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The Aikido circuit has a *lot* of gain. I find that left and right volume pots linked to a master help fine-tune the gain to match your amp. The Williamsons like a lot of gain so the Aikido works very well for me. I use two Gold Points for the "balance" and a ladder Khozmo for the master. Just something to consider down the line, you might want to leave room for the extra left & right pots.
Although I don't need "lot" of gain, its not a deal breaker. My criteria for the preamp is low distortion, low noise and lots of micro details. That is why I was looking for zero-feedback designs. Aikido seems to fit that bill along with low-mu preamps which David suggested.
I understand the left and right channels might not be balanced. I am using a 5-way active system. In two amps, there is a difference of about 1-1.5dB between the L and R channels.
After the preamp project is done, I am going to start building monoblock amps starting with EL84 based SETs for the top two channels. One from 1400Hz to 8000Hz and other > 8000Hz. Planning on housing both amps in a single chassis powered by a single power transformer. 1st order crossovers will be part of the amps circuit. Planning on implementing an lpad also in the circuit for balance adjustment.