We get it: these are uncertain times, and so you want to save as much money as you can. And this is probably the reason why you want to learn how to make a guitar amp from a speaker.
From finding the right material or components to make the computer speaker amplifiers to preparing the tools needed to make one, this guide we prepared for you will cover the essentials.
We’ll show you here that you don’t need to spend on expensive amps when all you need for a simple jamming session with friends is already possible with a pair of computer speaker amps.
Let’s get right to it!
Contents
How To Make A Guitar Amp From A Speaker
Step 1: Prepare the Tools
Making your own amp for computer speakers should start with the following tools:
- Some computer speakers you bought online or a local junk store; the cheaper the better
- Some mono jack connector you can use as a guitar cord, probably at 6.35mm 1/4″ size.
- A 3.5mm Stereo Jack Female Socket connector that you can easily buy second-hand online
- Some wire
- A heat shrink tool
- Good old pliers
- Some hot glue
- Superglue of superior quality
- Soldering iron
Step 2: Check Your Speaker
If you’re aiming for some honeytone amp mods effect in your guitar amp, I suggest you go for some speakers that have about 1 amp power in them.
If you can, go for speakers from big or leading brands.
Step 3: Take the Speaker Apart
To do this, you must unscrew the speaker case away so you can remove the cover. Be as gentle as you can in doing this so you avoid cutting the wires out inside.
Keep the screws aside, making sure you don’t accidentally throw them way. Next, unscrew the speaker to reveal its circuit board before removing everything else you find in the speaker.
Step 4: Check Out The Circuit Board
To do this, you must locate first the power, jack (audio input) and volume potentiometer. Refer to the video guide above.
When you’re done with this part, you can now proceed to wiring up the power system of your guitar amplifier speakers.
Step 5: Powering The Speakers
This part requires you to check how much volts the speaker needs so it can power up. Then, find the wires to engage this power, cut them, solder their ends to the circuit board and to a 9V battery holder.
Don’t forget to match the negative and positive wires from the amp correctly.
Step 6: Jacking It Up
To do the jacking, make sure you turn the amp on first, then plug the one end of a 3.5 mm audio cable you prepared into your music player. Then try it out by playing a song.
You can now then grab the female socket connector in your stereo jack and plug the audio cable’s other end into it.
Next, you need to touch or connect the wires that used to be paired with the input jack and pair it with the Female Socket Connector of the stereo jack. When you hear no sound, try a different combination until you start hearing music come out of the speaker.
Step 7: Soldering and Closing Up Everything
The next step would be to solder the wires into the 1/4″ jack connectors that you prepared. This last part can be a bit tricky, but it’s not hard.
Step 8: Watch The Overview Video
Yes, you heard it right. Making a PC speaker amp can be a bit technical, but not too technical that you can’t do it yourself.
You just need to watch these video as a sort of overview.
Just refer to the second video to know how to finish this up.
Conclusion
So there you go: you now learned how to make a guitar amp from a speaker. Feel free to share this to your friends so they too will save money by making their own!