hairy_hen said:

So I checked the audio again, and I think I can safely promise there are no errors, at least none that are of my doing. The source tracks do slightly distort occasionally, but that's part of the recordings themselves—some of these same problems can also be heard in the SE. I'm simply not hearing any other problems, so I have to assume they are either nonexistent or are related to playback equipment and/or room acoustics, and not the audio itself.

I should also point out—and please treat this information seriously—that the 5.1 mix was designed for high performance sound systems and may not give ideal results on equipment that cannot cope with wide dynamic range material and high levels of bass. It will also not sound its best if downmixed to stereo. Obviously I have no control over how people listen to it, so it was necessary to do a bit of tweaking to the surround channels in order to make stereo playback at least sound acceptable (it would have been quite horrible if I hadn't done this, due to excessive comb filtering from out of phase signals). But since the 35mm stereo mix is itself very good, I must recommend that anyone watching the movie with a 2-channel sound system choose that version instead, rather than downmixing the 5.1 mix. Content-wise they are identical, and the greater midrange emphasis of its EQ makes it more suitable for the kinds of sound systems people are likely to have.

Thanks, hairy_hen. I've recently acquired a 5.1 system and bought a new soundcard to go with it (both second hand from a friend who's quite the audiophile - he was just updating his system) and from what I can tell (we all know how much of a layman I am when it comes to audio) the 5.1 mix sounds wonderful. :-) I'm gonna have to re-watch Star Wars with the 5.1 mix one of these days.