Nik - don't scare me! the board definitely acidentally flexed while installing...
biff - positive the grounding was fine; could've been static electricity and was going to replace the op-amps tonight...
However, it helps when you are processing an audio signal that its volume is high enough to be detected by the circuit as designed... My bad - I found out that my media player had its volume setting turned way down. Basically, I paniced because I felt that I didntt have the tools nor experience to debug the problem. Thanks all for your suggestions!