well, ive blown it up!
i replaced the preamp with a bipolar version of the same pre.
and it sounded unreal! soooo clean and loud.
nothing was gotting hot no problems what so ever.
then i went to plug in a fuzz box and before i could even play the sound stopped and all i got was a low frequency oscillation.
i disconected the pre and it coninued to oscillate.
im pretty bummed out 
any ideas what as to what i could have fried?

no pics yet, but i built my first "big" ss amp yesterday and im pretty psyched with the results!

i used a descrete power amp kit from here: http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/FK660

and the opamp pre mentioned in the preamp section of these here fine forums (allthough a may make a descrete pre as well)

the power amp kit seems to work well, and comes with a heat sink too!
it also has 15v +/- taps so a second transformer can be avoided.
cheap kit to boot!
ill post pics soon!

well said!

i buffer wouldnt add any gain, just raise the input impedance, and make it a lot more pedal friendly (among other things).

if you use the 386 as a pre you might want to add a buffer as well,
i input inpedance is fairly low if i recall correctly.

here is a fuzz i came up with that uses crossover distortion if you'd like to here what it sounds like at extremes!

how would this preamp perform on a 12v unregulated supply?