I gave this some serious thought this, morning when notching bluray ALIEN box-set going for £10.00 but that wasn’t before almost buying each for £7.00 then passed and then saw a box-set and thought, sod it worst that can be is the original 70mm Dolby Stereo mix being botched up on ALIEN (1979).

Well I’m happy to say its identical to the 20th Anniversary region1 DVD and not that rubbish quad box ALIEN that has the wrong Fox intro opening. For the Dolby mix some, idiot took the centre phantom from left/right and mixed it onto the centre disc rte, sigh, which masked all the soft centre Foley effects dialogue and occasional score that was mixed into the centre.

Wow this, one breaths louder and clearer. I’m still listening to the same mix having listened to 20th Anniversary some 100 times or more?

I’m not selling the region 1 DVD no way it has extras that are not included on the box set at least I don’t have the official box-set that would included bonus extras discs, F&Ck!!! Just listening to the ALIEN face huger give birth and that screechy sound its enough to give, anyone the frights!

Who ever designed the artwork on these bluray covers, needs his, head shoved inside an egg. Does anyone have theatrical artwork covers that I can replace with?

Okay extras time.

I also calibrated for X-curve yesterday going over LCR several times with TrueRTA. I wanted template layout to visually see were the frequencies are on the display, as when (pressing Go) the X-curve display goes out and I can’t keep track of were the frequencies should be or the levels.
I took some electrical tape placed it over the X-curve, (oh while stilling listening to ALIEN) at 00:41:14 that musical wining sound is on this version as its not on the 20th version and its only heard on the ALIEN laserdisc that I have CAV box-set. So its not quite the same as the 20th version but it still has the same discreetness as the 20th version.

Anyway where was I? Oh. yes I placed some tape on flat screen so I can see where the frequencies are of each LCRS sub bass extension and LFE.1. I had to put in ear-plugs as I was calibrating at 85db and its bit discomforting listening to wideband pink noise while adjusting the 1/3 octave EQ for minutes, over and over to double check.

After getting the LCR sorted and listening to THE THING (1982) R2 DVD, I can’t be asked with HD-DVD/bluray the surrounds should be monaural and its painful to listen to.

I performed an EQ for the surrounds yet again and I was still faced with a too bright top end around 4Khz to 20Khz. I managed to trim as much down with Dolby CP45 9 band EQ as that processor serves as EX decoder and more. I then thought what if I had a filter to trim the top end on the surrounds? Most cinema surrounds have HF boast or cut on/off switch. I figured if I placed a few layers of tissue paper and place on the inside of the grills that cover over the surrounds it might drop the HF down, which it did. It allowed me to then fit the frequency response within the X-curve within 95% if I had 1/3 EQ for all the surrounds I could do far better. I have 1/3 for the rear back but still have to use partly the EQ on the CP45 for centre back. A few middle range frequencies need minor trims or level boasting and cuts applied.

Also for LCR I have fitted in LP filter on the LF at 100Hz and HP filter for the HF horns at 8KHz which seems to work nicely. Dallas' soft dialouge on centre channel at chapter 19, time 01:11:48 "Okay, I'm moving on" with faint echo on the voice as that, iris vent hatch sound is fairly loud to mask the soft centre speech. Its funny how the dialouge is not subtitled?








I listened quickly to “ALIENS” I like the Dolby Stereo 5.1 isolated score and alternate score, that sounds like, my, ALIENS LP?

I’ll get around to ALIEN 3 later on for quick listen and ALIEN Resurrection

I like the button switching sound on right channel with a slight half pan to centre but with the delay on the HF set accordantly for my LCR it sounds clear from all seats at chapter 22, time 01:20:41. "Parker. Lambert"?




I'm now listening to ALIEN 3 (1992) nice Dolby film mix with occasional dialouge panning as are the sound effects that gives the film, a being there presence. Picture is still wonderful in scope 2.35:1.

"85" is a funny character, as is "Morse" who manages to survive the Alien, bloodbath

Audio commentary with cast and crew is the same as the ALIEN quad box-set.

The Ox scene in the deleted scenes is a little funny with conversation between the two inmates puzzled as to why it died so suddenly?

Isolated score by (Elliot Goldenthal) is cool in six-track Dolby Stereo on its own.