Requested assistance no longer needed. Due a new discovery, I will soon be abandoning the GhettoPi. It has been fun making this, and it will not go to waste, as every piece shall be repurposed for another project I have in mind(save the gamepad, but even that can live on as my PC gamepad). But now, I need some other help... There is no way in the underworld I am going to have the soldering skills needed for my new project goal anytime soon. So I need help finding someone of sufficient skill to assemble this for me. I will of course pay for such services. If anyone can point to me a good and not too pricey place that can do so, I would appreciate it. (I'll be searching myself) It's been a fun project, and I look forward to the project it will now be transitioned into(a mini arcade cabinet) just as much.

Right I've solved the problem and now have everything working correctly. Many thanks for everybody's help with this. I thought it might be useful for future reference to close with a summary of the issue and how it was resolved. Problem Summary 3.5mm audio output on Rasperry Pi causing hiss and interference from RetroPie sound output. System info Rasperry Pi Model: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Distro: Rasperian 9 (Stretch) RetroPie Version: 4.3 Solution Disabling the on board 3.5mm audio jack and using a USB sound card (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07MNRRT84/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) to connect the amplifier and speakers. USB sound card installation steps Disable the on board 3.5mm audio jack in /boot/config.txt: Change the line: dtparam=audio=on to: dtparam=audio=off Under Sound Settings within Emulation Station select: Audio Device: Speaker OMX Player Audio Device: Local Note, you may also wish to turn up the system volume however this is down to personal preference. Optional step to enable sound in Splash screen videos Update the script: /opt/retropie/supplementary/splashscreen/asplashscreen.sh change the line: omxplayer -o <option> -b --layer 10000 "$line" to read: omxplayer -o alsa -b --layer 10000 "$line"

@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.

@mitu Thanks for the quick response. I just ended up using my Pi1 and used a 2.5 speaker jack. Odd reason that pi3 did not want to pick up the 2.5 speaker jack or find the USB speaker... Weird.

@michael40475 said in Audio not working? How to fix problem??: can I please get very detailed advice on how to fix this issue? Thanks so much in advance. Not unless you provide very detailed descriptions of your entire setup. That only makes sense, right?

@hex Yes working now, sorry for the confusion

Sadly, not as cut and dried as hoped. I thought I'd bite the bullet and unpair my watch, but try as I might it didn't make a difference. Boo.

@Concat I looked at ground loop isolators, but need to sort what kind of amp or speakers I'm getting first - the bartop cabinet takes 4 inch speakers that mount in the cabinet, so I'm leaning towards a 12v amp that can link to my pi3