“I’ve been building (and trying to perfect) the headphone amp for some time now. Some of you would have seen my previous ‘ible builds. For those that haven’t I have linked these below.
On my older builds I have always used prototype board to build the circuit. Nothing wrong with doing it this way mind you but there is more potential to make mistakes and it can be tricky trying to add all of the parts in the smallest space possible using prototype board.
I thought it was time to throw myself in the deep end and start to design my own PCB’s! The Instructable crew have put together some training on how to do this which can be found here. I found the Sparkfun tutorial very helpful and primarily used this one to learn how to create my own PCB’s. It’s a great resource and easy to follow the step by step instructions.
The software to design the PCB’s is eagle and is free to download. Just follow each of the tutorials below from Sparkfun and in no time you’ll be designing your own as well.
However, If you just want to use my gerber files (the files you upload to the PCB printing company to make the board), then I’ve supplied them in this ‘ible. All you need to do is to load the zip file up to a manufacturer such as JLCPCB and they’ll print it up for you.
Sparkfun Tutorials
1st one to do : Using EAGLE: Schematic
2nd one to do: Using EAGLE: Board Layout
You might be asking yourself right about now, what the hell is a headphone amp and why do I need one! Your phone doesn’t really have the power to drive a pair of headphones. You can hear this when you listen to music through your phone speakers, the sound sounds flat and has no real range. When you plug your headphones into a separate amp, you’ll be astonished at the level of audible improvement in clarity, detail and dynamics you get out of your speakers.
So let’s get cracking.”