I was working very late and was tired, I didn't notice that the markings on the PCB are not 123, they are something like 312 or something so I had wires swapped around. I later found that the grounds are VERY important and need to be wired very carefully. The HAX input ground is not connected to the other grounds on the pcb! I needed to ground it to the case to get the distortion to go away. I rewired all the other grounds together with heavy wire and much of the sizzle and hum went away.
While using a 600:10k on the input from true line level I find that the unit's input level is much too low. from a hot preamp this would be just fine but from a line source, it's very low and barely compresses at all. This is why I thought it wasn't compressing. once I opened the t4 I could see the panel lighting faintly. I could turn up the source to just about clipping and the panel only gets slightly brighter. I think the input really needs the 600:60k for line levels