I think that this might be just the place topost an observation. I too, had a problem with my Q. It sounded overdriven and I queried the sages here about the probablilities(yah it's a word in MY world). I was told to check voltages and resistances. Dam, they all checked out. Shortinging (yes, another word in my head) the story a bit, here is the truth. With the Quickie, I was feeding Carver C9 unit, and in turn, the C9 fed my amp. Many years ago, this may have worked, but the Carver unit has an input that clips after about 1.4 Volts. The Q puts out up to 3.5 volts. See folks, back in the day that the Carver unit was made, output voltages from units like say tape decks were 1 volt, and everybody was happy. Now days, a CD player puts out more like 2 volts and thats a game changer. Mixing components, like alcohol, can end up in tears, a lesson that has to be learned and re-learned. Of course my point here is that remember how the Q is being used, IN CONTEXT. Ok, with that, I'm off to see my team of therapists.