast-forward through 7 minutes of music to hear what I want. Nothing has come close to the old Arista box and I imagine nothing will.
Say what you will about the sound quality of the Special Editions (which never really bothered me, even though I hear it when I bother to think about it) - I much prefer the suite version of the music. It keeps the energy and the flow of the score up.
