More power out of a Little Gem

[Willthebold]

Hey guys, I know there is a schematic for a dual Little Gem with two LM386's, but would it work if you just built two of the regular Little Gems and put their outputs together?  This may be complete nonsense, but I was trying to think of a way to make it louder with the circuit I've already built.  Thanks in advance.

Will

[Willthebold]

Anyone?

[Ansil]

:shock: my suggestion is yes it will work but remember the reason to use the second 386 is for the negative swing of the output, so you would need to use the opposite pin as input in relation to where you used on the first 386, i e if you use pin 3 as suggested for a noninverting signal, then you would need to use pin 2 on the second 386,  this will in retrospect do the same thing, also you mention tieing the outputs together i am assuming you mean the same way as the schematic of the little gem II to the speaker as if you are just putting them together it won't acomplish the same effect, actually it should cancel it out assuming you do the negative input. on one of them.

try the lm380 also it will do the same thing and if you want you can put a 386 infront of it to drive it, i like the lpb1 to drive two of the 386's into two of the 380's,  works nice driving a 10" speaker, darn loud too.

[Gary]

You also may want to add a buffer stage to the input, probably a simple jfet one with the usual 1M gate resistor.

The 386 has a very low input z, and running two in parallel should greatly reduce that.  This will take a lot of your highs away and make the amp sound "dull."

HTH

[RDV]

I also put a MUCH smaller input cap on mine(.0047uF) because I use mine clean to test my fuzzes. I added the input buffer also from the Grace Overdrive. I can supply a modded schem if anyone would like. Just email me & I'll send when I get home from work.

Regardamundo

RDV

[Willthebold]

Thanks for the responses guys.  Basically, I'm wanting to get a louder clean sound of the amp.  Maybe a little more volume overall, but specifically the clean.  Any suggestions?

[brett]

It's MUCH easier to get more volume by using a more efficient speaker than by increasing wattage.  Consiger a typical low-efficiency speaker that gives 90dB for 1 watt.  To get 100dB from this speaker you'd need 10 watts, or you could just choose a very high-efficiency speaker and stay at about 1 or 2 watts.  I use a little gem with a DAI-ICHI 94dB/W 15inch speaker and it works quite well in a small room (my other amp for the very same speaker is a 300W monster that blows the roof off!)