Will automotive aftermarket speakers work well with the little battery powered amp circuits? I see them all the time at thrift shops for cheap, but the usually have really high wattage ratings. Will a 1/2 watt 9V chip amp do much with them?
I"ve heard that these small amp circuits will run large speakers, but it seems to be my experience that the larger and " better" the speaker is the quieter the amp is.
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Wow, thanks for all the helpful info! Some smart folks hang out in here!
http://http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/dual-chip-amp-bridged-re...
It's my design that I came up with a few years ago and have tweaked a few times. This is the last version.
Bad URL... Fixed . . .
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/dual-chip-amp-bridged-revised-001
Most interesting...
Sorry about the link, don't know how that happened.
It sounds like a Ruby til the second Gain turns up, then it can get quite dirty.
The Ruby Amp and Noisy Cricket Amp uses a 1k pot for gain pins 1&8,100nf on pin 7 and they use a 220uf on the output to speaker pin 5 like above.
My dual chip amp build, I used 2k pots, 100nf pin7 for both chips, but when it came to the output caps from both chips I had to use 10uf or the treble was too great for the speaker I chose. The speaker was a WGS Veteran 10" 20watt 8ohm. So the way your speaker is voiced will also have a influence on output cap values or you'll have to go through several speakers to find the one that works with the 220uf cap. Also my problem could've been because my amp design was 2 chips bridged that added a capped output to the negative side of the speaker.
Point is, you may need to try a couple different value caps to get the results you want. If you burn out something, you haven't lost much on these amps which makes them a great learning platform.
I have found that the fret based preamp circuit helps a piezo on these a lot... http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/
Or you can buy an acoustic preamp and mount it to the box...
If you use a 1K pot between pins 1 and 8 instead of the cap, you can vary the gain...
Every LM386 circuit I have seen also calls for a cap on the input... prevents feedback loops or something...
Nice schematic Buggy. Seen this one before. The one I've made for years uses a 0.1uF bypass cap from pin 7 to ground, and omits the 0.047uF cap & 10 ohm resistor on the pin 5 to ground.
A battery LM386 circuit will actually run a 4x12 on a battery but probably not for very long...but it does works (check those cigaraette packet amps)
kinda defies logic.... most amp circuits have a limited output but dont forget if you wire speakers in parallel it halves their resistance... ie 2x16 ohm becomes 8 ohms, or 2 x 8 ohms becomes 4 ohms and then blows up ya amp as kit was designer for 8 ohms minimum ! a big magnet is always a good thing for sound.
If a speaker is lets says rated 15 watts to 100 watts a 50 watts amp is probably ok. Generally, more amp than is needed. What you want is an amp that has good peak power(also called dynamic headroom). Most of the time the amp isn't putting out a lot of power but certain peaks can hit 200 watts or a lot more depending. It depends on what you are listening to, what volume and etc.
But the frequency response is key 20hz-20,000hz is about right, the lower the more bass.
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