@rbaker Breadboarded the circuit. The only problem was the 10uF cap to boost the gain to 200x, as you can see in the pic, I have its lead pulled. High distortion with that in place and no appreciable gain in volume. The 20x native to the LM386 gives the same volume as a GBA (seen here running Advance Wars from my prototype controller mounted build) running from a 6v supply. The audio quality is about the same as a GBA as well. Nothing incredible, but adequate and I should be able to cram a couple of these in that casing without a problem.

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