say i had a pcb , like a junker amp that was taken out of a toy or something , is there a "better" or higher output chip that is easy to find that i could swap for the 386 ?
it seems to me you can not get a good clean tone with those chips , also more power is good .
sorry for such a noobish question , thanks !!
You can get more power (and with that clean headroom as well...though not really at any useable volume) with two LM386s
I was recently scavenging junk electrical components from stuff in my garage and found that some old soundcards (old old, ISA format, not even PCI) had a little amplifier IC thats supposedly gives 2watts
The chips TDA2003 and TDA2005 can put around 10 watts into a speaker and are used in a couple of designs. Another ones is the LM383.
Though you won't be able to "swap" these for the LM386, even if the connections are relatively simliar, because of cooling requirements they don't come in 8 pin dual inline packages like the LM386.
TDA2030 , TDA2040 , TDA2050 . :icon_mrgreen:
i saw these at tayda but i dont know , it says 1 watt @ 32 ohms ?
anyone familiar with these ?
Which 386 are you using? Have you tried an LM386N-3 or N-4?
i would have to look atthe circuits but i can bet they are not the higher power ones .
really i am interested inthe simplest swap out method as opposed to a complicated mod , but not sure if that is possible .
i know this one dude , john wilson does it , he hates lm386 chips , i will email him and share the results .
Timely topic. I just experimented with a dual 386 circuit. I actually had dual 386-4 with 9 volts. That just did not sound so great. Dual 386-1 is fine. But to go from a 386-1 to a 386-4 you have to question perceived volume. It's really not much louder and thereby I doubt much more headroom. That said I do have 386-4 chips I could part with. PM me. Heck I even had several dual 386 circuits available.
john mentioned piggy backin 2 386's !
one thing i think would be neato would be to figure out a poor mans bd meter , something with a condenser mic , going to a pc with some software with a massive vu meter on it .
i mean it wouldnt be totally accurate , but it could do a decent "pepsi challenge" in a pinch .
like you said its tough to percieve small "db's" , i need to find some SW with a massive vu meter . i think i may try this with cep , or something , just for kicks . i have 6 mini amps i built , i want to start seeing where they rate , compare them to the stuff i will be building .
i got a 30 watt pyle mini amp , automotive thing today for 18 bucks . ran it on 2 tens with a zoom bass processor , i was plesently surprised , not that it would keep up with a drummer , but for jam sessions at the woods / basement stuff / practice , it sounded superb . i got some sla's and deep cells too , plus the speakers where free , so ... it cant compete with my 300 watt combo though , but that wont run off battries . :)
i made this for a friend....very clean....you could try a lm386n-4 in it...simple easy build...i made it as a pedal version. just to boost his acoustic..
put a cut between pins 1-8... ;)
http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/chickpea/clean+amp2.gif.html