Alien Soundtrack Disappoints
Dear Gary: The package arrives, I can’t wait, I crack it open, pull out Alien, drop it in the Toshiba 2109, starts right up, the menu’s are cool though only Dolby ProLogic®...quick glance at all the features...A+, select 5.1 audio, select play, the THX® chord trailer comes on, my Meridian 565 auto selects Dolby® Digital with my custom setting: THX, 7-channel, compression off, dialog norm off (mixer), the movie starts, very nice video, no sound (so low I can’t hear it), a quick look at my 565 display shows a mixer reference of only 65dB, it should be 85dB, that’s what every other DVD is. Now I start play’n with the audio tracks on the disc, there are 6 of them: track 1 Dolby Digital 2-channel Dolby ProLogic, has very low levels also, so I pump up the volume, select 2 Dolby Digital 5.1, low levels also, I try 3 and bam, a quick rush to turn down the volume, wow this track sounds great even if it is Dolby ProLogic; great surround presence, it makes 1 & 2 sound as if they are missing music and background sounds. A quick try of tracks 4, 5, and 6 whose levels are much higher than 1 & 2...Now I’m “p’d off,” I can’t understand French to use track 3, I can’t listen to tracks 1 & 2 knowing that they are missing so much info compared to #3...How can this happen, that the French audio track is better than both English tracks... is this THX quality control at its best...? I hope they recall this disc and correct this audio problem. By the way, even though the other 3 discs sound better than Alien, the mix levels on these are also set to 65dB and not the standard 85dB.
Mike Masciotti
michael.j.masciotti@bellatlantic.com
Editor Gary Reber Comments:
Wow! I need an aspirin to calm down. But I agree with your assessment of the poor audio performance of the Alien soundtrack (see review this issue), which apparently is sourced from the original six-track 70mm theatrical printmaster, not the newly remastered discrete soundtrack with split surround and .1 LFE which was coded in Dolby Digital and released as the soundtrack on the previous Alien Laser Disc reviewed in Issue 18.
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