Thermionic distortion gain resistor? and my LED wont light on some of them

[rosssurf]

I am aware of the interior trimmer, and clipping from the diodes in the Thermionic distortion and have built several of them, as well as the Dirty Sanchez and the Brown Betty.

Questions:
1) One of my Thermionics has considerably more gain that the others the only thing I can see that is different is that the higher gain one has 1N4148's and the others have 5817's . My understanding is that the 1N4148's would clip at a higher voltage making them produce less distortion than the 5817's. Or do I have this backwards?
2) Two others work as they should, (although producing lower gain than the one mentioned above) but I can not get varius LED's to work in them. I have tried different led's as well as changing the orientation. The LED's also work when i touch then to a 9v batter with a resistor in series. Was there any issue with some of these PCB's as it relates to the LED's

 

[Robert]

Higher clipping threshold would give less distortion but higher amplitude output.

There haven't been any LED issues with the Thermionic PCBs.

 

[rosssurf]

Higher clipping threshold would give less distortion but higher amplitude output.

There haven't been any LED issues with the Thermionic PCBs.

So, the one with the 1N4148's should have a higher clipping threshold and distort LESS that the ones with the 5817's. Yet is has more distortion. Might there be some resistor that has a different value than the other units that is causing this one particular pedal to have more gain?