cricket, ruby, or Little Gem

[Sody54]

I want to build a small amp for my son for Christmas as he wants to start learning the guitar.  (He's 9)  Which in your opinions is the best of the 3 small amp circuits?  The noisy cricket, Rudy, or little Gem??  I'm leaning towards the Noisy Cricket, now, but are there any pro's or cons to it over the other two?

Thanks

[Zben3129]

I have not built the cricket, but I have built the ruby and like it very much.


Another thing to consider is a higher wattage SS amp. Some wattages include roughly 14 watts, 22W, and 31W using the TDA20x0 series chips. Also, you can get about 50W out of a LM3886. These are more complex and more expensive projects however.



Zach

[The Iron Chef]

I have built all three that you mentioned. I have a Ruby on my build bench and a Noisy Cricket in the living room. They're both great. I would strongly suggest to you to use the best speaker available.  I used a Jensen Mod 8" for my Noisy Cricket.  Not an expensive speaker but makes a huge difference in sound. Good luck with your son playing. Its a good thing.

hth

-Keith

[liddokun]

I haven't built the other two, but I've built two Ruby's and I love them both. To my ears, they sound very Marshall like cranked.

[kurtlives]

I like the Ruby the best.

I suggest quickly throwing one of the three circuits (probably Ruby because its simplest) on the bread board and tweak it. They are easy circuits to tweak and fun to play.

[ItZaLLgOOd]

My daughter (she's 12) and I are working on a Little Gem for her.  With a little help she has already soldered up a perf board and is ready for off board wiring.  I always use salvaged speakers from old radio's so sound quality was never my agenda but the Little Gem is easy and fast.

[earthtonesaudio]

I'd use a small, inefficient speaker and stay away from the higher-wattage projects.  Your kid is learning guitar, which is great, but unless you enjoy listening to the "Smoke on the Water" riff 5,203,899 times a day, you might want to keep the volume under control.   


I like my Noisy Cricket.  It has the most controls of the ones you mentioned, which in my opinion makes it more fun.