The LM386. WOW, this brings back old memories. It reminds me of the LM393. I have been out of the electronics business for quite some time due to health reasons. But it reminds me of the time us techs used to build things such as our own Pay TV Decoders. They said that it was illegal, but that makes no sense since the pay TV video/audio RF signal was provided directly to us by the cable company, and provided for free. The only problem was that it was all messed up and needed a little bit of kind fixing that we each did out of the kindness of our hearts. My decoder cost me a total of about $5.00. That includes me having to make my own PCB. It contained just three I.C's and a few other components. One was a cheap 8 pin LM393 dual comparator, a 14 pin mc4066 quad transmission gate, and the other was an mc14538 dual timer. This board only pulled about 15 mA, and thus it could be placed either inside the TV itself, or inside a TV converter box and then it would use the conveters power supply. This baby decoded the video, via line by line decoding, rather than use the complex frame decoding method, that required phase locked loop circuitry, which requires lots of parts, and thus in turn would require an additional power supply. Ahhh, the good old days.

Thanks I really appreciate your walk through vid, really like how you say exactly what components you are using as you put them in place, not many people do that and it's frustrating when they don't. I'm brand new to electronics so so it's refreshing to be told what they are, where they go, and what there doing. Thanks again. Hope you make more walk through vids.

I assembled one circuit(LM386) successfully but your circuit ideas concerning LM386 showed how to improve on it.Thanks a lot.

you made it so simple to build , and i have been reading books but couldn't understand what to do, you are awesome..

Built this circuit with a 1 watt speaker and fitted it in a coffee tin! I didn't use the bass boost but it's still good for my wee workroom and will be used for testing low output audio circuits and for music on my ipod nano, phone etc. I fitted a pot in the gain circuit on the breadboard but used a 5k resistor in my final setup as that seemed about right. Thanks for your great little circuit. Another happy customer! A bigger amp is my next project methinks!

I'm just about to build a similar circuit and learning from you, thank you for the clear and well explained tutorial, you have a soothing voice :o)

hey man, nice guide! I was wondering, do you have a schematic of this circuit? Keep up the good work

Thanks a lot, I was looking for LM386 step by step, I wish I saw it 2 days back, waiting for weekend.

I went from this to having a dual LM386 driving to quite large 2 way Sony speakers such that its actually astonishingly loud. It took a while for my soldered board to be debugged but .. yeah. If you have adequate 9v power and efficient speakers. Then later I built a booster circuit with two transistors taking the out put of lm386 and amplifying that - it also sounds good. 1-2 watts of good clean sound can actually be enough to make something nice to listen to.

I believe you need to use a larger speaker so that the low (bass) frequencies can be heard better.

Nice vid! Do you have any suggestions/recommendations as i want to learn electronics with the goal of building guitar amplifier/effects pedal in mind, i know there are tons of info online but i dont have any idea where to start...thanks!

That's awesome! it works thank you..

One question, can i plug a guitar in this AMP to drive a 4 Ohm, 3 Watt Speaker?

you insired me to make circuts ur awesome

Thanks for the very detailed tutorial, Do you mind sending me any other files etc that you have on this project that isn't on the website

@Sachin Chowdhury You can use the LM741 as a substitute for the LM386, but it won't have the same power output (or pin out). The LM741 is an op amp and the LM386 is a dedicated audio amp. It's the right tool for the job.

Just what I needed. I think this would work quite nicely as a low-power pre-amp to shape the tone. Correct me if I'm wrong but making a treble boost would just be a matter of correcting the values of the filter for your desired cut off and inverting the positions of R and C so that it's R rather than C that is connected to ground. BTW, is there a dual input version of this so that it can manage stereo?

Pretty cool LM386 i made one and use mini transformer to remove noise

Teringat masa2 jadul dulu, salam sukses diy, very nice,

Amazing tutorial indeed!!! Also how big a speaker can I drive through this? I had a 10 W speaker with 8 ohms . How much can the LM386 drive?

Thanks for this video.I am new in this type of things but i like do projects like this.I wonder if i could instead of a speaker , mounting a jack output and make an amplifier to drive my headphones.I am looking for this information on youtube ,but nothing specific about the type of the amplifier i need.THNX...

I made this thing on a copper perf board, and ran it on a 5v supply from a mobile charger. When there's no audio signal, there's no static noise. But playing audio produces lots of noise. I don't currently have a 9v battery to test out. I'll test with a 1000uF cap on the power input to see if it's better! Do you have any suggestion?

I built this bro! Thank you! It works well! Lmao its really cool!

This was very helpful ..can this be used as an onboard preamp for acoustic guitar with coaxial element and possible to add MID TREBLE as well apart from bass boost gain and volume ..much appreciated

I got drunk a few days ago and somehow ordered 100 of those IC`s...well at least this is one of the more useful drunki purchases, i just wonder why i baught 100 of them....damn alcohol

I want to learn more about this especially the quality of sound and bass and how to get louder sound without that noise

Can you please tell me if i wanted to add multiple stages in the same circuit using BJT CB & CE configurations,how will i find my biasing measurements??

Thanks for this video, I am creating a small stereo speaker/headphone amp, and I think I'm going to use your design, modified slightly. Do you think using a MOSFET for a preamp (before entering into the POT/ground would increase the quality of the amp? OR would it simply make the volume far too loud, and go beyond the IC's voltage? Would it be better to use the mosfet/transistor amp on the output of this amp? OR is this no reason to do either? I also want to add a couple filter circuits to the output to increase the quality. Since an amp is really only useful for very expensive, and high-quality headphones. I am a noob at electronics, but this is my first 'real' project, meaning im going to fully assemble each circuit, add it to a quality metal case, cut out a user interface for the gain/volume, (on/off LED), bass control, Two 3.5mm jacks(in, out), and probably 4 speaker wire clamps for unpowered speaker hookup. My question about the secondary amps are especially aimed @ the passive speaker outputs since they would require much more power, and likely a larger signal than a pair of headphones. I'm sure ill fail miserably on my first few attempts.. actually I've already put together like 2 working mono amps, 3 non-working stereo amps, and 1 working stereo amp, and a whole lot of non-working LM365 amp circuits... thank god for your video here, or I would never have figured it out... Also, do you think you could do a few more video's on audio amps? This one seems to be really popular... I'd love to see you do a stereo version of this same amp, also a few diff classes of amps especially ones which use only Transistors/MOSFETs/etc.

Hey, cool video! Do you know anything about static noise in subwoofers? My laptops subwoofer makes static noise.. I've tried all drivers that I could find on Internet but No joy..

Very Good , in question on your Input leads 3.5 plug what is located inside ""Series"" with the leads seems to have a Resistor? thinking Grounds or loops from Computer and other units having voltage different that might be on the line to cause harm ? You did say on your Blog ? couldn't fine anything about it. Thanks for your Efforts 73's Dale

In the LM386 manual the filter connected to ground, and a 10uF capacitor used to gain. What is the different between the two methods?

i just made the very basic first version of this on a breadboard and plugged it into a 12" speaker from a guitar amp, and played some guitar through it. hot damn. it sounds ridiculously good for the fact the amp costs substantially less than the 9V battery. with the gain pins bridged it's LOUD too! not sure about the impedance? anyways, amazing, thanks for the tutorial.

exelent video ... just what i was looking for and the step by step was awsome... if u have the change to find a circuit to increase the power of an lm386 amplifier like the one u did ... or another easy to do amplifier to get more watts out of it will be awsome .... very good video and step by step ... hope to se more of them ... have a subscriber here bro

Thank you for this!

I am using the design you used for the best not the one with a base booster but the other any ways I use easy eda to make all my pcb boards and when i check it be for aranging parts on a pcb it red flags 3 on the audio jack and i dont know why

Great video, thank you. Wish you good health and more videos. 12.2020

I built the circuit with a LM386-1. I then swapped it for the LM386-4. No difference in volume/gain. Tried both chips at 5v,9v,12v and the LM386-4 at 18v. No difference in volume gain. Any suggestions on why and how to fix? I used 4 and 8 ohm speakers. I have a guitar pedal prototyping unit that supplies the various voltages so I can quickly test all.

Would I be able to hook up the bass potentiometer to another pre-amp circuit?

I want to build an LED sound level indicator. I want to use a microphone to detect sound. I'm having a hard time finding anything that suits my needs. This looks promising. Question can I use NTE857M OP AMP, as a substitute for the LM386?

Hi. I just wanted to ask how would you connect LEDs to the IC so that they pulse to the beat of the music?

Exploding capacitor? Ouch! For safety always build circuits with power disconnected, even at low voltage?

You're a legend

what type of potentiometers are you using? a , b, cts? i just wired up everything using 10k a pots "log", and for the bass pot i used a 10k b pot linear and i just get squealing

Good video

The breadboard is good but do you have PCB designs for this?

Very nice project. i was very interested for it and finally i try it in breadboard. i use 0.5W & 8 ohm speaker, but sound is noise-able. Which speaker is best for this project ?? And i use normal 0.1m/f capacitor. is it the coz of Noise?

i used a td2822 ic as amplifier... its sound is very distorted . pls suggest wat shd i do to make it sound better?.

Any chance you have a schematic for this circuit to assist in making the connections?

If I connect input from second circuit to el. guitar, would it work?!

is it possible to give a power more then 9v ? if yes then what is the limit? and how big loudspeaker it can support ?

does voltage matters ? lets say im powering the circuit from USB 5V or adapter 12V, will the circuit still work ?

what if i want to add more than one speaker in series or parallel is this amp will work ?

very good idea

I made a same one with two speakers. but the voice is not much as it is with other amplifiers. I made it with 5k and 100 ohm potentiometers and 220uF and 100uF. does it make a difference? please reply ASAP Thank you...

if want to build this for an old turntable and a couple large stereo speakers what changes o i have to make ?

can you give exact specifications of capaciter's voltage and speaker ohm and watt plzz

hey. i have a project like this. i am a newbie at this topic. please enlighten me. what electronic configuration are you using?

What if you want to use more than one speaker? Like if I want to use 2-3 8 ohm speakers? Also, are there speakers out there that have built in bass?

Merci pour le tuto Sauf que j'aimerai bien mettre un connecteur RCA femelle et un connecteur Jack femelle en même temps comme entrée. Comment je dois souder les deux entrées et est ce que je dois mettre un ou plusieurs composants entre les deux connecteurs comme protection ?

Hi, I was wondering if it's okay to use a 4 ohm, 3 watts speaker and what capacitor to use for this circuit. Do I go with 1/4 watts or 1/2 ?? Wish you can help because I am just a newbie in this electronics stuff. Thanks

Can I use 0.1uF Ceramic capacitors instead of 0.1uF film capacitors since both should be non polarized?

Hello, can i connect dynamic microphone into the this audio amplifier and then amplify the microphone voice?

Can we just connect a semi-acoutic guitar to play ?

What is the difference between Volume and Gain? I want to make an amp with a nob to increase distortion.

when i try to input the audio through phone trrs wire in the frist circuit, red ,blue ,green,gold. can you please tell me which wire ahould go in to potentiometer and which in ground..?

You may want to disconnect the power first before doing connections, that way you could avoid damaging components with wrong wiring. Just a tip.

vwey good sir, you have a new suscriptor

Can i find a guide on the net, where are alle the parts used for? What is in funtion of what, an what is compensates what.

Nice video like it Helpful

If you're just learning how to build stuff like this, DO NOT do it how he is doing it. Never connect your power supply or battery until you've completed wiring everything and have double checked your work. Maybe if he did that he wouldn't have had a Tantalum capacitor blow up in his fingers.

Can u plz provide me the circuit diagram of the second power amplifier in this video...

Could someone PLEASE tell me how on some chips they have a mute and standby pin..how do you un mute this pin..to make it work..I just cant figure this out..I see some say 3.3 volts...but where and how do you do this?...thanks to all that help...

What is the signal coming out of the earphone jack? I know its a small signal but how small is it?

the way you wired it up in the video is different than you diagram on your website. which one is correct

what effect does the impedance of the speaker has on the output?

Also, if I wanted to add a Bluetooth receiver, how and where would I solder it?

Can I get exact value of all capacitors as well as the resistors

Hi! I gave this a go with some slight modifications. I didn’t have a 10k variable so used a normal resistor between pin 3 and audio in. I used a 100uf electrolytic capacitor from pin 6 to ground A 10 ohm resistor from pin 5 A .5uf ceramic capacitor from end of the 10ohm resistor to vcc And a 1000uf electrolytic capacitor in between. Speaker +ve input connected to negative leg of the 1000uf capacitor. Anyway when I power it on and hook it up to my 9v batter the volume is really quiet. However when I touch the 100uf capacitor and the ground input the sound amplifies. Can anyone explain what is going on please ?

Is it possible to do two inputs for this amp?Thanks

Where would you add a second speaker on the breadboard if you wanted it to be stereo?

what is the frequency response, input/output impedance of the circuit

Also, what is the resistance of the speakers themselves?

Is there any way i could get im 386 from some other components?

i built one like this years ago but i think i used LM741 as preamp and the LM386 , i if i remember right

Also, if I wanted to add a toggle switch, where would it go?

I found a problem with your circuit. If we fed an audio signal with a DC offset, which is very likely to happen, our amp would clip out most of our wave and a lot of distortion would occur. You can add a .1uF cap series to the audio signal. Another thing is that you are using only one channel of the stereo plug. You can combine the two channels with two 1K resistors to create mono out of it. A summing amplifier and a differential amplifier could also be used in order to make an "analog or gate" or basically adding the signals on top of each other, that would be a neater solution. It would be nice to add a 10K pullup resistor before the cap in order to power electret microphones. The dc offset will be filtered by the cap.

video was very wonderful..but i have list of apparatus used..so that i can easily tries to make it..i m very thankful if u send me list of thing used...

I have a doubt, what are the differences between an electrolytic capacitor an the green capacitor he put in the 5th pin? Does it have polarity? Can i replace it with an electrolytic capacitor?

Is there a schematic for this?

what should i do if i wanto use u s b prt as power supply

Thanks sir.

Nice tutorial! Does it matter if the 0.1 uF caps are ceramic disc or Polyester? I see you have used both types.

can I use this circuit for a 10W 4ohm speaker?

can you please tell me the Voltage Gain of this amplifier?

Can this be used for an electric guitar or a bass guitar?

I want to build this but I want there to be absolutely no distortion and amazing sound, what must I do? Purchase higher quality speakers? Use different components? Input is appreciated!!!

I have made it. But why is this making too much sound noise? Should I use new capacitor or change the wires?

Can you give the link to the audio file you have used?

Could you use this to drive a guitar cab?

What if I want to add 1-2 more 8 ohm speakers?