Something went wrong with my amp, big flash, burned PCB

Yes.  I administrate here, (for what it needs with the few posts we get).  I split the threads into a new one, I should have done that earlier really. There is very little traffic here nowadays.  I used to be an electronics design engineer until I retired.  Once you have worked in other fields the audio one, particularly guitars and not hifi, is very simple and straightforward.  It is well understood and catalogued and should be fairly straightforward, that is until people get a half understanding of a few ideas and want to seem very clever to their friends.  Then a factual area where every claim or idea can be tested accurately and proved to be true or not becomes a marketing man's dream with uninformed opinions and "common knowledge" ruling over proven engineering theory, experience and testing.

Years back we used to have a strong membership of H&K users who loved to discuss things openly.  They loved having their thoughts questioned and criticised by others to expand their own knowledge.  Nowadays guitarists don't want to discuss anything they "know" to be correct in the light of factual info.  They just want to be able to spout any old cock and bull internet theories and no one must be allowed to question them or point out when they are wrong.  Political correctness is killing the truth and we are all suffering from it.  Nowadays I keep answering people's occasional problems here because there is nowhere else for them to go where they can get honest sensible advice based on sound engineering theory but there is no community any more.

People now are happy to be conned if they can then use what they are told to look clever, and when that happens...

...they surely will be!