In lesser company I might have argued that there was nothing wrong with my soldering, since I'd used Flux on every joint, perfected my technique...but there it was Q6 and its three pins, two attached to the board and one, like the Wright brothers, had lifted off the board. OR, I just soldered it to mid-air...
Soldered it correctly and sheepishly considered all the other joints in the area, and they are looked good.
Pulled out the DMM... and got near perfect results for the voltage test. Adjusted the P2 and got 3.000v after a good few turns with the blue tool JPK sent me.
Plugged in the Mic's and SOUND!Glorious SOUND!
Did all the other checks and all seems delightfully positive!
Thanks JPK
Appreciate the guidance - as always, you were spot on with where to look! I think it took me all of 30 seconds to see the problem once I knew where to look!