Glen, I had to chuckle at your eyesight comment. I am well past you in years, and have been using a large magnifying light for close work for a long time. It makes it easy to see how crappy those solder joints are that looked ok to the naked eye, LOL.
I’ve been studying the various comments for when my kit arrives in a few days. Thanks for the thoroughness of the answers, and kudos to the SUPERB job on writing up the assembly instructions for the mic and preamp. You are setting your purchasers up for success when you provide that kind of support. I’ll let you know how things go with the tap dance setup.