problem solved.
turns out that it was my own fault. During the build up I asked many questions about how to hook these units up as UN-balanced units. A number of people answered to leave the inverted inputs unconnected(floating). Without testing, I did just that.
Since then, I have studied op-amps and their designs and learned that most op-amps need the unused inputs grounded. I thought about what my problems were.. signal 12db lower than it should have been, having to turn the output to max, having to turn the threshold down really far.. seemed like the input signal was weak. measured the insert sends, they ARE +4, or whatever I set the channel as apparently. the only thing it could be was the input section of the GSSL.
I shunted the inverted inputs to ground.
signal level became normal, makeup is usable at unity now, and best of all, the noise floor is where it seems right, -80db.
so the unit was not noisy, I just had to turn the sucker up too much to get audio and that also amplified the floating input and the noise floor.
cheers!