A quick rundown of the components before I begin:
Blaupunkt Nevada headunit
Blaupunkt A08 changer
Infinity Kappa 255a amplifier

The problem: I was looking to install an antenna adapter to the head unit (turned out to be the wrong part, which makes this doubly frustrating). The constant power lead turned out to be chaffed and upon placing the head unit back into the dash it arc'd, most likely to the adpater plate for the head unit. Since then, I'm getting tremendous alternator noise through the system, along with headlight noise as well (with the car not running I only get a few "pops" during changeovers of songs).
The system ran clean (i.e. no noise) before this. What potential problems am I looking at? Melted wiring? Damaged head unit or amp? Any help would be appreciated, as I've already suffered a roundtrip to the keys with no music (I had to talk to my girlfriend the whole time!) and I'm not looking forward to much more road time minus my tunes.