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Ghost in the Shell 25th Anniversary Ed. Audio issues

there is a fairly noticeable mistake with the 5.1 mix on here....i have noticed a lot of sounds are missing...the most noticeable example is when Bato shoots the water melon..the final exploding melon is silent..switch back to stereo Japanese language and the sound magically repairs..i have tried this on both my blu ray players region one and two also on ps3 and ps4...you will also notice seconds later the sound from guy thats knocked from his boat into the water also is missing any splash sound..

I noticed a few other strange audio anomalies. When Togusa and the Major are speaking in the van on the way to pick up the garbage truck hackers, at one point the Major is speaking and camera is on Togusa, yet her dialogue is practically inaudible. It seems like normally the dialogue would be pushed to the rears in that shot but it's barely in any channel at all.

So it's essentially just a re-release with different cover art, less/no extras, and worse sound? That's pretty lame.

Also, is it the original or the 2.0 version (or did they at least include BOTH versions in this release)?

I've noticed on a LOT of newer blu ray releases (not so much on newer DVDs) that off-screen dialogue and action tends to be MUCH lower in volume through standard TV speakers than in the past. Even with a soundbar or theater system, it's still a touch more muffled than on older DVDs/blu rays; where the volume is virtually equal for all dialogue and action through any audio format (unless there's foreground dialogue happening over background action, in which case, the audio is leveled appropriately). I have no idea why it's suddenly happening - especially on releases which tout premium/upgraded sound options.

Is it more 'realistic' sounding? Perhaps. But it's way more of a distraction/annoyance than it is the immersive experience whoever is responsible for it thinks it is.

I decided to check it out, and yes, the English audio track is basically trash. I did A-B comps between the old Manga DVD and there's no comparison; the BD is missing A LOT of sfx. For example, at 20m:26s, "Oh Shit!" is heard loud and clear on the DVD, but on the BD, it's completely missing. The sfx in general are attenuated to the point you can barely hear them, as exampled in this same scene with the tractor pulling the watermelons. The tractor is barely audible, but on the DVD you can actually hear it. The examples in the bluray.com forum are also spot on- Gone is the splash when the guy falls into the water, and no third watermelon explosion sfx either.