.ZNING: Pop goes the capacitor!

Yikes! So scary! I hooked everything up to a speaker and turned it on. It seemed normal but then there was no sound although there was an incoming source. So i thought that it was just a matter of loose connection but upon checking it wasn't. The thing was powered down and i checked for problems. Then i realised something. Something very very very strange that i could not explain initially but after consulting the simulator i managed to figure it out. I actually soldered the +ve supply for the opamp to ground. So it effectively was a short circuit. That explains why there was this pop sound when i first powered up the whole circuit. What puzzles me is that how come even with the +ve side missing, due to the short, why can it still bias itself right? Quite strange

But anyway, the scary thing was this. I happily resoldered back the +ve supply to the opamp's +ve input and turned that thing on again. "PIACK" and black smoke arose. WTF HAPPENED?!?!?!

I was stunned to see that but quickly switched off the whole thing and waited for the large caps to discharge. Honestly speaking, i was pretty lucky cause i took safety precaution before turning it on if not that cap would have exploded in front of me! I went to the look at the circuit board and guess what i saw? This ---->