Why new voices?

[Senzu_Bean]

I might not understand a thing about anime and how these things are handle but why does Kai has to make actors to do the voices again for the characters? Seriously, they didn't even change the dialogue when they should thus is exactly the same as in DBZ. It just doesn't sound right.

[VegettoEX]

There are a variety of reasons why voices were re-recorded for Kai (I think that's what you're asking about, rather than why certain characters had their voice actors switched around -- which we know can be due to not being able to afford them, or their prior actor passing away).

For the original Japanese version of the franchise, it was mainly for two reasons:

(1) The old audio masters likely do not have entirely separate tracks for voices, sound effects, and music. There may be a music track (particularly for the movies), but to expect perfectly-isolated tracks for each type of audio for the entire 291 episode series from twenty years ago is unrealistic.

(2) The audio was previously recorded almost entirely in mono (single-channel) sound, and the masters available are not up to the "quality" standards of today's audio/fidelity/presentation.

In a nutshell, if they couldn't isolate the voices for every single episode, and if they needed "better-sounding" audio anyway (to do a modern, stereo track), and if they were going to be chopping up the episodes (therefore meaning they might not be able to perfectly chop up the audio that existed without having awkward cuts)... why not just re-record it from scratch? It's a great bullet-point to toss onto the marketing materials.

For FUNimation's English dub in particular, it was a chance for them to focus their efforts and treat the series properly blah blah blah blah no-one cares about hearing about this anymore. For other dubs, it's basically the same reasons as the original Japanese version.

[Senzu_Bean]

Thank you very much for your reply, VegettoEX.

[Tsukento]

On top of the whole mono-quality, there's also the matter of voice actors that passed away before and during Kai's run, thus requiring new voices for them.

[Gaffer Tape]

On top of the whole mono-quality, there's also the matter of voice actors that passed away before and during Kai's run, thus requiring new voices for them.

Well, I think part of his point was that if they had just used the original audio, deceased actors wouldn't have been an issue.

But, yeah, I'm not sure how their contracts work, but it was probable that they might have had to renegotiate anyway in order to re-use the audio for a new show. So, as has been said, they might as well just re-record, as it's good for promotion. I know I always get a hoot at hearing the latest wacky seiyuu stories.

[JulieYBM]

Re-using the old audio would also mean inconsistent voices for the future games, movies, specials, and stuff.