I'm new to this forum but i am a member of diystompboxes. In defence of elliot sound products I ave actually built several of his designs. The clean pre-amp in question here being the most recent. It does clean very well [yes I tried the clipping diodes but was not the sound I was looking for]  I am not fond of just sticking some diodes on to the end of a circuit especially after having built some of the fet emulation circuits at arons site. Anyway I had the pre-amp in a case when I came across the 6watt sstpa1517 design. This will finish my 6watt practise amp. I am putting an effects loop after the pre- and before the power amp. The other projects include some of those parametric eq designs. But alas so many circuits so little time.