I just saw this comment on Stack Exchange regarding the circuit that I used (in post #1):
One other question: If I want to adjust the volume of the speaker, should I change the value of resistor R1 or R2? In other words, which one would be best to replace with a potentiometer?
so apparently the problem is not a short, and I suppose I should try doing what is mentioned in the comment.Just a note that this circuit actually drives an 8 ohm speaker relatively well but the standby C-E current is high (possibly hundreds of mA). For a small transistor this could cause thermal runaway / heat damage. My transistor nearly smoked, I ended up at something like the question asker's original circuit with collector resistor = 100 ohms and big cap in series with speaker. Not quite as loud but no smoke.
One other question: If I want to adjust the volume of the speaker, should I change the value of resistor R1 or R2? In other words, which one would be best to replace with a potentiometer?
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