GK 700RBII got fried because people are dumb - options? (lending gear rant)

Still pretty annoyed from last night, so long post to follow.

So some friends of mine had a gig last night. Experienced musicians with a bass player who's toured and recorded with a couple of big bands. Not a bunch of high school kids, is what I'm getting at here.

The drummer tells me they need a bass head for a gig. Naturally, I'm only happy to help. He passes by where I'm practising with my own band and picks up the head for soundcheck. I don't give it a second thought.

So later in the evening, I go down to the gig. It's all well and good, fun support act, then their set which is great. Then halfway through the last song, the bass cuts out. Amp switches off and won't switch back on. They find another bass head backstage, stick that on, and finish the set. Naturally I'm worried after they're done I go to see what happened. My amp is fairly warm but nothing excessive considering it was working for almost 3 hours. The promoter guy tells me not to worry, whatever happened it'll be sorted out.

So I'm hoping it's just a fuse or something, when the drummer mentions something about ohms. They hooked it up to two Ashdown 4x10s. I look at the first cabinet.

4 ohms. Second is also 4 ohms.

They had connected it to both.

I was not pleased, to put it mildly.

The promoter and a couple of guys from the band (not the bass player, who didn't really seem to care or be concerned in the slightest) were super apologetic and told me to tell them what they should do to sort it out. It's not clear who actually connected the cabs to the head - the soundguy (who has a very good reputation) wouldn't make such a basic mistake. I'd say it was the bass player's responsibility but he didn't really seem too fussed at all and didn't even say sorry or thanks for lending my amp. I had a lot I wanted to say but I was already angry enough and didn't want to get into a fight with anyone. Suffice to say I won't be helping anyone out with anything again.

So my main question here is what is my best option? Because nothing like this has ever happened to me before, what exactly got destroyed? Is it worth fixing or shall I tell them to just buy me a new head?

(also, great props to Gallien Kruger - the amp was working for 3 hours at 2ohms when it's designed for 4 and did a great job until it died - that's some good engineering right there)

Thanks for reading.

 

Yeah, the promoter told me he'd take full responsibility for it, so at least they're accepting the blame and are willing to do something about it (I'm not even going to bother with the bass player, he seemed like a total prick so not worth my time).

I'm just wondering what I should tell them to do. What exactly got destroyed? The power amp? The circuits? I'm not really clued up about the actual nuts and bolts of operation... how much would potential repairs cost?

 

I haven't tried out, no. But it didn't switch to protect mode, it just went off and wouldn't turn on again.

I'll try it again now to see.

 

Ok I left it in my car last night and now the GF has taken it to run some errands so I'll try it out when she's back

 

Update II: It's cooled down enough, I plugged it in and switched it on, and it switches on fine. I don't have a cab at home (it's at the rehearsal space) so I'll put it through its paces tomorrow.

I'm pretty amazed that it still turns on... I've got even more respect for GK now, if that were even possible.

Thanks for hearing out my rant and the advice, guys. I'll update tomorrow when I get a chance to hook it up to my cab.