I think that it did. I had some unexpected improvements. after I shifted and desoldered/resoldered those wires, the ground noise moved from the right channel, to equally in both. But I thought that overall noise was less as well. I would not have thought just routing wires differently would do much. It may have been the resolder as well, but whatever. After I removed the resistors, the ground noise doesn't really become detectable until the volume is Really high. so I'm just left with the hiss right now. I would like to eliminate the ground type noise completely, but thats just my OCD. I know its there, even though it doesn't effect general listening.
The hiss I can deal with if thats just a tube thing. have to fine one though that doesn't sound like there is a fly trapped in the right ear cup, and sitting next to a guitar amp that is feeding back. lol.
Would it be better for me to use the speedball wire that I originally asked about in this thread? I can't imagine the radio shack wire being good, but maybe in doesn't matter in its placement. referring to the page 19 correction.
"Page 19 - you could change 2" wire from power trans terminal 4 to 22L at the bottom of the page to 3" and connect it to terminal 14U rather than 22L. It will work either way, but this may give a slightly lower noise floor. (This is mostly correct after 4/26 but manuals labeled 4/26/10 say mistakenly 15U rather than 14U)"