Can Static Destroy Electronics?

Usually static discharge caused problems in IC. Normally improper handling, while being installed, or inspected. Important to understand, it use to be a problem with brand new IC or pretty close.. The static discharge while building testing bagging and on and on.. Everytime it is handled improper the situation can arise...and raise it’s head LATER.

If static discharge were happening to logic boards INSIDE because of YOU touching them without discharging FIRST. Id say you could see a problem later on.. Usually it shortens the life of ICs.. Chips, bios, Eproms that type of chip is VERY susceptible. Caps, resistors, inductors, that lot, not that I’ve ever seen. The question is, does your stuff have chips or pure analog..

Did lightning strike.. did you hear and feel a discharge? from you to the tonearm, headshell, or something like that?

If not.. That POP just happened to be that components swan song..
You just happened to be there when it happened.. NEVER discount a transient pop for anything but trouble...TURN the volume down always...

Hope you find the issue, and it’s not to spendy.. 2 dollar fuse, two dollar resistor.. :-)

Happy Happy..

Regards

Added detail:

Two weeks before this, the same thing happened to a different phono preamp, a Trichord Dino. Pop, channel gone, R out out goes out. 
I troubleshot it to a faulty DIP switch component on the board and swapped it out. 
Coincidence? An unrelated swan song??

Oh wow.. That’s a bit of news... If you think discharge is an issue. Set up a discharge pad. Touch the pad, don’t shuffle your feet and do your work.. The only proper way to eliminate the problem.. I’ve done a LOT of board level repair.. Just 101 for infant mortality on IC..

I really think something else is going on.. same side? I normally repair one or two circuits before and after. I check, pretty darn close..

Dip switch failure? What the heck caused that.. what is the switch for? Cart load?

STOP... something else is wrong..Spidey senses are all fired up..Something else is going on...

Regards..

Yeah, one setting of the dip switch would ground out the R output channel. No idea why or how. 

Static electricity can cause the pop, but its the pop that blows the stage not the static charge per se. In other words the static charge itself doesn't reach the phono stage. Usually when stoic charges are powerful enough to notice gross pops like this they're messing up the signal pretty much all the time, just not in a way that's obvious until its gone.

Multiple different ways to reduce static charges- Zero Stat, Static Guard and other anti-static sprays (Static Guard is cheap and sold at many grocery stores as well as Amazon), ground wire to bearing/tone arm, grounding brush (a grounded carbon fiber brush that drags across just ahead of the tone arm), and various different mats. slaw I think has one that helps with this as well as being a sound quality improver.

All good things that will improve sound regardless whether or not it was static that blew out that channel. I spray Static Guard over everything on a pretty regular basis and every night when I get out my "special" recordings, for just that extra little something. My static is seldom bad enough to make obvious crackles but its often bad enough to hear improved clarity after spraying.