phbart

Who cares? We have the Ultimate Edition.

It's great for luring homesick stray extraterrestrials into your home and restricting their freedom of movement while being a serious hazard to their health.

They hired a guy to come in and physically make hissing sounds into a microphone.
 

Yes. And also the fact that early digital recordings were made on tape. I think it was like that all the way into the 90's. And even though it's a digital recording, the quality can be affected by the deterioration of the material. So not only it was limited to CD resolution (which is more than suitable for the finished product that is aimed to the consumer, but not so much for the recording process) but had the imperfections of the analog medium which was stored, such ticks and dropouts. MM himself clarified that regarding E.T. when the digital recordings couldn't be located and they went with the analog instead, even for the OST portion: "A digital master would only have been at 44k/16bit. The original recording tapes would also have been in that format, but we would have had the material in 3-channel. But without that, and only stereo to work with, we were better off with a hi-res tape transfer than with a 35 year-old digital master that probably would have been full of ticks and dropouts." "But there is no doubt in Bruce [Botnick]’s mind that using the uncut set of mag transferred at 192k 24bit would give us far greater quality than the 44k 16bit tapes would have if we had located them. In all likelihood they would have had a lot of ticks and dropouts on them."

Who cares? We have the Ultimate Edition.

Yes. And also the fact that early digital recordings were made on tape. I think it was like that all the way into the 90's. And even though it's a digital recording, the quality can be affected by the deterioration of the material. So not only it was limited to CD resolution (which is more than suitable for the finished product that is aimed to the consumer, but not so much for the recording process) but had the imperfections of the analog medium which was stored, such ticks and dropouts. MM himself clarified that regarding E.T. when the digital recordings couldn't be located and they went with the analog instead, even for the OST portion: "A digital master would only have been at 44k/16bit. The original recording tapes would also have been in that format, but we would have had the material in 3-channel. But without that, and only stereo to work with, we were better off with a hi-res tape transfer than with a 35 year-old digital master that probably would have been full of ticks and dropouts." "But there is no doubt in Bruce [Botnick]’s mind that using the uncut set of mag transferred at 192k 24bit would give us far greater quality than the 44k 16bit tapes would have if we had located them. In all likelihood they would have had a lot of ticks and dropouts on them."

I believe audio recording is reaching its pinnacle already. There won't be anything that is completely revolutionary in the future, same way it hasn't in the past years. I mean, when was the last time you heard about a new audio format that made you go "woooooowww"?  You can say "Oh, what about Dolby Atmos?". Well, it's all PCM.
 
Now for video, since it's much more complex than audio, there'll be plenty room for improvement in the years to come. Just for comparison, the best video medium today in Blu-ray 4K, and it delivers us video in 10bit. Now, can you imagine 10bit audio?

Digital video masters for CGI-heavy films like the prequels and LOTR will only benefit from better compression of the newer codecs like HEVC and MAYBE some better color and contrast, since they're all "stuck" in the 2K resolution and its color space. I believe nothing else can be obtained from those unless they re-render all the CGI again, which may cost a few millions more than just use the 2K files.
 
But when I say the "digital vs analog" is pointless today, I meant in the sound capturing field. Now, in the image capturing field, I believe there's plenty room for debate. Not so much in still photography, but in motion picture.

Exactly!
 
 
I just thought of another example - Howard Shore's LOTR scores are forever locked at 24/48 since they were recorded digitally to hard drives at that resolution.  Granted that's a perfectly acceptable resolution, nothing to worry about at all (they sound phenomenal).  It's just funny sometimes to think small drama scores from the 60s could be sold at 24/192 if they did a fresh transfer of their tapes, but LOTR can't.

Again, according to Malone: "[Shawn] Murphy shares similarities with [Eric] Tomlinson in that he also prefers to record orchestral scores in the analog domain. A Studer A80 machine was employed for the prequel scores, running at 15 IPS and encoded with Dolby SR noise reduction. “There’s an argument which says that format really gives you more dynamic range than 16 bit digital, and it certainly gives you better sound quality in the recording if you’re executing it right,” explained Murphy to interviewer Michael Fremer. Eric Tomlinson concurs with Murphy’s choice having discussed it with him during scoring of Revenge of the Sith. “That is a comment which he made and I agree with him. I still prefer Dolby SR.” Murphy also avoids dynamics processing and tends to eschew equalisation of individual microphone feeds."
 
However, I do believe the only thing that was analog there was the recording. All that comes after (mixing, editing, mastering, blablabla) was done digitally.

According to Chris Malone:
 
SW 93 Anthology: "For the first time Star Wars utilised the actual film mixes, prepared by Eric Tomlinson, sourced from two-track tapes that contained each take recorded for every cue"
**SW 97 SE: "At this time the original, unedited three-track 35mm magnetic film recordings of Star Wars were located as well as the 16-track master session tapes." "The 16-track tapes were of limited value as the sections that corresponded to the preferential takes were edited out and presumably stored on another set of reels that are now considered misplaced."
 
ESB 93 Anthology: "The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project." "To make matters worse, the Empire tapes were incomplete and PolyGram was unwilling to locate the original LP album tapes. This necessitated the use of 35mm magnetic film recordings, edited for assimilation with the picture, together with several cues lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD"
ESB 97 SE: "For The Empire Strikes Back, five of the pre-edited 24- track backup rolls were remixed by Brian Risner at the Fox Zanuck Theatre in 1996. Ostensibly, these tapes contained the cues that appeared on the original double LP album." "For all other cues, the digital transfers made by Bill Wolford in 1993 appear to have been utilised."
 
RoTJ 93 Anthology: "The production team made extensive use of two-track tapes containing the edited film mixes despite three-track tapes also being available at the time. A number of cues were also lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD because they could not be located on other available sources."
RoTJ 97 SE: "A three-track reduction of the original preedited Abbey Road tapes was used to prepare the set..."
 
 
**I DO remember reading at FSM that the complete 16 track tape of SW containing the correct takes were located. I'll try to find the post. I believe it was a post about an ebay auction of a set of SW and ESB master tapes...
 
Edit: here it is, from Lukas Kendall himself: "I was at a Star Wars-related convention in L.A. maybe 6-8 years ago where Dan Melson had a booth trying to sell these tapes he got from the John Neal estate—he's been trying to unload them for years. He has every right to own and sell the master tapes, even though he does not own the intellectual property recorded ONTO the tapes. He always asked a fortune and, not surprisingly, people were not interested, seeing as how the tapes are worthless except for the "cool factor." He had a lot of rock stuff too. Of the film music, the tapes are basically dub-downs of little importance except for the Star Wars 2" 16-track masters which contain the edited "selects" Williams and Ken Wannberg chose—I remember when they did the Star Wars Special Edition CDs, they had the 16-track masters, but all of these master takes from the original album had been snipped out! So that's where they went, making those 16-tracks are highly important. Now, the good news: at that Star Wars con was Matthew Wood, a sound editor for Lucasfilm (voice of General Grievous, I think?) and he and I were like, WTF?! I am quite sure he subsequently coordinated to have the 16-tracks digitized at Lucasfilm (in exchange for a tour or something for Melson)...whatever. I think it's all OK, so people should RELAX." (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=101432&archive=0)

According to Chris Malone:
 
SW 93 Anthology: "For the first time Star Wars utilised the actual film mixes, prepared by Eric Tomlinson, sourced from two-track tapes that contained each take recorded for every cue"
**SW 97 SE: "At this time the original, unedited three-track 35mm magnetic film recordings of Star Wars were located as well as the 16-track master session tapes." "The 16-track tapes were of limited value as the sections that corresponded to the preferential takes were edited out and presumably stored on another set of reels that are now considered misplaced."
 
ESB 93 Anthology: "The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project." "To make matters worse, the Empire tapes were incomplete and PolyGram was unwilling to locate the original LP album tapes. This necessitated the use of 35mm magnetic film recordings, edited for assimilation with the picture, together with several cues lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD"
ESB 97 SE: "For The Empire Strikes Back, five of the pre-edited 24- track backup rolls were remixed by Brian Risner at the Fox Zanuck Theatre in 1996. Ostensibly, these tapes contained the cues that appeared on the original double LP album." "For all other cues, the digital transfers made by Bill Wolford in 1993 appear to have been utilised."
 
RoTJ 93 Anthology: "The production team made extensive use of two-track tapes containing the edited film mixes despite three-track tapes also being available at the time. A number of cues were also lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD because they could not be located on other available sources."
RoTJ 97 SE: "A three-track reduction of the original preedited Abbey Road tapes was used to prepare the set..."
 
 
**I DO remember reading at FSM that the complete 16 track tape of SW containing the correct takes were located. I'll try to find the post. I believe it was a post about an ebay auction of a set of SW and ESB master tapes...
 
Edit: here it is, from Lukas Kendall himself: "I was at a Star Wars-related convention in L.A. maybe 6-8 years ago where Dan Melson had a booth trying to sell these tapes he got from the John Neal estate—he's been trying to unload them for years. He has every right to own and sell the master tapes, even though he does not own the intellectual property recorded ONTO the tapes. He always asked a fortune and, not surprisingly, people were not interested, seeing as how the tapes are worthless except for the "cool factor." He had a lot of rock stuff too. Of the film music, the tapes are basically dub-downs of little importance except for the Star Wars 2" 16-track masters which contain the edited "selects" Williams and Ken Wannberg chose—I remember when they did the Star Wars Special Edition CDs, they had the 16-track masters, but all of these master takes from the original album had been snipped out! So that's where they went, making those 16-tracks are highly important. Now, the good news: at that Star Wars con was Matthew Wood, a sound editor for Lucasfilm (voice of General Grievous, I think?) and he and I were like, WTF?! I am quite sure he subsequently coordinated to have the 16-tracks digitized at Lucasfilm (in exchange for a tour or something for Melson)...whatever. I think it's all OK, so people should RELAX." (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=101432&archive=0)

According to Chris Malone:
 
SW 93 Anthology: "For the first time Star Wars utilised the actual film mixes, prepared by Eric Tomlinson, sourced from two-track tapes that contained each take recorded for every cue"
**SW 97 SE: "At this time the original, unedited three-track 35mm magnetic film recordings of Star Wars were located as well as the 16-track master session tapes." "The 16-track tapes were of limited value as the sections that corresponded to the preferential takes were edited out and presumably stored on another set of reels that are now considered misplaced."
 
ESB 93 Anthology: "The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project." "To make matters worse, the Empire tapes were incomplete and PolyGram was unwilling to locate the original LP album tapes. This necessitated the use of 35mm magnetic film recordings, edited for assimilation with the picture, together with several cues lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD"
ESB 97 SE: "For The Empire Strikes Back, five of the pre-edited 24- track backup rolls were remixed by Brian Risner at the Fox Zanuck Theatre in 1996. Ostensibly, these tapes contained the cues that appeared on the original double LP album." "For all other cues, the digital transfers made by Bill Wolford in 1993 appear to have been utilised."
 
RoTJ 93 Anthology: "The production team made extensive use of two-track tapes containing the edited film mixes despite three-track tapes also being available at the time. A number of cues were also lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD because they could not be located on other available sources."
RoTJ 97 SE: "A three-track reduction of the original preedited Abbey Road tapes was used to prepare the set..."
 
 
**I DO remember reading at FSM that the complete 16 track tape of SW containing the correct takes were located. I'll try to find the post. I believe it was a post about an ebay auction of a set of SW and ESB master tapes...
 
Edit: here it is, from Lukas Kendall himself: "I was at a Star Wars-related convention in L.A. maybe 6-8 years ago where Dan Melson had a booth trying to sell these tapes he got from the John Neal estate—he's been trying to unload them for years. He has every right to own and sell the master tapes, even though he does not own the intellectual property recorded ONTO the tapes. He always asked a fortune and, not surprisingly, people were not interested, seeing as how the tapes are worthless except for the "cool factor." He had a lot of rock stuff too. Of the film music, the tapes are basically dub-downs of little importance except for the Star Wars 2" 16-track masters which contain the edited "selects" Williams and Ken Wannberg chose—I remember when they did the Star Wars Special Edition CDs, they had the 16-track masters, but all of these master takes from the original album had been snipped out! So that's where they went, making those 16-tracks are highly important. Now, the good news: at that Star Wars con was Matthew Wood, a sound editor for Lucasfilm (voice of General Grievous, I think?) and he and I were like, WTF?! I am quite sure he subsequently coordinated to have the 16-tracks digitized at Lucasfilm (in exchange for a tour or something for Melson)...whatever. I think it's all OK, so people should RELAX." (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=101432&archive=0)

According to Chris Malone:
 
SW 93 Anthology: "For the first time Star Wars utilised the actual film mixes, prepared by Eric Tomlinson, sourced from two-track tapes that contained each take recorded for every cue"
**SW 97 SE: "At this time the original, unedited three-track 35mm magnetic film recordings of Star Wars were located as well as the 16-track master session tapes." "The 16-track tapes were of limited value as the sections that corresponded to the preferential takes were edited out and presumably stored on another set of reels that are now considered misplaced."
 
ESB 93 Anthology: "The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project." "To make matters worse, the Empire tapes were incomplete and PolyGram was unwilling to locate the original LP album tapes. This necessitated the use of 35mm magnetic film recordings, edited for assimilation with the picture, together with several cues lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD"
ESB 97 SE: "For The Empire Strikes Back, five of the pre-edited 24- track backup rolls were remixed by Brian Risner at the Fox Zanuck Theatre in 1996. Ostensibly, these tapes contained the cues that appeared on the original double LP album." "For all other cues, the digital transfers made by Bill Wolford in 1993 appear to have been utilised."
 
RoTJ 93 Anthology: "The production team made extensive use of two-track tapes containing the edited film mixes despite three-track tapes also being available at the time. A number of cues were also lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD because they could not be located on other available sources."
RoTJ 97 SE: "A three-track reduction of the original preedited Abbey Road tapes was used to prepare the set..."
 
 
**I DO remember reading at FSM that the complete 16 track tape of SW containing the correct takes were located. I'll try to find the post. I believe it was a post about an ebay auction of a set of SW and ESB master tapes...
 
Edit: here it is, from Lukas Kendall himself: "I was at a Star Wars-related convention in L.A. maybe 6-8 years ago where Dan Melson had a booth trying to sell these tapes he got from the John Neal estate—he's been trying to unload them for years. He has every right to own and sell the master tapes, even though he does not own the intellectual property recorded ONTO the tapes. He always asked a fortune and, not surprisingly, people were not interested, seeing as how the tapes are worthless except for the "cool factor." He had a lot of rock stuff too. Of the film music, the tapes are basically dub-downs of little importance except for the Star Wars 2" 16-track masters which contain the edited "selects" Williams and Ken Wannberg chose—I remember when they did the Star Wars Special Edition CDs, they had the 16-track masters, but all of these master takes from the original album had been snipped out! So that's where they went, making those 16-tracks are highly important. Now, the good news: at that Star Wars con was Matthew Wood, a sound editor for Lucasfilm (voice of General Grievous, I think?) and he and I were like, WTF?! I am quite sure he subsequently coordinated to have the 16-tracks digitized at Lucasfilm (in exchange for a tour or something for Melson)...whatever. I think it's all OK, so people should RELAX." (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=101432&archive=0)

Yes. I believe those tapes should've been properly vaulted in a studio archive. Or maybe this was for the better as the studio might not have preserved them properly. Who knows...

According to Chris Malone:
 
SW 93 Anthology: "For the first time Star Wars utilised the actual film mixes, prepared by Eric Tomlinson, sourced from two-track tapes that contained each take recorded for every cue"
**SW 97 SE: "At this time the original, unedited three-track 35mm magnetic film recordings of Star Wars were located as well as the 16-track master session tapes." "The 16-track tapes were of limited value as the sections that corresponded to the preferential takes were edited out and presumably stored on another set of reels that are now considered misplaced."
 
ESB 93 Anthology: "The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project." "To make matters worse, the Empire tapes were incomplete and PolyGram was unwilling to locate the original LP album tapes. This necessitated the use of 35mm magnetic film recordings, edited for assimilation with the picture, together with several cues lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD"
ESB 97 SE: "For The Empire Strikes Back, five of the pre-edited 24- track backup rolls were remixed by Brian Risner at the Fox Zanuck Theatre in 1996. Ostensibly, these tapes contained the cues that appeared on the original double LP album." "For all other cues, the digital transfers made by Bill Wolford in 1993 appear to have been utilised."
 
RoTJ 93 Anthology: "The production team made extensive use of two-track tapes containing the edited film mixes despite three-track tapes also being available at the time. A number of cues were also lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD because they could not be located on other available sources."
RoTJ 97 SE: "A three-track reduction of the original preedited Abbey Road tapes was used to prepare the set..."
 
 
**I DO remember reading at FSM that the complete 16 track tape of SW containing the correct takes were located. I'll try to find the post. I believe it was a post about an ebay auction of a set of SW and ESB master tapes...
 
Edit: here it is, from Lukas Kendall himself: "I was at a Star Wars-related convention in L.A. maybe 6-8 years ago where Dan Melson had a booth trying to sell these tapes he got from the John Neal estate—he's been trying to unload them for years. He has every right to own and sell the master tapes, even though he does not own the intellectual property recorded ONTO the tapes. He always asked a fortune and, not surprisingly, people were not interested, seeing as how the tapes are worthless except for the "cool factor." He had a lot of rock stuff too. Of the film music, the tapes are basically dub-downs of little importance except for the Star Wars 2" 16-track masters which contain the edited "selects" Williams and Ken Wannberg chose—I remember when they did the Star Wars Special Edition CDs, they had the 16-track masters, but all of these master takes from the original album had been snipped out! So that's where they went, making those 16-tracks are highly important. Now, the good news: at that Star Wars con was Matthew Wood, a sound editor for Lucasfilm (voice of General Grievous, I think?) and he and I were like, WTF?! I am quite sure he subsequently coordinated to have the 16-tracks digitized at Lucasfilm (in exchange for a tour or something for Melson)...whatever. I think it's all OK, so people should RELAX." (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=101432&archive=0)

Yes. I believe those tapes should've been properly vaulted in a studio archive. Or maybe this was for the better as the studio might not have preserved them properly. Who knows...

According to Chris Malone:
 
SW 93 Anthology: "For the first time Star Wars utilised the actual film mixes, prepared by Eric Tomlinson, sourced from two-track tapes that contained each take recorded for every cue"
**SW 97 SE: "At this time the original, unedited three-track 35mm magnetic film recordings of Star Wars were located as well as the 16-track master session tapes." "The 16-track tapes were of limited value as the sections that corresponded to the preferential takes were edited out and presumably stored on another set of reels that are now considered misplaced."
 
ESB 93 Anthology: "The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project." "To make matters worse, the Empire tapes were incomplete and PolyGram was unwilling to locate the original LP album tapes. This necessitated the use of 35mm magnetic film recordings, edited for assimilation with the picture, together with several cues lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD"
ESB 97 SE: "For The Empire Strikes Back, five of the pre-edited 24- track backup rolls were remixed by Brian Risner at the Fox Zanuck Theatre in 1996. Ostensibly, these tapes contained the cues that appeared on the original double LP album." "For all other cues, the digital transfers made by Bill Wolford in 1993 appear to have been utilised."
 
RoTJ 93 Anthology: "The production team made extensive use of two-track tapes containing the edited film mixes despite three-track tapes also being available at the time. A number of cues were also lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD because they could not be located on other available sources."
RoTJ 97 SE: "A three-track reduction of the original preedited Abbey Road tapes was used to prepare the set..."
 
 
**I DO remember reading at FSM that the complete 16 track tape of SW containing the correct takes were located. I'll try to find the post. I believe it was a post about an ebay auction of a set of SW and ESB master tapes...
 
Edit: here it is, from Lukas Kendall himself: "I was at a Star Wars-related convention in L.A. maybe 6-8 years ago where Dan Melson had a booth trying to sell these tapes he got from the John Neal estate—he's been trying to unload them for years. He has every right to own and sell the master tapes, even though he does not own the intellectual property recorded ONTO the tapes. He always asked a fortune and, not surprisingly, people were not interested, seeing as how the tapes are worthless except for the "cool factor." He had a lot of rock stuff too. Of the film music, the tapes are basically dub-downs of little importance except for the Star Wars 2" 16-track masters which contain the edited "selects" Williams and Ken Wannberg chose—I remember when they did the Star Wars Special Edition CDs, they had the 16-track masters, but all of these master takes from the original album had been snipped out! So that's where they went, making those 16-tracks are highly important. Now, the good news: at that Star Wars con was Matthew Wood, a sound editor for Lucasfilm (voice of General Grievous, I think?) and he and I were like, WTF?! I am quite sure he subsequently coordinated to have the 16-tracks digitized at Lucasfilm (in exchange for a tour or something for Melson)...whatever. I think it's all OK, so people should RELAX." (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=101432&archive=0)

According to Chris Malone:
 
SW 93 Anthology: "For the first time Star Wars utilised the actual film mixes, prepared by Eric Tomlinson, sourced from two-track tapes that contained each take recorded for every cue"
**SW 97 SE: "At this time the original, unedited three-track 35mm magnetic film recordings of Star Wars were located as well as the 16-track master session tapes." "The 16-track tapes were of limited value as the sections that corresponded to the preferential takes were edited out and presumably stored on another set of reels that are now considered misplaced."
 
ESB 93 Anthology: "The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project." "To make matters worse, the Empire tapes were incomplete and PolyGram was unwilling to locate the original LP album tapes. This necessitated the use of 35mm magnetic film recordings, edited for assimilation with the picture, together with several cues lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD"
ESB 97 SE: "For The Empire Strikes Back, five of the pre-edited 24- track backup rolls were remixed by Brian Risner at the Fox Zanuck Theatre in 1996. Ostensibly, these tapes contained the cues that appeared on the original double LP album." "For all other cues, the digital transfers made by Bill Wolford in 1993 appear to have been utilised."
 
RoTJ 93 Anthology: "The production team made extensive use of two-track tapes containing the edited film mixes despite three-track tapes also being available at the time. A number of cues were also lifted directly from the original PolyGram CD because they could not be located on other available sources."
RoTJ 97 SE: "A three-track reduction of the original preedited Abbey Road tapes was used to prepare the set..."
 
 
**I DO remember reading at FSM that the complete 16 track tape of SW containing the correct takes were located. I'll try to find the post. I believe it was a post about an ebay auction of a set of SW and ESB master tapes...
 
Edit: here it is, from Lukas Kendall himself: "I was at a Star Wars-related convention in L.A. maybe 6-8 years ago where Dan Melson had a booth trying to sell these tapes he got from the John Neal estate—he's been trying to unload them for years. He has every right to own and sell the master tapes, even though he does not own the intellectual property recorded ONTO the tapes. He always asked a fortune and, not surprisingly, people were not interested, seeing as how the tapes are worthless except for the "cool factor." He had a lot of rock stuff too. Of the film music, the tapes are basically dub-downs of little importance except for the Star Wars 2" 16-track masters which contain the edited "selects" Williams and Ken Wannberg chose—I remember when they did the Star Wars Special Edition CDs, they had the 16-track masters, but all of these master takes from the original album had been snipped out! So that's where they went, making those 16-tracks are highly important. Now, the good news: at that Star Wars con was Matthew Wood, a sound editor for Lucasfilm (voice of General Grievous, I think?) and he and I were like, WTF?! I am quite sure he subsequently coordinated to have the 16-tracks digitized at Lucasfilm (in exchange for a tour or something for Melson)...whatever. I think it's all OK, so people should RELAX." (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=101432&archive=0)

They'll probably be using the best available 128kbps mp3 transfers.

Yes, the SEs are out of any comparison regarding sound quality. A great example of how the Tomlinson original mixes are superior to the Neal remixes is the 93 Anthology. Of course, as that release was done in a "hurry" and with early 1990's technology to handle mostly deteriorationg tapes (specially from ESB), it may trick you to think they don't sound so good. Nevertheless, SW and ESB from that set sounds superior to the lifeless album mixes. Famoused engineer Steve Hoffman, whose 1995 CD of Raiders of the Lost Ark (which was also recorded and mixed by Tomlinson) is still reference quality, also "hates" how the 77 SW album sounds.
 
Regarding the sources used (film mixes), IMHO you can rest easy they'll sound superior to the album mixes. Now, as to how will they sound regarding the condition of the tapes, no one can tell for sure. Unfortunatelly, the original trilogy music elements are not famous for being well stored and preserved over the years.

The finished version opens with take 19. And only the first 8 seconds of it was used. All the rest of the finished version are from takes 18 and 20.
 
Now, if you listen to those same 8 seconds from the other takes (16, 17, 18 and 20), they're completely different. And for all the opening themes of the other Star Wars films, John Williams followed what was recorded on those inital 8 seconds of take 19.
 
I guess we can call it "Take 19: the 8 seconds that changed film history".

@JTWfan77, you shouldn't delete/modify your posts just because a particular user snapped for no reason. I mean, really! If harmless discussions about CD cover arts are enough to cause a person to break like this, I guess this person should be looking for help immediatly.