You might want to consider replacing that photentiometer with a better one, if it's possible. Go over to the DIYAudio forum and do a search on "lightspeed attenuator". Besides being a stand alone attenuator with single input/output. Some DIYers have used this type of LDR attenuator in place of the inferior one that was in their preamp. If anything I'm sure George Stantschleff the Lightspeed designer will be able to verify if the swap is possible and maybe give you some pointers on how it can be accomplished.
