I went down the Fuzz rabbit hole a few months ago…
My 1971 Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face (with TFK BC108C Resistors) is my favourite fuzz pedal by far (for my ears of course… and eyes haha). The way it cleans up when you roll back the volume on your guitar (especially single coils), is EXACTLY what I was chasing tone-wise. 3-volume on your guitar, you have crystal clear cleans. At 5, a little dirt if you dig in. At 7-8, over drive. 9+, soaring Fuzz baby…
At around 60%-75% of the way up the “Fuzz” dial on the pedal itself, you have the gain of most Germanium ones I’ve tried so far (Analogman white/red dot, vintage germanium FF’s, GHS legends of fuzz). If you want overkill fuzz, it does that too but it is not muddy. BC183 transistors (ie Eric Johnson) are cool but too scooped/dark to my ears compared to BC108C, though they too give you a lot of gain.
I’ve had a chance to try a bunch of vintage Big Muffs / new takes on them but they’re not my thing, too dark/too much gain for my music taste.
Tone Bender-type (3 transistor) fuzzes are cool (I have the GHS LoF Bender but never use it now that I have my holy grail Fuzz Face), but I don’t like that they don’t clean up as well as the simple 2-transistor Fuzz Faces do.