the Stella amp kit

[petey twofinger]

this guy John Wilson contacted me (i dont know him) and asked if i would "beta test" his amp kit instructions . its a 1-2 watt battery powered "mini" amp kit . i used a 6 inch speaker / 9 volts . high quality pcb , great kit , great amp , it gets a sweet clean tone .

http://www.crazybutable.com/projects/stella

the vids that i did for it


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_n-GVSh_As
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHOYV33n9qM

a vid that he did for it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aPAU1SZXu7I

[expanoncolin]

I had not heard of the TBA820.  Seems nice because it's higher power than the LM386 but still doesn't require a lot of power or a heat sink, and is very simple to hook up.

[petey twofinger]

what really stood out to me is the clean tone it gets , i mean its actually very clean . the pcb is really well done , this was the nicest kit i have experienced .

i did put a different chip in mine to run it at higher voltages . running it at 9 volts now and its plenty loud , i think i can go up to 16 volts though , but ...

[expanoncolin]

I'd be curious if it could handle 2x 9V for 18V.  Or, something like this would be cool:

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10470

-Colin

[petey twofinger]

i ran it off a sealed lead acid 12 volt cell that was putting out 13.5 volts , it was noticeably louder than off the one spot . its funny with these mini amps , most of them use tiny speakers ... they work really well on a larger one .

i modded a dano hodad like that , it has two 2 inchers stock , sounds 100 % louder with a 5 1/2 . modded the delay and the trem with pots , got a NICE lil mini amp for 30$ . i run "c" size cells out of a ryobi cordless drill pack in it . its not as loud as the stella though , but close . i think the dano is 1.5 the stella is 2 .

put it in an "acid" cigar box with a mini fan grille to cover the speaker , and a massive gem lamp with an led in it , looks retro , i call it the "modad" . we do jam sessions at the forest preserve . we ran a bass guitar thru 2 8 inch sub speakers in a kicker box with a rockford fosgate 80 watt auto amp , it worked well with the volume rolled back on the bass , ran the dum machine thru that too . pretty cool . i used a zoom bass processors line out to buffer the bass a lil , still had to turn the bass volume knob down a third though or the speakers rattled .

i got some 12 inch subs that are blown , i dont know if i could recone them for a bass guitar speaker though , that would be sweet .