[Kevin Kuehn]

I think you'll find increasing the cathode resister will reduce gain even more, but there is a limit unless you reduce the plate resistor to keep the overall impedance. With the plate and cathode resistor equal you basically have equal and out of phase signals from the plate and cathode respectively(as in a phase splitter), but with about zero gain. I've always disliked grid leak bias on the first audio in a radio for this same reason. Besides being buzzy they distort easily.