LOTR is definitely my reference piece for my system. It's extremely demanding on a sound system, and is excellent at revealing flaws.

As someone pointed out, the dialog is tough because of all the bass contained therein. In fact, having bought this disc and being unsatisfied with the dialog intelligibility, I re-equalized my entire system to address just that problem (what a pain!) and afterwards, it sounded great.

If you're having trouble making out the dialog, you may want to consider altering your crossovers or repositioning any subwoofer(s) you may have. Many of the characters, Gandalf in particular, tend to have a lot of material in the 80hz range, which is bang-zip middle of where the THX standard for a crossover is.

I keep meaning to re-watch this disc with my new DVD player and my new Model 770 amp. If I do, I'll post my impressions.

Jeff