Don't feel too much like an idiot, or to put it the other way round, most of us are idiots in that case :-)

I cannot count the times that i experimented with some expensive stuff of Hardware ( CAR or PC or DigiCAM or Scanner or empeg ) and i was just soooooo damn lucky to *not* utterly destroy everything that i belief that not humans have guardian angels, but gadgets have :-)
The guardian angel of your empeg must have been lazy at that time, so maybe also ask Hugo to replace that lazy son of a %&$§' guardian angel too !

:-)

Nils