Belles 350a reference fireworks

I turned on my Belles 350A reference yesterday, and was greeted by a flash, then a wisp of smoke coming from the right hand side of the unit. White noise emanated from my SP Tech timepiece 3.0's. I turned the amp off immediately, but needless to say I'm worried--mostly about my speakers. My 350 does NOT have the soft-start, which I'm guessing is the problem. Now i'm torn: after reading a couple of other similar stories about the amps putting out DC and frying speakers (not to mention the amp itself), I'm unsure of whether I should send the amp back to Dave Belles for repair/soft-start upgrade, or just scrap the beast and go with something more user friendly/reliable. The sound I was getting from my Belles/Modwright pre, and the SP Tech (amazing speakers, btw), was great, but I've got a case of the jitters about the 350 now. Has anyone sent theirs in for the soft-start and have an opinion? I don't want to spend the money on repair/upgrade, if there will still be reliability issues...

thanks,

david