Curious about building your own amplifier but aren't sure where or how to begin? Here's a great place to start! Joshua Casper takes you though a simple DIY project to make an amplifier on a budget.  
Parts required

Step 1 

initial breadboard set up
 lm386 ic pin assignments

Step 2

LED power indicator

Step 3

NOTE: You don’t need a switch, or the leads for the battery. If you just have the 9v battery and the clip, you can just expose some of the wires at the ends of both the red (positive) and black (negative) wires. Then when you want to power the circuit just slide them in the appropriate power lanes. You will want to wait until the final steps to do this though. 
Prepare battery switch jumpers

Step 4

Add test battery

Step 5

pin 1 to middle pin gain pot 

Step 6

14 pin 8 to new via 10 uf-cap

Step 7  

10-uf-cap-to-outside-pin-gain-pot 

Step 8

0.1-uf-cap-pin-4-to-pin-6

Step 9 

pin-2-pin-4-to-ground

Step 10 

add-pin-3-to-470-pF-capacitor-volume-pot

Step 11 

pin-6-to-power-rail 
add-10k-ohm-resistor-to-pin-7

Step 12

add-100-10-0.1-uf-capacitors

Step 13

add-pin-5-jumper-to-10-ohm-resistor

Step 14

add-0.1-uf-and-1000-uf-capacitors

Step 15 

add-speaker-output-leads
connect-jumpers-to-speaker 
ohm-3-watt-speaker

Step 16

NOTE: I like to use an alligator clip to the speaker and on the opposite end use the other alligator clip to clip onto a jumper wire. Then I can use the jumper wire to go into the breadboard without having to solder or cut anything. 

Step 17 

NOTE: You can watch this tutorial on how to fix headphones to get a better idea of how to make your own. Or you can strip a cheap pair, just try to use a mono jack. 
55-mm-mono-headphone-jack

Step 18

add-audio-input-leads

Step 19

final-working-prototype

Joshua Casper is an accomplished live performer, DJ, producer, and music educator. His specialties are centered in and around Ableton Live and Native Instruments. His educational material has been featured on Ableton.com and Maxforlive.com as well as a myriad of large music production websites. His music has been featured on Dubstep.ne... Read More

Discussion

Jimbo
Where is a good source for all of these materials?
Joshua Casper
Ebay, Amazon, or your local electronics store.
Francis
Step 13 should read Pin 5 instead of Pin 6.
Emo Boy
Hey there, I was wondering if the speaker has to be 1 - 3 watts or can it be 20w

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