Amplifier circuit for SimpleAudioPlayer: potentiometer and sound quality issue

Official Hardware MKR Family MKR Zero
1

I'm following SimpleAudioPlayer tutorial (https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/SimpleAudioPlayerZero) to add sound to one of my sculptures.

I followed the diagram from the tutorial and it - almost - works. I’ve been troubleshooting the circuit for a while to figure out what might be wrong, but I have two persistent issues that I would appreciate advice with:

  1. Turning the knob of the potentiometer doesn’t do anything. Judging by how quiet the speakers are, LM386 is at its lowest gain.

The potentiometer in the scheme has 3 pins in a V pattern, mine has 3 pins in a line pattern (I added an image in the attachment). As far as I understand it shouldn’t make any difference. Am I wrong?

  1. The sound coming from the speaker is extremely low-quality, and as far as I understand, capacitor and resistor, if wired properly, should alleviate that.

Here's a link to a video with the sound (the sound coming from the speaker is breathing) - sound_quality.MOV - Google Drive

Do all capacitors have to have the same or higher voltage than the first capacitor in the circuit?
Mine are the following:
1 ceramic 0.1UF capacitor
2 10 UF 25v polarized electrolytic capacitors
1 470UF 16v polarized electrolytic capacitor (the tutorial asks for 250UF, but I only have 220 and 470).

I’ve tried replacing all the components, checked wiring, no results. What else could be affecting the situation and maybe someone could suggest a good next step in troubleshooting?

amplifier circuit.jpg
amplifier circuit.jpg3024×4032 415 KB

potentiometer.jpg
potentiometer.jpg3024×4032 370 KB

2

What is your problem in the first place?

3

zwieblum:
What is your problem in the first place?

I'm trying to understand how to fix the following:

  1. Turning the knob of the potentiometer doesn't do anything. I expect it to make the sound louder.

  2. The sound coming from the speaker is extremely low-quality. I assume it's not supposed to be that way?

4

Sorry, without schematics it's impossinble to give good advise.

5

zwieblum:
Sorry, without schematics it's impossinble to give good advise.

Here it is - https://www.arduino.cc/en/uploads/Tutorial/LM386_AudioDue.jpg

LM386_AudioDue.jpg

6

This won't work. Please take a look at the datashee, e.g.: https://static.chipdip.ru/lib/010/DOC003010849.pdf - page 8 gives the same schematic for fixed gain amplifier with Vin beeing AC in respect to GND - where GND is not arduino GND, it's 0V when using dual voltage supply (-V/0V/+V).
Please look ath the rasdpberrypi schematics.