Vertigo (1958)

I maintain that the 5.1 mixes, with or without the modern Foley effects, sound poor due to aggressive noise reduction. ...So this is a run-down of the original mono mix only.

1984 MCA LaserDisc: Not too bad for an analogue track from the early '80s, but it lacks the detail of the later releases.

1990 Universal LaserDisc: This Japanese LaserDisc possesses a digital track of what is probably the ~1984 transfer. It actually sounds quite good -- an appreciable upgrade over the 1984 LD in every way.

2005 Universal DVD: I've been told that this is the only DVD with the theatrical mono mix, as everything else uses a fold of the 5.1. This is the best sounding version of the film, coming from a source that's at least a generation lower than the 1984/1990 tracks. Robert Harris contends that the magnetic mono elements were destroyed in the '60s, which explains the amount of noise here. But what's here manages to sound very good beneath the noise because of the lack of hiss reduction.

2012 Universal Blu-ray: The opening segment (until the first instance of dialogue at 00:04:30) has been spliced in from another source that sounds better than the rest of the film. Unlike some releases of North by Northwest, I believe what's been pasted here is the mono score as mixed in 1958 rather than a modern remix -- I can't detect any mixing differences. I'm not sure how necessary this was, since it doesn't mesh too well with what comes later, but it's not really a major problem. The rest of the film sounds good for a modern blu-ray track for an older film (it certainly sounds miles better than the 5.1!), but it does have more hiss reduction than the DVD track and so sounds more veiled. There's a slight compensatory treble boost as well. Some but not all of the dropouts have been fixed.

2021 Universal UHD Blu-ray: Identical to the 2012 blu-ray.