Peter's technique reduces the adverse influence of the pot on the sonics, and thus is a great mod for any preamp with excessive gain.
The Foreplay uses a 12AU7 at very low current with a 120K plate resistor to give very high gain, approaching the mu of the tube. This circuit supplies a gain of around 15, then follows it with a cathode follower as a buffer, giving around 23dB, way too much gain in most situations with sensitive hifi amplifiers. It is preferable to scale this down with padder resistors at the input rather than alter the gain of the AKSA, which can be done, but which has repercussions down the line for damping factor and amp sonics.
Cheers,
Hugh