PPCB Headphone amp

[Locrian99]

Build Rating

4.00 star(s)

Hello all.

Taking a quick break from Xmas festivities. Youngest down for a nap and the oldest is currently enthralled with his haul so I’m having an IPA and figured I’d do a little write up in this headphone amp I built to go with a Xmas gift for my son.

Month or two back I found a used behringer electronic drum set on Facebook for 60$. So I snagged it for my 6 year old. I don’t really have any “spare” amps I’d care to put through the abuse of being owned by a 6 year old so I decided I would take a little blue tooth speaker with an aux in and this headphone amp board and see how it would do. I’ve ran the speaker off a ruby before and well it works…

On to the build as with all the pedal pcb boards it’s very straightforward and easy to assemble.
One thing I think would be a nice addition is an on board on/off switch for power. I think I will end up adding one, also a cool addition would be the board having one of the slots for holding a battery could even set up the on board switch to change from battery to the hardwire plug (I know you can do that with a switched dc jack). The board is very roomy, I’m assuming this is done to keep certain traces separated from my limited experience breadboarding and doing some perf stuff with 386 amps layout def matters. Would be nice if it was a little more compact but I’m assuming it was done for a reason. There was a comment of another one coming out in the future with some added features like cab sim etc and I’m eager to try that.

This one works great for my purpose. I wanted him to have something so he didn’t have to wear headphones to play but couldn’t shake the house at the same time. Would sound clear but wasn’t worried about this being studio quality by any means. I would recommend this build for a little bench amp for basic testing or if you just are mainly worried about hearing your guitar. Though it did greatly improve with a tone job clone (I think it’s box and all eq) and also with the 6 band parametric eq in front of it.

The kiddo loves it and he is having a blast running the drums through whichever pedal he can grab.

 

[Nic]

I did the power switch mod right away on mine, I recommend that.

 

[Robert]

A power switch isn't a bad idea. You could switch power with the input jack if you used a TRS jack.

There should be room at the bottom for a 9V battery. I haven't put one in mine, but the measurements checked out on-screen.

 

[Locrian99]

A power switch isn't a bad idea. You could switch power with the input jack if you used a TRS jack.

There should be room at the bottom for a 9V battery. I haven't put one in mine, but the measurements checked out on-screen.

Oh yeah there’s plenty of room for the 9V and the power switch would be easy enough to add. I would have but I was short on time. One of the reasons I like doing pcbs is to avoid a bunch of off board wiring so I always hate adding off board switches etc. but it’s certainly not the end of the world just thought it would be a nice addition. I’ll add one as today I realize it’s needed. Though the set up like on the Kliche with the battery holder would make a lot of sense here since it’s something where a battery would be more advantageous than just a regular pedal. I’ve got a ruby build I used some strip board and super glue to make a “battery compartment”. I likely will do that. Was just throwing my thoughts out on the build.