The Newer Low Voltage Boosters

[Guitar Toad]

Have any of you built one of these? http://www.muzique.com/lab/lowvolt.htm

I saw these yesterday and was considering skipping the build of Gus Smalley's NPN Boost and go straight to one of these cool dudes. What do you think? It looks like building Gary Smally's NPN boost is a rite of passage around here, but if one of these low voltage boosters might be "better"... it doesn't look much more complicated than the beginners project.

[petemoore]

  I've built a few of these, and they do what the article
http://www.muzique.com/lab/lowvolt.htm
Says they do...get the transistor to exhibit characteristics it's capable of under LV condition, Cool.
  I'm fond of the tone acquired with a second stage as Jfet @LV distortion being enhanced by a first transistors boosting of it's input. 
  I used a Voltage Regulator [LM317] so I could dial in the V+.
  Of worthy note is that a Mu Amp's self biasing characteristic lends itself well to LV experimentation.
 

[Guitar Toad]

Thanks Pete. I built a headphone amp as my first project and I've been looking at all the buffers and boosters. Now, I think that I want to build everything but don't know really which one to do. The Low Voltage Booster on AMZ looks good but may be more of a distortion than a TS style overdrive like I really want. I don't want to build just build. I plan to do a Rangemaster build and a booster.

Which mini-booster would you recommend that might go from clean boost to TS-Sparkle Drive style OD? As Pete said, the Low Voltage Booster that I started this thread with may be tweakable and I might be able to get it dialed in just like I want it to sound. Possibly?

[aron]

>I saw these yesterday and was considering skipping the build of Gus Smalley's NPN Boost and go straight to one of these cool dudes. What do you think?

It's certainly possible, but you might as well build the NPN booster just to have the "hand holding" that the forum gives you.

[Guitar Toad]

Thanks Aron. I'll do the beginner project first. I'm sure I'll need some help and it's already there for the Gus Smally Booster. Thanks.