Ruby has low output, any suggestions?

[PenPen]

I put a Ruby together last night on breadboard to try different tones out before commiting one to perf. The bassman mods sounded fantastic (and now I really want a Bassman amp), but I found the output level to be somewhat disappointing. I get higher output plugging headphones straight into my Rat than this thing had. So, I'm wondering if anyone can offer suggestions about increasing the level on this thing. One thing I should note, I DID use a J201 for the FET, and I understand that will lower the output a bit, but that can't make that much of a difference, right?

What about changing the FET from a source follower to a gain stage,  would that do the trick? Or I was thinking about adding another bipolar gain stage before (or after) the 386. What would be my best bet?

[chaddhamilton]

I built one last week(no mods) and it's quite loud.  Great little amp.

Chadd

[jsleep]

You might want to thoroughly check the breadboard connections.  I built one last week and I was blown away by how loud it is.  I had no idea it would be this loud (into a  Jensen C10R speaker)

JD

[PenPen]

You might want to thoroughly check the breadboard connections.  I built one last week and I was blown away by how loud it is.  I had no idea it would be this loud (into a  Jensen C10R speaker)

JD

What is the load rating of this speaker? I just checked the load of my headphones. My test bench has a mono jack, so only one side is hooked up to the Ruby. One side is 18.6 Ohm, so I assume I can put in a stereo output jack, wire both sides in parallel, so the load should then drop to roughly 9.3 Ohm. That should increase the level I think. Is this the way headphone Ohm ratings work out? I'll try adding a 10 Ohm resistor from output to ground to test this theory. Thanks

[PenPen]

Just wanted to follow this up in case anyone gets the impression this thing is low output. It wasn't the circuit. The cause of my low output was the breadboard. Guess it doesn't like it when I jam a PCB-mount pot into it. I rebuilt the amp without the pot (I added a set of bipolars in darlington config), and its hurting my ears now.

So, adding another gain stage really didn't add much volume, just added more clipping (harsh and didn't sound very good), so I removed that part. It is very loud, but the problem now is that I don't like the tone of it. I liked the old tone better. So, I guess I'll be working on this one for a while to get the right tone from it.