Why did my amp just crash and burn ?

It sounds like a fuse. It’s strange that the fuse can’t be accessed from the back of the amp, but it’s French, and foreign stuff can be a little idiosyncratic. Unplug it, open it up and have a look. That's a nice amplifier.

Correct . It is quite a nice amplifier. I have held onto it for quite some time as the aesthetics and overall musicality certainly merit the great reviews it received upon release. What I am planning to do is review some videos on Youtube on how to determine if a fuse is blown & the methods employed to replace it. As somebody with limited knowledge in this area, are fuses pretty generic for all amplifiers in general, similar to replacing say a household fuse perhaps ?. One other thing is even though the connectors from the amp to the speakers were assigned correctly, with Left running to the L connector on the amp and ditto for the Right to R connector on the amp. Would the fact I designated the Left speaker of the system , facing me as Right , as the Left channel in this case and vice versa for the Right channel have anything to do with it?. if this indeed caused the problem, I will have to redress when the amp gets repaired. By the way keep the info flowing as you have been really helpful with your input. 

Sounds like you inadvertently shorted the spades across the speaker terminals.

That said, not too sure why you'd want to connect it the way you said you did. Weird, for sure.

Looking at pictures of the amp the fuse is in a tiny drawer just above the connector for the power cord.  The drawers are sometimes stiff to pull out but that is by design.  Also occasionally they contain a spare fuse.  

@ozzy62 Never do any of this work on your hifi when tired after work. I had long day and was ready for bed & decided to try and get it all done before hitting the sack. In effect do you think the cables are now useless ?

@drrsutliff Are you referring to the YBA YA201 ?, If you are then much thanks for doing that research. I now see what you talking about with the little slide out drawer above the power cord.