[SOC] Audio amplifier

[Tom McCulloch]

Hi all,
 I come to the source of knowledge with all of my questions that I should 
know the answers to and you guys never let this SOC down.  So here is 
today's questions:

I'd like to build a simple audio amplifier to connect between an audio 
source (like an MP3 player or the like) and a speaker.  Will I be ok if I 
just use the simple circuit that I see on the lm386 data sheets? Like here:

http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM386.pdf

 If I get more ambitious is there a different chip in the same price range 
as the 386 that has two inputs and two outputs?  (to use for stereo, I 
thought I saw this a while back someplace)

Thanks as usual.

Tom
WB2QDG

soc# hmmm