Stereo Amplifier for MAME

I have a PC setup as a MAME arcade machine, using an Asus Terminator T2-R Deluxe, a 17" Viewsonic Monitor and an X-Arcade Dual joystick. This is one of the few PCs that still included a 15 pin joystick port, which is a requirement for a retro compatible gaming machine. I also added a NVidia G-Force FX5500 graphics board for better performance and compatibility.

However, the embedded sound chip is not like the old Sound Blaster boards, that included a pre-amplifier that had enough power to drive medium sized 8 Ohm speakers.
I'm using a pair of 8 Ohm Pioneer Car Audio speakers, which can barely be heard, when there is any ambient noise.
So, arcade gaming experience was suffering of poor sound power, due to lack of a proper sound amplifier.

Wondering on which amplifier to get, I found that most car amplifiers are somewhat expensive and would required a separate transformer, since they work on 12V DC power.
During this exercise, I found a trashed TV, and noticed that most electronics where removed but the original speakers were still in there and appeared to be in working order. So I got my trusty screwdriver, and detached them both and tested them and concluded they were working fine.

The nice thing about these speakers (besides being free) is that they are powerful enough and have an oval shape, that was just right to fit inside my arcade table. Taking this into account I cut a shape to fit them in the available space. Now that I had smaller and free 8 Ohm speakers, buying an amplifier didn't seem reasonable due to cost. So I decide to build my own, using a Velleman kit, a transformer and a black plastic box.

Everything went smooth, until I found out that the transformer did not fit the box, it was 3mm too high. Ok, I can fix it if I add some height between the box and the lid, with a rectangular "ring" around it, ensuring transformer will fit, and just have to swap screws for longer ones.
But this gave me an idea, since I had already a 12V power supply at hand, I could use some translucent plastic and glue a few 12V LED stripes, to light up the plastic, making it easy to see when amplifier is on. Having an independent power cord from PC, it's possible to leave the amplifier on by mistake, if you just switch off the PC.
The light "ring" did not need to be perfect, but just good enough. I did not add lights on corners (there is a screw on each corner, to secure the lid), hence corners will be darker when lit, as can be seen in the picture.
I could make it lit perfectly, but in this case I believe it wasn't worth all the extra effort required to beautify this hack :)