help with thunderchief, please!

[erick4x4]

Please help!!

My thunderchief when plugged it just has hiss. However the hiss is increased when I turn the gain knob, and the volume of the hiss is increased with the volume knob, so that seems like a good thing.

The Drain is near 4volts for each. But the sources of q1,q2,q4 are high near 180mv. The source of Q3 (or Q2 not sure which order they are in) is like 2.5v and the Gate is 1.5v.  That seems really wrong.  I have checked and double checked off board wiring.  I have checked all solder connections. Where do I start, bad components, wrong component somewhere? I am lost now. I am 99% sure the J201's are in the right order, ideas?

Help!

[alteredsounds]

Hey! Did you try following your signal with an audioprobe?

[erick4x4]

Ok so I probed it and found a very subtle cold solder joint and that fixed it though it was super splatty until bias!!

Ok so 2 questions.  First I got every Gate to 4.5v, but like many people q3 has really high source and drain (2.2v, 1.5v respectively). The other drains and source are good.

So after biasing, its sounding pretty good.  What am I missing with Q3 messed up? Is fixing that going to make it sound better, it doesn't have the misbiased sound right now?

2nd question, I really want to try the 220uf switch for the .68uf. Is that a "magic" value? I don't have any 220uf, but do have so 100uf laying around, would that achieve the same purpose, just not quite as much?

Thanks!