I just finished the lil gem tonight... Whoa... I hooked up a headphone jack in a small enclosure, volume, gain and headphone jack up front, input in the rear and man, I must say it rages as a headphone amp. I'm going to tweak it a bit, but many thanks for the circuit from Runoffgrove, it was super simple and the results were well worth the few hours it took to build. I'll probably look at doing the ruby mod's after a bit, but want to play with a few idea's first. Who would have thunk it, the 386 is a cool device, I'm sure thats not news, but to a beginner its darn neat. Anyway, was sitting here playing and thought I'd post as I'm pretty stoked with it, beginners, give it a try. I rate it a 1-1.5 soldering iron job.

Regards,

Lone

Yeah, I built one a few days ago. I like it. I'm going to make a small cabinet for it's 5" speaker this weekend. I hope that will give it more tone. Make it look like a small practice amp that I can use upstairs!

The LM386 is a nice little chip isn't it?

this sounds cool, so could you bring me up to the present and show me the way to the schematic? Thanx

the link is...
little jem
ruby
enjoy

I've built  both the little gem and the ruby. I prefer Fender type sounds so I vastly prefer the Ruby, but the Little Gem is still way cool. I did the bassman mods on the Ruby and am running it through a Jensen C8R 8" speaker. I built the amp for $5, got the speaker for $20, and got a car audio speaker enclosure from wallmart for $20. $45 for the best sounding ss practice amp I've owned.

I like the little gem a lot, it's fun to build, easy and sounds good. I haven't tried the ruby yet.

I hate to sound ignorant.....but am still a newbie to this stompboxing hobby. Anyway...I saw the perfboard layout for the Little Gem..but it doesn't show exactly how to wire the output speaker or pots. I'm not confident yet in my schematic reading skills...but I guess you have to go thru and get your parts list from that also.

Are there any build notes on this or are you just on your own?

Thanks!!

Use the forum's search tool. You will find everything you need to know. It is an awesome resource that goes unused too frequently.