Just to chime in, I recently finished a CW muff but used 470pf instead of 430pf (because I had them). I used 1n4148's for the diodes.
I tested it with 2n5088's, BC549C's, and tried MPSA13's and 18's in Q1 and Q4. All BC549's won hands down. There were no total night and day differences, none...