Just picked up a very clean LOTR last week, really enjoying it so far. Couple questions for you guys:

1. LED OCD, any reason to get a GI board? I haven't noticed any GI dimming effects but want to confirm I can skip it.
2. Playfield figures, I'd really like to remove these if possible... My machine has a couple additions (Boromir + Gimli glued on top of the pop flashers) which will require some new plastics I'm thinking. Any documentation on the best way to remove all figures from the game, is ordering LE-style plastics necessary or anything? I'll obviously be holding onto them for any future owner but I'm just not a fan, after seeing how clean the LE playfields look I'd rather go that direction.
3. Audio quality, any way to clean it up short of a Pinsound?

Thanks for any help!

Which Flipper Fidelity kit did you do, just the backbox speakers or a sub too (8" or 10")? And was it fairly straight forward to install?

And the LED's aren't horrible by any means, just some noticeable ghosting and the flickering during dimming bugs me, more during attract mode than anything else. Just something I'd like to do down the line.

Thanks for all the info, I appreciate it (along with the other guys that responded). I'm wondering if other LED's handle the stock lighting better cause yeah, pretty evident my game would benefit from an OCD. And for speakers I'm leaning towards doing flipper fidelity's 8", with backbox speakers just cause they're not much money and I'm curious. Pinwoofer kit looks legit but not sure I can justify the money. My game has a shaker installed already, pretty slick.

Interesting to hear that feedback on the Pinsound board, hadn't considered the mixed quality and how that'd work out.

Who wants to guess why my flipper quit working in the middle of an awesome game??? Jokes aside, had this thing for a month, have put as many plays on it in that time as I think you physically could, and other than this solder-job coming undone haven't had a single problem (nice change from my Hobbit). Absolutely love the game and not even close to getting sick of it yet. ColorDMD looks killer set to tiles too.

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My ring (center shot) is occasionally registering false hits, I'll start a game and immediately get Frodo + start a mode before plunging the ball. Oddly it seems to only happen at the beginning of games, but I still suspect ring optos need to be replaced.

Is my assumption (bad optos) correct, and if so what should I grab to replace them? Tried searching but got conflicting answers, it looks like what people recommended a few years ago can't be found anymore. Still new to pinball and figuring stuff out, thanks for any help.

Thanks! Explains why I was confused, I was only seeing one new part number and thought I needed two.

My game does have a shaker, yes. I'll try cleaning it before throwing a new one in, thanks for the suggestion.

I think you're right on! I've had a couple minor issues with the Balrog but didn't think about them being related. I'll open up the game after work today and take a look, hopefully it's not a horrible project to get the Balrog out of there and check the switch out. Thanks for the help.

Dumb question (but I got helpful advice in here on my last dumb one so I'm asking again):

My game completely quit registering Ring hits last night, I would shoot the ring (with 'start mode' lit) and the ring would grab the ball as usual, and then just drop the ball out the front (and not start a mode or pull the ball through the back). Am I right to assume an opto is to blame? I can run through tests this evening hopefully, just figured I'd ask before I go down the wrong path like last time.

Thanks for any help.

I think it's gotta be an opto issue, I'd start with cleaning them and reseating all the connections, checking alignment. After ruling the easy stuff out order up some replacements, shouldn't cost much and not bad to get to them. I believe the part numbers have changed recently so I'm not confident on what you'll need (hopefully someone else chimes in).

killerrobots nailed it. No need for a full rebuild, new coil stops will get them quieter... but even with freshies in they're still fairly loud on (or at least that's been my experience).