suggestions for a cheap and cheeky belt-pocket headphone amp for playing in bed, car, toilet, etc?

[tabbycat]

hey all, wanted to appeal to your wisdom and experience re a thing.

am after a clippy-on belt or pocket type headphone amp so i can work on ideas anywhere. in bed, in car, on beach, anywhere.

basic requirements are that it must be ok with guitar, bass, keys, drumbox, as input, and it must take batteries (i use rechargeables) or be easily rechargeable.
also must be cheap (£20-£30) new, or easily available cheap secondhand.

as to luxuries, it would be useful if it had some kind of mix in dual input facility. have got a little sansa clip mp3 player that it would be nice to play along to if i could input that simultaneously.
basic recording would be nice but am guessing that bumps the price out of cheap.

i have a zoom mini 4-track (mrs4b, brilliant toy) that does all this stuff but it's not belt or pocket, more like a hardback dictionary size. so if you know them, i want a basic teeny version.

have scooted around the forums this evening looking at what's on offer (dano and vox do interesting jackplug amps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HQ0S_O2QFU), but wondered what you people use or think?

have also looked at mxr headphone amp on the forum. http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/mxr-headphone-amp.html
any fans or haters for it here?

thanks for you ideas.

[Beaker]

Personally, I would go for a Danelectro Honeytone. they are awesome - my son has one, and it's been used with guitars, drum machines and keyboards on his techno stuff. I have used it on some of my bands recordings. The drive sound is pure garage heaven. Headphone, and speaker.

It looks really odd having a tiny little amp sitting on a stool, with a huge studio mic in front of it, but boy, do they sound good!

I read somewhere that Gomez used one, for at least one guitar part, on every track on their (second?) album.

[skeletonghost]

What about Beavis Audio's Noisy Cricket Mk2? This layout contains a daughter-board for a stereo-headphone out:



I have built one before, and it has worked great for me. Bass and synth don't sound that great through it but it does work and is probably acceptable for jamming/practice. It could fit into a 1590a. My 1w amp was built with a 9v socket, but you could use a rechargeable 7v hobby LIPO for the LM386.

[petey twofinger]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Portable-Guitar-Mini-Amp-Sound-Amplifier-for-Guitar-Speaker-Distortion-MP3-USB-/141775200640?hash=item210275e180:g:RwYAAMXQEgpTDrsp

li ion rechargable seems very apealing to me .

you could get a td2030 or similar amp board from ebay , or build a 7052a based punch amp ,  use your own li ion set up / chassis and all that but ... for under 40 i think , unless you want to spend some time . . . i recently used a few six dollar 30 watt tda chip boards that  i put in 5 gallon buckets , with tweeters / crossovers , and 12 sla cells . those are on my channel in the "pleather" and "swaporama" video , with a drum machine and a bass guitar , all those are battery amps in those new videos , but i had the drum tweeter facing the cam so its a bit harsh .  the punch vs tda2030 argument is in cost as they sell 2030 boards complete for 1.50 and they are very nice / higher rated  , vs the punch costing more and you have to build it , but its apples and oranges and they perform similarly .  

i have played around with battery amps a bit and for me it ends up being time consuming . typically , adding a speaker out is nice , and something that has an all in one approach is also something to consider . ie built in effects that sound decent . i think there is a similar design , in the same price range as what i had posted and i seem to remember seeing a sale on this recently which was like 10 off or more . good luck and lemme know what you get as i am always sniffing around for options on this stuff , even micro amps .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ8jYFMendU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvhflmPK17M

[tabbycat]

thanks or the feedback and suggestions all.

@beaker i get what you mean about the garage thing with the dano. that’s was high on my list because there’s so much love for them on the forums. i like the snotty garage but i fear i would end up playing only garage if that’s the only thing they do well. cleans sound muffled and lifeless  on yt. maybe i will get one in to try and flip if not right. i think it’s to be tried.

@skeletonghost thanks for the hint re the ruby. have been pondering this one http://www.mylkstuff.com/page70.htm for a while which is a derivation from, and hybrid of, the ruby and big daddy jfet projects. but i'm so backed up with big projects (bloody modulation layouts always huge) that i've accepted that this is one i could probably find a super-cheap ready-made equivalent for that would free up build time for the hardcore stuff. not as nice as build-my-own but a way of getting shit done, which is always an issue.

@petey twofinger, you miscreant! you scallywag! are you following me? good to see you here. thanks for the link. it looks like it might have potential. and records too, didn’t expect that for the budget but nice. can’t find a demo at the moment. am guessing it’s a knock-off of something branded so will dig around to try to join the dots. maybe it’s a repackaged nux or something. have seen the vox amplugs and joyo ja-03 near clones floating around under different generic guises. they are looking like first try.

re the clips
you left the basement. did the fresh air hurt? free at last.
seriously, maximum respect and affection to you and the family. you are a class act and i salute you one and all.


as to the original topic dilemma, i think i’m going to try this first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdEMjqok7Ok or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Y_7Ax34-g (trying to decide between them, metal probably) and look for a generic clone before going for brand.
and if that doesn’t hit the spot, keep the dano in mind as the fallback.