Lucky Strike Cigarette Pack Amp

I've been making a lot of mini amps lately and was wondering how small I could go. Like maybe a size that would fit in a shirt pocket like a pack of cigarettes. Wait - maybe I could make an amp that looked just like a pack of cigarettes. I know it wouldn't be that loud or that high fidelity with a speaker that has to be less than 2 inches in diameter, but I set out to try to make the best quality amp that I could. I chose Lucky Strike brand as the motif since the logo consists of a circle the size of the biggest speaker I could fit into the box.

This starts with a "100s" sized plastic cigarette case. The battery needs to go in the top so you can access it to replace it when it runs down. So with the speaker in the middle where the Lucky logo would go, the actual amplifier section, jack and any controls need to go into the bottom. Quite a challenge which requires just the right size of amp and a pair of tweezers to help position the components.

While the pictures above are my new improved version 2, my version 1 attempt is below:

For version 1, I put the jack and volume control on the bottom because I've seen pictures of the discontinued "Smokey" amp online and that's where they have the input and and output jacks (no volume control on the Smokey). The thing I didn't like about this orientation is that I had to partially plug in a right angle jack when displaying the amp to get the pack to stand up straight on its bottom. While I liked the looks of the silver coned speaker I used in version 1, the sound wasn't very loud and it broke up way too fast.

For version 2, I relocated the jack and volume control to the sides, I tried a couple different amps and an upgraded speaker.

This version sounds much better and is much easier to display. Overall, I'm really happy with the outcome. It meets the goal of having a decent sound (for a 2" speaker in a tiny box) which will fit in your shirt pocket.