Paul Birkeland said:The left RCA jack ground lug and the chassis earth lug by the power entry module do not look adequately soldered, just as an example.
reflowed those 2 connections. pics attached. didn't change anything. then tried to go over a bunch of joints and reflow them and now i actually think it sounds worse. so it probably is something to do with a soldering joint but short of redoing the entire thing, not sure how i can isolate it.