I have bought a kit to build the audio amp in the attached schematic. The circuit was featured in the December, 2008 issue of Nuts and Volts, and was called the "Big Ear."

Comments, suggestions, and corrections on the circuit are welcome. (I hate unsoldering components.)

BTW, I redrew the schematic in order to show the component values, so it's possible I got something wrong.

Thanks.

 

Not sure what D1 and D2 are for.

ADD: looks like it is supposed to reduce gain for fast transients and prevent saturation or overshoot?

Overall, it looks like it should work.

 

Hello,

Yes bounty, you are right.
The normal gain of the first stage is 5.1, but when the output signal gets above ±0.7 Volts, the gain is reduced to 0.1.
This is called soft clipping.

Bertus