Its a strange thing indeed. it seems to be side 3 that suffers the most. some scenes are fine while others suffer highly. I may see if i can fix this issue, or at least make it less noticeable or if that doesn't work i may just stick it on the DVd for preservation sake. the laserdisc mix is slightly better than the DVD but the dampening problems just stick out like a sore thumb to my ears.

EDIT: just done a short rerecord of the laserdisc 5.1 but this time i recorded it with the soundblaster X-FI crystalizer enabled and this seems to have cured a lot of the problems and also made the whole mix amazingly better. I think i may well go with the laserdisc audio for this project now if all goes well with the whole recording